Do you think raising taxes on the wealthy is actually a punishment for their success?

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• you are twisted, 'even the score'?

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  by thatsJustme on February 9th, 2010

• If you win the lottery, you would want to be taxed even more just because you are now well off?

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  by Ringo on February 9th, 2010

• How about evening the score not by penalizing those ahead, but by having those behind trying a little harder. So you would have everyone poor instead of everyone having the opportunity to get ahead, and poor people don't hire people, they dont create jobs, they dont put money in the banks so others can get loans. Yeah, good idea twisted, lets put those evil rich guys in the poor house, that will even the score the score

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  by designer is wearing a ....... on February 14th, 2010

• you are equating winning the lottery with working hard?

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  by phjggyb on October 1st, 2010

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• The rich pay far more than the "average working schlub."

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  by Anonymous on November 23rd, 2010

• @Anonymous - Then why don't you take up Warren Buffett's challenge?

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  by Old School on November 23rd, 2010

• Huh? What does this statement have to do with the conversation at hand? Oh yeah, nothing. I guess you are just trying to deflect.

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  by Anonymous on November 23rd, 2010

• @Anonymous - If you had clicked on the rawstory.com link in my answer, you would seen that Warren Buffett challenged any CEO from the Forbes 400 to prove that he pays a higher overall tax rate than Buffett's secretary.
  
  Not one of those 'rich who pay more than the average working schulb' took Buffett up on his challenge (the prize being $1 million to the winner's charity of choice).

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  by Old School on November 24th, 2010

• First, what makes you assume I am a CEO of a Forbes 400 company? Second, AGAIN, what does this have to do with the conversation at hand?
  
  Your comment is nothing but a deflection designed to avoid supporting the merits of your view.

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  by Anonymous on November 24th, 2010

• @Anonymous - It has EVERYTHING to do with the conversation at hand. You assert that "the rich pay far more in taxes than the average working schlub".
  
  Warren Buffett, who actually is rich, admits that his secretary pays a significantly higher percentage of her income in taxes than Buffett himself does, and he was willing to donate $1 million to charity if anyone of similar income could prove that he/she did pay a higher tax rate than his secretary.
  
  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece
  
  This illustrates that your assertion is nonsense. Well, not complete nonsense. The reason the rich, in aggregate, pay more income taxes than the poor is because income/wealth has become so stratified in the United States.
  
  Paying three times as much tax on four times as much wealth/income means that the tax rate on that wealth/income has gone DOWN.

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  by Old School on November 24th, 2010

• “This illustrates that your assertion is nonsense.”
  
  What this illustrates is your inability to support your view with evidence. It also demonstrates your ignorance.
  
  Warren Buffet does pay less TAXES than most because most of his money comes from capital gains, but he pays much more INCOME taxes (as a percentage and actual dollars).
  
  So do you have any evidence to back up what you are saying, or is your whole view based merely on a hearsay opinion taking out of context?
  
  “Paying three times as much tax on four times as much wealth/income means that the tax rate on that wealth/income has gone DOWN.”
  
  We don’t pay taxes on wealth (except for the death tax when it is reinstated). In America, we tax four things: INCOME, PROPERTY, CAPITAL GAINS, and SALES. Rich people pay the SAME or MORE as a percent of each of these taxes, and rich people pay MORE in actual dollars for each of these taxes. Don’t you hate it when reality gets in the way of your agenda?

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  by Anonymous on November 24th, 2010

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• Their fair share???
  Who do you think already pays the majority of taxes now. The top 10% of earners pay over 80% of all taxes now. What do you think would be fair??? The rich already pay almost ALL the taxes! Now you want them to pay MORE? Why should success have to be punished?

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  by Johnny1880 on November 20th, 2010

• My success is being punished too.
  
  Well which is it gonna be here? Raise taxes? Or stop whining about Deficits?

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  by Moongrim on November 21st, 2010

• I will take option c: CUT SPENDING

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  by Anonymous on November 23rd, 2010

• Where?

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  by Moongrim on November 24th, 2010

• How about every social program in the federal budget. After all, the Constituion does not even give the federal government power to regulate social matters.

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  by Anonymous on November 24th, 2010

• So the first thing we should do is insure that any attempt to ban gay marriage be made impossible?

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  by Moongrim on November 24th, 2010

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• Their fair share???
  Who do you think already pays the majority of taxes now. The top 10% of earners pay over 80% of all income tax now. What do you think would be fair????

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  by designer is wearing a ....... on October 1st, 2010

• I think allowing the Bush tax cuts, for those making over $250,000 annually, to expire and going back to the percentage taxes were under Clinton in the nineties would be fair.

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  by Freedom00 on October 1st, 2010

• Freedom: Do you know what the word "fair" means? How is charing rich people more (in actual dollars an in percent) fair?

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  by Anonymous on November 23rd, 2010

• After benefiting from ten straight years of lost government revenue from the Bush tax cuts, without stimulating the economy by the way, I think asking the upper income people to pay a little extra is more than fair.
  
  I would compromise on raising taxes only for those making at least a million dollars instead of $250,000 as well. I have never heard anyone say "I don't want to be a millionaire because I do not want to pay such high taxes.”

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  by Freedom00 on November 23rd, 2010

• Repeating your opinion does not answer the questions I asked. Rich people have paid more in taxes in every year since the marginal tax system was created. Paying more is not a benefit. So I ask again: Do you know what the word "fair" means? How is charging rich people more (in actual dollars and in percent) fair?

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  by Anonymous on November 23rd, 2010

• Fair, from my MS dictionary, means: reasonable or unbiased: not exhibiting any bias, and therefore reasonable or impartial.
  
  According to David Corn of Political Daily dot com, if the marginal tax system is so unfair, (as you insinuate,) why is the gap between the rich and the poor larger than it ever has been? Why are corporations making record profits? The rich seem to be doing very well under such a “oppressive” form of taxation.
  
  I know what "fair" means. I ask you: What is so UNFAIR about rich people, who were allowed to prosper the most in such a Capitalistic economy, paying a little more in taxes? Opportunity equals obligation.

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  by Freedom00 on November 23rd, 2010

• First, based on your own definition, the marginal tax system in UNFAIR because it is BIASED in favor of people who make less income. Second, why are you deflecting? Well, I know why you are deflecting, that was a rhetorical question. You are deflecting because you cannot logically defend your view.
  
  I don’t oppose the marginal tax system. What I oppose is people like you crying about rich people not paying their fair share when, despite every tax cut ever implemented, rich people have always paid far more taxes than everyone else. And apparently you also don’t understand what “a little” means. Rich people pay A LOT more taxes than everyone else.
  
  So I ask again: How is charging rich people more (in actual dollars and in percent) fair?

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  by Anonymous on November 23rd, 2010

• No matter what I say, you are going to just keep asking me the same question. I have stated my position very effectively We just have a fundamental difference in what we both think is “fair”
  
  I do not have any problem with the rich. What I oppose is people like you crying about how wealthy people can’t make any money because they are taxed so unfairly. Wealthy people are allowed to make as much money as they want in The USA. They live better than any group ever has in the history of the world.
  
  The rich should try living on a middle class income for awhile. That is, if they can find a "middle class" anymore in this country. Until we can get rid of this concept of "prosperity for the privileged few,” America will never prosper like it should as a nation.
  
  Thank you for a very enjoyable debate, however, there is really no point to continuing this discussion is there? You can have the last word.

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  by Freedom00 on November 23rd, 2010

• No, I am going to keep asking the question until you actually answer the question. The intellectually honest answer to the question is: “yes, our tax system is unfair because it does put the burden on the rich to pay more taxes. Although this system is inherently unfair.”
  
  “I do not have any problem with the rich. What I oppose is people like you crying about how wealthy people can’t make any money because they are taxed so unfairly.”
  
  People like me? Where in this thread did I say anything about the rich not being able to make money? You are so busy blindly arguing your agenda, that you are now making counter arguments to arguments that were never made. The topic of conversation is FAIRNESS. And again, based on your own definition of FAIR, our tax system is unfair because it is biased in favor of the middle class and poor.

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  by Anonymous on November 24th, 2010

• There seems to be a war going against people who make over a certain amount if money.
  There also seems to be a perception that you are either rich or you are poor.
  That the middle class has dissappeared into poverty.
  This just isn't the case. Look at how much we buy as a country. Do you think it is only the rich who are consuming. Does a new car or two and a few big screen tv's fit into a poor persons budget? So who is buying all this stuff??? It is the middle class. Who bought all those brand new house which have been going up all over the country.
  Now I will agree that manufacturing has been drivin out of this country.
  So have a lot of other jobs. But are you blaming the rich for this??
  These business have been driven out by our own government.
  Over regulation and over taxation.
  Have you ever run a business?? Most small business's, including those that net over 250K
  per year, file individually. Add all the fee's imposed on to the taxes and most of these business's are barely surviving and cannot expand. These small business's are where most new jobs come from.
  So what do we really want to do here? Make it harder for them to expand, invest and grow, making it less likely they will do any hiring here. Or do we make it easier gor them to expand. Take the shackels of government control and extortion off and let them grow and produce jobs.
  Or do we let the government just take over all industry. Let the gov. supply all the jobs. Problem is, where do they get the funds for this? They get it from taxes and fees from those who are still in the private sector. So what happens when 75% work for the gov. ? Well I guess will have to make prrivate business pay for it... Yup, better raise their taxes.

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  by designer is wearing a ....... on November 24th, 2010

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• It would be interesting if we could 'rerun' history and see just how much economic growth the Reagan income tax cuts (because he raised FICA taxes, gasoline taxes, and several other taxes) would have 'fueled' if the Fed had kept interest rates as high as the Carter years....;-D...

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  by Old School on February 9th, 2010

• Total story of FICA tax hikes during RR presidency: 6.7% to 7% 1983, to 7.51% in 1988; cumulatively not even a percent point, less than 2 percent points if you include employer's share. Whoop-dee-doo. Shrinks big-time next to 30%+ drop in marginal tax rates. BTW it was done in conjunction with Tip O'Neil and was a true bipartisan measure.
  Total rise in gasoline tax: $0.05 per gallon 1982; $50.00 per year for someone driving 20,000 miles a year @ 20 mpg. Also trivial compared to tax cuts by which working people were allowed to keep many hundreds, sometimes thouseands of dollars per year of what they EARNED.
  Sorry to put it in proper perspective. It must hurt when the opposition is so knowledgeable.
  Nice try.

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  by More2Be on February 10th, 2010

• @More2Be - I will let the historical record speak for itself. From the following article by Joshua Greene in Washington Monthly:
  
  http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.green.html
  
  One year after his massive tax cut, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year's reduction. (In a bizarre bit of self-deception, Reagan, who never came to terms with this episode of ideological apostasy, persuaded himself that the three-year, $100 billion tax hike--the largest since World War II--was actually "tax reform" that closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn't count as raising taxes.)
  
  Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.
  
  This record flummoxes the best efforts of today's Reagan hagiographers to explain away. Peter Wallison, for instance, after proclaiming that Reagan "stayed the course against changes in his economic plan," later dismisses the president's tax increases as "a modest rollback" that "seems to have been the result" of his accepting a Democratic promise to cut spending by twice that amount. (Whatever happened to "Trust, but verify"?)
  
  Reagan continued these "modest rollbacks" in his second term. The historic Tax Reform Act of 1986, though it achieved the supply side goal of lowering individual income tax rates, was a startlingly progressive reform. The plan imposed the largest corporate tax increase in history--an act utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today. Just two years after declaring, "there is no justification" for taxing corporate income, Reagan raised corporate taxes by $120 billion over five years and closed corporate tax loopholes worth about $300 billion over that same period. In addition to broadening the tax base, the plan increased standard deductions and personal exemptions to the point that no family with an income below the poverty line would have to pay federal income tax. Even at the time, conservatives within Reagan's administration were aghast.
  
  So, if you're going to attribute 20 years of economic growth to Reagan's 1981 tax cuts, you're going to have to explain how that worked when the tax cuts were 1/3 reversed within one year and almost completely wiped out (except, of course, for very rich people) in 5 years.

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  by Old School on February 10th, 2010

• I'm sold! :)

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  by RosieGHM Jetpacker on February 11th, 2010

• I am adding to this post to see the retort offered by the others..

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  by mtndewman44 on February 11th, 2010

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• Their fair share???
  Who do you think already pays the majority of taxes now. The top 10% of earners pay over 80% of all income tax now. What do you think would be fair????

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  by Johnny1880 on November 20th, 2010

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