Those numbers seem reassuring but they are ethereal and may change in either direction unless we actually do things to fortify them. For example, get the church to stop telling people condoms come from Satan and start supplying them for free in the third world. Watch impoverished overpopulation and STD rates fall dramatically overnight. :2 cents:

think Eastern Europe is experiencing this now

Third worlders use condoms? That's a good one.

That sounds nice. But we have all the creature comforts in the world...and we start more wars and pursue more military strength than ANYBODY in history. :(

41% is the highest anyone pays in Canada. Why are you paying 50%? You always seem to be complaining about taxes here. Why do you live in Canada then?

The equation for making it happen is fairly simple:

Education - Organized Religion = Progress

We have a military that is profit motivated because it is increasingly disconnected from the will of the people. Defense contractors and their lobbyists pay the government to go to war. Haliburton made bank when their former CEO was Vice President during the run up to the Iraq invasion. Our populace is not overrun with war mongers, our government is decreasingly representative of our populace. Put meaningful campaign finance reform in place (including the reversal of Citizens United) and watch how peaceful we suddenly become. :2 cents:

All of that doesn't change the fact that since the end of WW2 (before Haliburton) we have been the most aggressive military country ever. And have spent more money than all the other countries on Earth combined.
Campaign finance reform would suddenly change that? Highly, highly doubtful.

I don't understand, if you're going to have a tax just make it flat like 10% or 15%...

Why? We pay 40% of the total the world spends on defense. Why not cut it by 50%? We would still be double the next highest spender.

Seems simple I guess. In a previous post you singled out christians. The truth is most christian populations have below replacement birth rates. So your simple task then is to educate, and remove religion from, the muslim populations. Good luck with that.

That makes too much sense so we'll never have it.

Or we could just eat the rich ?

I is thinking you might feed the five thousand on your own, comprendington ?

:pimp

And they've been going up for decades. Any idea how wealth was tracked before computers?

I don't recall ever singling out any individual religion. People are free to think whatever they want spiritually, but history makes it painfully obvious that organized religion has been a force of regression for centuries.

It's not the answer. Tax drug dealers

You said "get the church to stop telling people condoms come from Satan". I guess I took that to mean christians.

Religion is only really regressive when religious doctrine forms the basis for government policy. That hasn't happened in the west for centuries. And you don't need religion to experience regression. Political ideologies can be equally regressive - North Korea for example.

Arse about tit... :2 cents:

Cut defense!! I have alot of friends in the military and they tell me stories of all the stuff that is wasted every day..

Church/Temple/Mosque... same difference.

Organized Religion is extremely regressive whether it officially infects government or not. Take a look at any textbook questioning the notion of evolution or suggesting 'intelligent design' has a scientific basis. That's in a country with a Constitutional separation between Church and State (by church I mean church/temple/mosque etc so as not to confuse you). The key difference between Religion and Science is that Science is real... https://youtube.com/watch?v=ty33v7UYYbw

The US did fine without an income tax before 1913.

I say get rid of it and replace with nothing.

Yup, just let old people, sick people and poor people starve. Who cares if children are put into sweat shops for pennies a day? Our high tech modern economy is just like the low tech labor intensive agrarian economy of yesteryear. Globalization and automation are not complications at all. Lets all just go back to living like it's 1912! After all, pretending we are living in the past has worked so damn well for the Amish... Awesome plan! :Oh crap

Or we could quit spending so much on defense.

And not all "old people" starve. Plenty of "old people" have a lot more money than you do.

As for children in sweat shops...what the hell does the govt. taxing us so much have to do with that?

You're jumping all around in your argument.

Fact is the govt. does NOT need trillions of dollars each year to buy more bombs, and planes, and tanks to invade other countries. We need to stop that shit.

And no...it's not 1912. But you jumped from not having income tax to EVERYTHING being exactly like it was then. That's just foolish.

We can take the good things we have learned from the past and combine them with the good things we have now.

With that argument you just made...we are all apparently monolithic robots. If we went back to no income tax, then everything about us would suddenly revert to the exact way it was in 1912 :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Totally agree. If we cut tons of defense spending, we could really cut taxes or at least the govt debt.

I like the way Bill Maher puts it:

We are still in Germany with a huge army just in case The Soviet Union attacks us in 1950.
:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I get so tired of tax discussion. Everyones position is generally clear and in complete alignment with their income. It's a problem when the non-producing majority think they need to blame all their problems on the producing minority.

I think that people should be allowed to vote in accordance to income and tax revenue they generate. Then it won't be a bunch of ignorant, non-producing people always blaming the rich and the people that are actually out working 12-18 hrs a day running companies or multiple companies can vote accordingly and see the system actually changed, cut waste and so on, rather than being strung up and lynched by a mob of uneducated fast food workers and Wallmart greeters.

.... Now, please point out a bunch of corrupt bankers which are obvious exceptions to the rule to attempt to add validity to the argument that rich people are scum as you willfully ignore that its people making 200K+ a year, running, owning and investing in small, medium and large companies which drive the economy.

Or put your money where your fucking mouth is and simply support a flat tax if you want everyone "paying their fair share" as you claim you do.

The idea of running a nation the size of ours with zero tax revenue is ridiculous. I'm all for lowering income tax rates and would prefer a flat tax across the board coupled with a poverty exclusion and a nominal national sales tax. That's a far ways away from 1912.

It would be silly to tax the Rich at 50% but there is no reason why upping them a few percent should be the end of the world as the GOP tries to claim it will be.

There is also zero reason that making money by investment should be taxed any less than a working mans wage. Let's be fair here because the tax loophole with investments is what causes rich CEO's & people like Mitt Romney for example to pay such low percentage vs what some grunt in a factory pays.

As far as cutting spending.. people bitch and moan about welfare (well the right does) meanwhile have a look at this page..

http://www.defense.gov/contracts/

on a single day.. December 31, 2012 $2.3 bil in new contracts was awarded. That single day was no different or out of ordinary as hundreds of millions are awarded each day to various defense contractors and no one ever complains a bit.

I've said this over and over and over to you in different threads but you just pretend you don't understand:

PEOPLE'S RETIREMENT FUNDS ARE INVESTED IN THE MARKET. YOU WOULD BE RAISING TAXES ON ELDERLY RETIRED PEOPLE IF YOU RAISE THE RATES ON CAPITAL GAINS.

I'm not talking about taxing all investments obviously. I'm talking about the loop-hole that allows these guys to get away with paying extremely low tax rates, because the money they are making isn't taxed as earned income but the same as those elderly and average Joe's whom actually are using it for retirement.

Actually...during the last debate between Romney and Obama...Romney said that was sort of what he wanted to do.

He said he would leave the rate where it is now for "rich" people. That would encourage investment.

And he said that he would lower the Capital Gains tax to ZERO for middle and lower income people so that they would have reasons to invest and also not be taxed in their retirement.

I thought that was a pretty big proposal he laid out there.

Of course the media totally ignored it and concentrated instead on "folders full of women". :(

taxing the rich is the answer to funding an inefficient, oversized, corrupt failing system.

for now, until they overspend what they bring in from over taxing the rich. give them a dollar, they spend it like they have 5 dollars

simple as

Lets see:
Federal 39.6%
State (California): 10.30%
Medicare: 2.9%
SS: % depends on income (up to 12.4%)
---------
Total: 52.8%+

I agree, 50% tax rate is silly indeed... :2 cents:

(of course this doesn't even include real estate, sales, vehicle, and 50 other taxes)

what a terrible idea. most of those people are greedy sociopaths. the world would be destroyed in record time if that was allowed to happen. government should always seek to work for the majority, not the minority, no matter who they might be. if the majority are poor and struggling, we should be working to figure out why they can't rise up the ladder. most people aren't lazy entitlement whores. the system is structured so only a few will actually make it because society needs more workhorses than high rollers. i do however support a flat tax idea..

SS is only on the first 70k. If the person makes their money from investments, they don't pay SS or Medicare on that money. So high earners would not pay 50%.

Then do the Hedge fund trick and it all drops to 20%(was 15%) with no SS or Medicare. But even with lots of dividends or long term capital gains it is still then 20% without those other two taxes.

So California from what I could find Capital Gains tax rate with Federal tax is 31.2%.
Source - http://heartland.org/sites/default/f...ains_final.pdf

This is the reasoning behind tax the rich. But no one wants to really tax the rich so they raised the income tax which won't hardly effect anyone but high earners of the working class.

How about get rid of them all together. Initiating force to solve problems, under the false doctrine of social contract theory is both an immoral and poor solution.

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...61609538_n.jpg

Considering the money they EARNED that was then invested was taxed at 52.8%, you have no point

Agreed.

The masses do not bother to see just how many times that same money is double and triple taxed. You get taxed at the time you make it (whether from your business, income, etc. via income for the year) and then you're taxed again on any purchases you make, your investments, and taxed when you withdraw it at retirement, and should you have any left, you get taxed on your estate (if high enough), and so on and so forth.

In short, that same money is already "taxed" over and over again to the point of being ridiculous.

:2 cents:

Anyone who doesn't believe we should be shrinking our government and the cost associated with it isn't smart enough to be a part of the conversation

First - The fees from hedge funds which would be salary are taxed as long term capital gains. That is the big loop hole. It would make sense to close just that loop hole.

Second - Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, etc did not pay 52.8% on their vast holdings. The majority of their holdings have never been taxed as they are still being held and growing tax free. They then make dividends which are taxed at the lower rate. I think this is the majority of people in the multi millions range and certainly is the case of those in the billions. Economists agree this rewards investment. Should long term capital gains tax keep being lowered to attract more investment? Maybe.

I don't disagree with the current system that much but the Hedge Fund thing is abuse. If you charge 2% of the capital and 20% of the profit to manage other people's money then some of that is fees and should be taxed as income not long term capital gains. As the Hedge Fund makes money even when the Fund does not so that is income to them. Then add in that people are using the structure to hold high cash flow investments to avoid the higher rates and it is just messy.

honestly the government is like a crack addict trying to get his next hit by any means. all these pro tax people are nothing but enablers

I think everyone agrees with this. I sort of liked letting the fiscal cliff just happen. 10% cut across the board did not seem like a bad idea at all to me. The local Senator doesn't want to close a military base? Tough we need to cut. No one wants to stop mail delivery on Sat? Tough. Farm subsidies are too sensitive? Oops they are gone. COLA is too high on SS? Yep we fixed that. Done.

Federal Govt jobs pay more and have more perks then private sector jobs. Then outsource. Cut the perks. Lower the pay. This is not that hard if someone would look at it but they won't.

I have to say that the govt. and the media have certainly pulled off a trick I NEVER thought I would see:

People ASKING to be taxed MORE.
Even though you all know that the govt. will funnel the majority of the money to defense contractors from their home states.

I see the GFY forum just full of people who are salivating at the idea of raising tax rates and taking people's money away from them to give to the greedy and overbloated federal govt.

I never thought that I would see this in the United States Of America.

And it's happening while our govt. is out invading other countries, occupying other countries around the world, and killing people world wide.

SURE! Let's take even more money from the people earning it and give it to a govt. that spends $10.6 BILLION PER DAY already.

There's a sucker born every minute

Look at the socioeconomic class and success, or lack there of, regarding those who want more taxes. That sums it up.

:2 cents:

I'll tell you something else that I've learned about life.

Some people are worker bees and some people are leaders. That's just the way it is.

There are certain people who just rise to the top in life. Doesn't matter where they start out at. I'm not talking about the handful of exceptions like a Kim Kardashian type who becomes filthy rich because of our societal infatuation with stupid shit...or the handful of heirs like Paris Hilton.

I'm talking about the vast majority.

Look at Steve Jobs. He didn't come from a rich family. But there was no way that guy wasn't gonna rise to the top.

A lot of people who complain that the system is stacked against them just don't have the personality type to beat that system. I see it everyday in every way.

That same person who does just enough at work to "get by" is NEVER gonna keep up with that guy who is dedicated, loves his work, and puts in long hours.

And long hours aren't all it takes.

I know guys working 3 jobs and barely getting by.

They just don't have the intelligence and foresight to work for themselves. They are worker bees.

No amount of taxing and govt. legislation will change who and what they are.

I dont know the real statistics, but youre right there are worker bees and queen bees.

then theres the bees that dont do shit, or cant do shit, or claim they cant do shit. thats whats eating not only the middle class but could easily eat the wealthy as well. why would anyone build a workforce in this country? its almost silly at this point. then to raise tax on top of this mess. wtf

First, I agree that that loophole should be closed.
Second, bill gates and warren buffet have paid more in taxes than all the people who have ever posted here combined. Stop worrying about other people's "vast holdings"
It's none of your concern. The government and the extreme left just wants you to think it is.