[OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.

[rextorres]

Teal:

Fyron and Narrew obviously have never heard of social security tax because because base on both their Posts they don't even acknowledge that it exists.

Fyron:

Please don't accuse me of "slander" you probably do know what the social security tax is.

But again you provide half truths when you post that the rich pay way more to the govt than the poor. For whatever reason you don't include payroll tax (income tax by another name) as part of the equation and once you include that your assertion that the rich pay more turns out to be false.

[rextorres]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
So what if the lower income person pays a greater percentage of their income in taxes? That is simple economics. The more money you have to begin with, the more you have left over after you pay for all those things which are the neccesities of life, food, shelter, clothing.

If I buy a new shirt for 20 dollars, that is a much greater percentage of my total monthly income then if Bill Gates buys the same shirt? So he should pay more for it and get nothing more out of it then I do? Just because he can? That's not fair.

The payroll tax is not a flat tax guys. It's not as highly graduated as income taxes, but the more money you make the more you pay in payroll tax. And gas and other use taxes do constitute a greater percentage of total monthly income for a poor person then for a rich one, but so what? See above. Payroll tax and use taxes don't make things level. The poor person doesn't end up paying the same because of them. The rich person still pays a much greater share of the tax bill. And that's fine. Of course the rich person will pay a smaller percentage of their total income in taxes, but using the tax code as a method of income redistribution to change that is just wrong. Of course that's simply an ethical position I choose to take. Can't really debate it with those of you that feel it should be.

Actually Geo the payroll tax is for the first 87K. So someone making $1 million dollars would pay payroll tax as if he made 87K. There are so many more people making less than 87k that more of that revenue comes from people making a lot less.

So when you talk about how much revenue comes into the govt all taxes it turns out the top 20% are now paying less - look it up. And please don't show just income tax it's all money that comes out of a paycheck.

[ September 18, 2003, 20:55: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[Fyron]

Whatever. Discussing anything with you has always been a waste of time Rex. Have fun spouting off your garbage rhetoric.

[rextorres]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Whatever. Discussing anything with you has always been a waste of time Rex. Have fun spouting off your garbage rhetoric.

So then you don't know what social security tax is?

[Narrew]

here is something else that I have thought of, I would look up all the numbers ect.. if I was running for office, hehe but I am not.

I we could wipe the slate clean on ALL taxes and start over. On the federal side, no deductions what so ever. Flat income tax on those above $30k individual $60k married, 10% on all income above those amounts. 10% on Capital Gains period (other than IRA/retirement), National Sales Tax on all manufactured items 2.5% (could have 2 weeks tax free for items under $2k for the start of school and X-mas) AND 5% tax on ALL import's (whether it is raw material or finished products), if it is across the board, perhaps we wouldn't violate trade laws.

I would like to see the revamping of business taxes, and incentives to increase 401-k participation of employees, maybe double the companies tax deduction for benefits that help the employees health/retirement.

Lets look at the prescription bill, employers will drop people off their plans and ask people to go the national plan to save money, but instead of a national plan, what if we gave the drug companies double tax breaks for supplying drugs to low income people. I know for a fact that if anyone needs medications and your low income, your doctor will send in a form to help the poor, or the doctor has enough "samples" to help someone, I know I have received some myself since I only have cobra.

I think there are many options than starting more government programs and taxing more and more.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by rextorres:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Whatever. Discussing anything with you has always been a waste of time Rex. Have fun spouting off your garbage rhetoric.

So then you don't know what social security tax is?

---

[Narrew]

Rex---Dude! I have been talking about SS, havent you read anything I have written? I said no one in their right mind will EVER lower SS tax.

The other thing that I have not brought up, that originally SS was in its own bag of money, but greedy politicians (mostly liberals wanting to SPEND more on goodies) moved it to the general fund, not Bush.

The other thing SS was to SUPLIMENT retirement, and someone making over $87k will not need that supplement, they would be foolish if they did. And though I am not SS age yet, someone that is rich is limited on their SS benefits paid to them either by taxing their income or lowering their pay out. So why the heck should someone KEEP paying into SS when it wont help them out, why not put it into an IRA or what ever and get a return on their money. And don't tell me you want to MAKE them pay more into a program that is inefficient.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by rextorres:
So when you talk about how much revenue comes into the govt all taxes it turns out the top 20% are now paying less - look it up. And please don't show just income tax it's all money that comes out of a paycheck.

I plan on it. It's a lot of figures to read over and it may take me a while. But I will post what I find.

Before I get into it too much we need to establish something up front. While I agree that it's not fair to ignore the payroll tax when looking at the total tax picture, I don't think it's accurate to add the entire payroll tax in when determining what share of the tax burden each of us shoulders. So we need to discuss this a bit if our debate will have any common ground.

I think we can all agree the ideal situation would be for each persons SSI/Medicare taxes to be used to pay for SSI/Medicare expenses of that person. However, realistically it can't. It's designed to be a social insurance plan where everybody pays in and everybody gets back out. The closest we could get is for each years payroll tax revenues to be used to pay that years SSI/Medicare expenses. It would be nice if there was no surplus or deficit, but that isn't realistic either. It would be ok if any surplus were saved to be used for future years deficits, (In a lock box maybe? ) but that doesn't happen either. Instead the surplus is converted bonds which the government uses to fund other programs. This is I believe the area that bothers you and leads you to calling the whole thing a tax.

So, I think if we are going to consider SSI/Medicare payments as taxes, we should break that up and call the portion going to pay SSI/Medicare expenses as "insurance premiums" and the portion that goes towards these other programs as the hidden "payroll tax".

If that seems reasonable to you I can look at the numbers and figure out what portion of the total tax revenue for each year is paid by which income demographic. Actually I will calculate it both ways, just for curiosity.

EDIT: Now mind you I don't think it will matter that much as far as I believe going in that the numbers will show the top 20% of wage earners pay a significant portion of the taxes whichever way I calculate it. But obviously it will change the degree somewhat.

[ September 18, 2003, 21:56: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[rextorres]

OK - When I looked at this Last, though, I just lumped it all together as percentage of revenues without deducting what actually goes into paying the insurance. With that said I concede that it should probably be taken out of the equation.

Yes if the payroll tax were not spent on non-entitlements then I might have a different opinion on Rush's argument that "the rich pay more".

[teal]

Narrew: If we could wash the slate clean and start the tax system all over again, then I would mostly agree with you. A *total* tax rate of X% flat across the board seems like a fair place to start a discussion, with perhaps a deduction (no tax on the first $X). Sadly, as you aknowledge, we can't start the tax game all over again from scratch (short of a violent revolution, which has its own horrible cost). So we are stuck with the tax system we have now. Given that we are stuck with the current tax system. Advocating a change from the progressive federal income tax seems like a bad idea to me. Since, as you acknowledge, none of the other taxes are going to change, the net effect of such advocacy (even with your admirable intentions) would be to make the total tax system regressive. I am very much interested in the practical side of things. Given that we prefer result X (a mostly flat total tax), what is the best way to accomplish that in the real world? I think that the answer has to be a slightly progressive federal income tax in order to balance out the regressive nature of all the other taxes. Also, I don't trust either party to be fiscally responsible if they hold all the power. Right now the Republicans hold the legislature, the executive, and, arguably, the judiciary as well. And they have shown that their idea of fiscal responsiblity is to *raise* spending and cut revenue. A Democratic legislature and a Democratic president would surely be bad as well in that they too would raise spending (on different things mind you) and would probably raise taxes to pay for it. Historically, a Democratic legislature and a Republican executive has also been quite bad with the compromise being balooning spending on both parties favorite projects. Which leaves us with a Democratic president and a republican legislature. Historically, this has been the most preferable option with something approaching a balanced budget and spending mostly under control. Given that both political parties are up to no good, and if given unchecked power they will abuse that power, the answer is to make sure that no one party ever gains controll. If it seems probable that Republicans will control the legislature, vote for a democratic president, and vice versa in the other case(it's easier to predict the legislature's composition in general given the power of incumbancy change happens slowly there). So rather than throw up our hands in defeat at the evil politicans we should try and use the built in checks and balances in the system to try and maximize the chances that the most reasonable thing will get done and to my mind that means making sure that the various factions have roughly equal political power.