OT: Rating the President

[Fian]

Thanks for the responses about the SS and all. Personally, I think the system is fair as-is. Do you want to see a reduction in the Social Security tax?

Now in to the other person's response.

"Hang on, not every multi-millionaire with his finger in the political pie is a hero of capitalism. Sure, a rich guy might slog through regular 70 hour weeks but if he is doing all that work to line his own pockets and shaft the rest of the world in the process then I'd rather he stayed at home and put his feet up by the pool."

What rich people do is CREATE jobs. That is the best help that the poor have. I am sure that you can find those that are bad and abuse the power that money brings, but the point is that all-in-all rich people are a great benefit to people. You take the rich people out of America, you end up with lots of poor people in greater poverty with no work.

"That is held by another class of rich guy: The one who didn't work for his money. "

In their case, they inherited it. If I have a billion dollars, should I not be able to give it to my children? What is so evil about that? Would you in your righteousness take it away and give it to Uncle Sam?

"The inheritors of this wealth all too often have no understanding of the lives of the little people they use and discard: They were handed their power on a silver spoon and because they didn't earn it they never learned about using it responsibly. All they value is their own position, and they will quite happily pollute, exploit, decieve, despoil and destroy to continue the family legacy and keep power out of the hands of the plebs."

One, a rich person is not obligated to understand the life of a poor person, any more than a poor person is obligated to understand the life of a rich person. Not understanding the poor is not a sin. Accusing the rich of exploting the poor is totally unfair. We don't have sweatshops in the US. If you had the money and power, would you exploit people? I would hope the answer is no. Why do you think a rich person is any different? You have made a serious accusation against a class of people without any evidence to back it up.

It should also be noted that while their may be the "bad rich" who supposedly deserve to be taxed into oblivion, income tax is not set up to punish the bad rich. Every rich person is taxed. You are punishing an entire class of people for the sins of a few.

[rextorres]

Originally posted by Fian:
Thanks for the responses about the SS and all. Personally, I think the system is fair as-is. Do you want to see a reduction in the Social Security tax?

Not necessarily, but, some people claim that the rich pay too much taxes - when in reality they pay about the same or a little less in taxes than everyone else. People use this argument to justify the proposed tax cut when in reality (if you look at the whole picture) the tax cut is unfair.

[ February 07, 2003, 17:50: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[kalthalior]

I hestitate to get re-engaged in this topic, but I would like to make a point about SocSec. When it was implemented, there were something like 13 workers for every person drawing funds. Now that ratio is approximately 3:1, and will drop to 2:1 in the near future. And the funds have been used as general revenue to fund the government since the inception of the program, all the recent talk about the "lockbox" was simply the result of the concern about the changing demographics that threaten the program.
Another point is that if you consider ALL taxes, most US citizens work 5+ months out of the year to pay for the various levels of government.

[Fyron]

Dogscoff, most of the rich people in the US are first generation money, not "old money".

[Fian]

"Not necessarily, but, some people claim that the rich pay too much taxes - when in reality they pay about the same or a little less in taxes than everyone else. People use this argument to justify the proposed tax cut when in reality (if you look at the whole picture) the tax cut is unfair."

I am going to take a look at your numbers in a bit. They still don't make sense to me. But it appears that the only tax cut solution that would be acceptable is if the poor were given even more money back from the Federal government. Instead of getting $500 per kid (is that what is it now? I lost track), maybe they should also get $500 back for themselves? Frankly, I disagree with this approach, but I would like to see how you would cut taxes.

Before looking at your SSN numbers, I am doing the folling math in my head:
Very rich pay 38% on their income tax
close to 0% of their income on SS
Total percent of their wealth given to the Federal government: 38%

Poor:
0% of their income tax
8.5% on their social security tax
Total percent of their wealth given to the Federal government: 8.5%

How else can you look at this? Any way you slice it, the wealthy are paying far more taxes than the poor. I'll look at your numbers next and see if I can figure out how you arrived at your conclusion.

[Fian]

OK, I looked at your sources, and they still don't quite make sense.

First, what is your source for the wealthy 5% having 35% of the income? I couldn't find that anywhere.

Second, Rush Limbaugh is quoting 2000 data. The budget link you gave me was for 2002-2008. I also couldn't find in there the 46/10/44 breakdown that you gave me. What is your source for that information?

Even with your numbers I calculated the wealthy 5% paying 31% not 21%. Still not great, but not as bad as you were saying.

Here were my calculations:
Wealthy 5% pays 56% of taxes
Your figures state that is only 46% of total revenue. So 56 * 0.46 = 25.76% of total revenue.
Wealthy 5% presumably pays AT LEAST 5% of the total SSN revenue, presumably more since they would pay all the way up to the 77k amount while the poor be paying less. So of the 44% that SSN contributes to the government income, 2.2% comes from the wealthy. So far we are at the wealthy paying 28% of revenue. I then noticed that you were including corporate taxes for your breakdown. If you strip that out, you find of the people tax, the rich pay 31%.

Oh btw, if there are 128 million households, 5% of that would be 6.4, not 8.

[jimbob]

Well I'm not American, so I don't know the ins and outs of your system all that well (though our media is dominated by American interests, so I probably know your system better than you know ours ) --> that's a joke by the way.

One, a rich person is not obligated to understand the life of a poor person, any more than a poor person is obligated to understand the life of a rich person. Not understanding the poor is not a sin.

I agree with this, it's been subtly hinted at for years (decades? centuries?) that if you're rich, you're bad/wrong/immoral. In some cases, individual rich guys are immoral/ungenerous, in other cases individual poor guys are jealous. The role of the gov't and the people who run it is to ensure that there is law and order, safe boarders, and nobody is starving to death - IMHO - not understand what it is to live in another demographic. Empathy is nice, but isn't a pre-requisite to morality.

Accusing the rich of exploting the poor is totally unfair. We don't have sweatshops in the US. If you had the money and power, would you exploit people?

Anyone reading this message has a computer, that puts you in the top 10% (or so) of the wealthiest people in The World. Hope you've made your World Vision donation, and don't shop at Wal-Mart. The fact that you live in N.A., most of Europe, etc. should make you ask yourself, do I exploit people? Me personally - I'm in the top 10% income bracket in the world, and own Nike shoes I don't think I should be complaining about how the top 5% spend their money. Instead I should learn to be generous, and maybe it'll catch on with the big cats.

It should also be noted that while their may be the "bad rich" who supposedly deserve to be taxed into oblivion, income tax is not set up to punish the bad rich. Every rich person is taxed. You are punishing an entire class of people for the sins of a few

Couldn't agree more. The question is, are people generous in helping others. The more it's required by law, the less generous people tend to become - again, totally IMO. No data to back it up, other than the observation of the "I've already helped" mentality.

-jimbob