72% of Americans Agree That The Rich should Pay Higher Taxes!

[HistoryNotHisStory]

A new CBS News/ NY Times polls show that 72% of Americans agree that the rich should pay higher taxes.

Question: Will the republicans bite the hand that feeds them?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/22/news...n=money_latest

[TKshreve]

A new CBS News/ NY Times polls show that 72% of Americans agree that the rich should pay higher taxes.

Question: Will the republicans bite the hand that feeds them?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/22/news...n=money_latest

Simply amazing that 72% of Americans are not represented through legislation. Oops, I keep forgetting that it is $$ that votes, not citizens. Expect a very turbulent ride trying to get any sort of significant tax increase through our current government.

I fully expect a wish-wash compromise that [[once again) is misled and spun out of control, thus failing to solve the targeted problem[[s).

Thank you greed!

[Det_ard]

72% of Americans agree that they want to tax "the other guy", and not themselves. Shocking news!

In related news, a majority of Americans don't want to give up anything themselves in order to reduce overall federal spending. And like the folks in Lake Wobegon, they all think their kids are above average.

[TKshreve]

72% of Americans agree that they want to tax "the other guy", and not themselves. Shocking news!

In related news, a majority of Americans don't want to give up anything themselves in order to reduce overall federal spending. And like the folks in Lake Wobegon, they all think their kids are above average.

FYI - A majority of Americans should have the final say...... right? Unless you believe that our country should be ruled by the very powerful and wealthy few?

Right now 400+ Americans control as much wealth as 150,000,000 Americans. Probably music to your selective ears.

[Crumbled_pavement]

It's going to take more than just raising taxes on the 250K and up crowd to deal with our deficit problem. Btw, I prefer not to call it raising taxes. If Best Buy has a sale on HDTVs for a week, people wouldn't say that Best Buy raised their prices after the sale is over. Bush had a temporary tax cut in place, it expired in 2010 but got renewed for two years. If it expires in 2012 and doesn't get renewed, taxes just go back to Clinton era tax rates. We had a booming economy then so the argument that money can't be made if we have Clinton era tax rates is a lie.

But government is also going to have to cut spending too. Notice you can raise revenue and cut spending at the same time [[no politician of either party will ever tell you that, they want you to make an either/or choice). The biggest drivers of the deficit are entitlements and military spending. They have to be cut, unless everyone is willing to pay higher taxes. There is not a majority support for any plan that would actually reduce the deficit, which means a lot of people are going to be unhappy. Oh well, after a night out on the town drinking and partying comes the hangover.

[Det_ard]

FYI - A majority of Americans should have the final say...... right? Unless you believe that our country should be ruled by the very powerful and wealthy few?

Right now 400+ Americans control as much wealth as 150,000,000 Americans. Probably music to your selective ears.

OK, let's be hyperbolic.

Majority rules. Whites [[majority) establish slavery of blacks. Fine by you since, in your words, "A majority of Americans should have the final say...... right?" Tyranny of the mob. I'll put you down in favor of it.

[TKshreve]

OK, let's be hyperbolic.

Majority rules. Whites [[majority) establish slavery of blacks. Fine by you since, in your words, "A majority of Americans should have the final say...... right?" Tyranny of the mob. I'll put you down in favor of it.

What's wrong with you?

[Big Dog]

I had that same exact question.

[Jimaz]

In short, if you're allowed no other choice than to have a tyranny of the mob, would you rather it be a mob of dollars or a mob of citizens?

Which of these mobs is currently running out of control in this post-Citizens-United world?

Each is no less a tyranny than the other but one is more democratic.

[firstandten]

72% of Americans agree that they want to tax "the other guy", and not themselves. Shocking news!

"The other guy" meaning the $250,000 and up crowd. Whats wrong with that ?

Like CP said its just bringing taxes back to where they should be from the Clinton years

[Jimaz]

Here are over 700 of those 72% of Americans who agree that the rich should pay higher taxes: Responsible Wealth. Surprise! They're all wealthy!

No doubt there are far more who would count themselves in the "irresponsible wealth" category, but we're not likely to hear such a confession from them, are we?

[canuck]

De-tard.

Does that rhyme with mustard or retard? Either way... Mob rules!

[HistoryNotHisStory]

72% of Americans agree that they want to tax "the other guy", and not themselves. Shocking news!

In related news, a majority of Americans don't want to give up anything themselves in order to reduce overall federal spending. And like the folks in Lake Wobegon, they all think their kids are above average.

The top 5% in American makes up 95% of the income in America.

So in essence the government is only taxing 5% of the money. It not the numbers, it the money. The rich are not paying their fair share.

When you tax the money at a low rate of even 5% American deficit will reduce drastically.

[maxx]

72% of Americans agree that they want to tax "the other guy", and not themselves. Shocking news!

In related news, a majority of Americans don't want to give up anything themselves in order to reduce overall federal spending. And like the folks in Lake Wobegon, they all think their kids are above average.

72% have finally discovered that only a small group really ;benefited from Reagan's trickle down economics.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/1180...n_reaganomics/


Two days before Christmas, with hardly anyone at all paying much attention, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office delivered up a final report card on the Reagan era. The highest grades? They went, almost exclusively, to the super rich.
You won't, to be sure, find any As, Bs, and Fs in this new Congressional Budget Office report card. And the CBO's researchers certainly didn't set out to grade America on the years since Ronald Reagan became President a generation ago. But they've done just that. On taxes and income distribution, their new report makes vividly clear, the United States desperately "needs improvement."
That may or may not be the message Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus from Montana had in mind, last year, when he asked the Congressional Budget Office to dig a little deeper into the data on taxes and income than the CBO had dug in a report released late in 2007.
The CBO's December 2007 study, Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979 to 2005, had looked at the federal taxes Americans at different income levels have been paying since the year before Ronald Reagan's election. But the report had a hole. Nothing in it indicated how the really rich have fared in the near three decades that the basic principles of Reaganomics -- tax rate cuts, deregulation, and privatization -- have set the public policy pace.
Senate Finance Committee chair Baucus asked the CBO to fill that hole -- by focusing on the richest of the rich. The CBO's new report meets that request, with dramatic results.
Americans in the overall top 1 percent, the 2007 CBO data showed, did quite well in the Reagan era's first quarter-century. Their average incomes, after taking inflation into account, essentially tripled, rising 201 percent.


But these top 1 percent stats, the new CBO data help us understand, hardly tell the full story. The truly stunning income increases over recent decades have gone to the tippy-top of the U.S. income distribution, not the top 1 percent, but the top tenth -- and top hundredth -- of that top 1 percent.
The higher up you go on the income ladder, in other words, the sweeter the Reagan era.
Between 1979 and 2005, the bottom half of the top 1 percent saw their average incomes only double, after inflation. These incomes increased 105 percent. The next highest four-tenths of the top 1 percent somewhat raised the income bar. Their average incomes, after inflation, rose 161 percent.
That brings us to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. Their incomes, from 1979 to 2005, rose a staggering 294 percent after taking inflation into account. Not bad at all. But the top 0.01 percent did even better. The 11,000 households in this rarified air took home an average $35.5 million in 2005, a 384 percent increase over average top 0.01 percent incomes in 1979.
Need some perspective here? Let's compare Americans at the top to Americans in the middle. Between 1979 and 2005, the average income of America’s statistical middle class -- the 20 percent of Americans in the exact middle of the U.S. income distribution -- rose, according to the CBO figures, a mere 15 percent. That's less than 1 percent a year..."

"

[maxx]

Furthermore,

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews...lar_to_sweden/

Study: Most Americans Want Wealth Distribution Similar to Sweden


We're a nation of freakin' socialists!

[HistoryNotHisStory]

Furthermore,

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews...lar_to_sweden/

Study: Most Americans Want Wealth Distribution Similar to Sweden


We're a nation of freakin' socialists!

Yes we are....

Because we believe in a goverment of the people, by the people and for the people.

[jiminnm]

The top 5% in American makes up 95% of the income in America.

So in essence the government is only taxing 5% of the money. It not the numbers, it the money. The rich are not paying their fair share.

When you tax the money at a low rate of even 5% American deficit will reduce drastically.

The top 5% of taxpayers already pay 95+% of income taxes paid.

[rb336]

The top 5% of taxpayers already pay 95+% of income taxes paid.

That is patently false

[oladub]

Who Pays Income Taxes and how much?
http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pa...ome-taxes.html

Tax Year 2008 Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid

Top 1% $380,354 38.02%

Top 5% $159,619 58.72%

Top 10% $113,799 69.94%

Top 25% $67,280 86.34%

Top 50% $33,048 97.30%

Bottom 50% <$33,048 2.7%

Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income
Source: Internal Revenue Service

I've got a better way of taxing the rich. Tax imports since almost all imports are imported by corporations and the rich own corporations. It would transfer taxes from individual taxpayers to corporate owners who are predominantly rich. Producing things in the US and hiring out of work Americans would suddenly make more sense to those same corporations. A shortage of US workers would result enabling private sector unions to have more clout so middle America could demand a larger share of the economic pie.

[Papasito]

OK, let's be hyperbolic.

Majority rules

White people make up less than 50% of the population of the 100 largest cities in the United States for the first time in history, census data show.

While they are a majority in 52 of the 100 largest cities, they make up only 44% of the total population of those cities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1305063.stm

The White Majority era has ended.

Whites now account for just 45 percent of the state's population, down from 52 percent a decade ago. The Hispanic population is now 38 percent of the total population—growing by 42 percent—while the African-American population grew slightly and is now 12 percent of the total population. The state gained four congressional seats in reapportionment, largely due to minority growth: Almost 90 percent of the state's growth was from minorities.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/censu...texas-20110217

According to the Times, "In 2000, the census found that non-Hispanic whites made up 54.3 percent of the area’s population. By 2010, their share had declined to 49.6 percent." The metropolitan area,19 million people strong, covers NYC's five boroughs; Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in NY State; Connecticut's Fairfield County in Connecticut; and 12 counties in New Jersey. Everywhere, except Manhattan and Brooklyn, saw a decline in the non-Hispanic white population.

http://gothamist.com/2011/03/28/whit...the_nyc_re.php

[rb336]

Who Pays Income Taxes and how much?
http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pa...ome-taxes.html

Tax Year 2008 Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid

Top 1% $380,354 38.02%

These data are skewed by an organization with an anti-tax agenda, as they fail to adjust for numerous items - most significantly the fact that a good deal of the upper 5%ers' income is taxed at 15% rather than even the lowest level of earned money. Last time i checked [[granted that was a couple of years ago on this booard), they used IRS projections rather than the actual info. They fail to take into account that medicare/medicaid/ss stop at a certain dollar amount

[oladub]

These data are skewed by an organization with an anti-tax agenda, as they fail to adjust for numerous items - most significantly the fact that a good deal of the upper 5%ers' income is taxed at 15% rather than even the lowest level of earned money. Last time i checked [[granted that was a couple of years ago on this booard), they used IRS projections rather than the actual info. They fail to take into account that medicare/medicaid/ss stop at a certain dollar amount

Perhaps. Since you seem to know better, please post a link to your non-biased font of tax information. This was my more moderate response to your allegation that jiminnm's number was "patently false". Thought it would make you happy. No need to hold out on us though. Please link us to your correct and unbiased source.

[maxx]

oladub,
When you talk about taxing imports you're getting into the WTO. Here is what has happened in the recent past:

http://books.google.com/books?id=gAb...iation&f=false

[At the bottom of p. 193]: U.S. export subsidies provide an example of retaliatory tariffs authorized by the WTO....

[oladub]

oladub,
When you talk about taxing imports you're getting into the WTO. Here is what has happened in the recent past:

http://books.google.com/books?id=gAb...iation&f=false

[At the bottom of p. 193]: U.S. export subsidies provide an example of retaliatory tariffs authorized by the WTO....

I wouldn't be talking about getting into the WTO. I would be getting out of NAFTA, the WTO, and President Obama's recent expansion of the South Korean Trade Pact. Put a, for instance, 15% corporate sales tax on everything that comes into the country. Since the trade balance is very much in favor our trading partners, they can't do much about it without hurting themselves more than us. There's the tax on corporations and the rich you wanted. Take the troops out of Europe while we are at it. Europe is rich enough to defend itself if it cares too. Let Europe spill it's own blood.

To my Canadian friends. We have a good auto trade agreement with Canada. An equal value of cars cross the border tax free. Maybe S. Korea would go for something like that too. If not, tax imports.

Remember President Obama's campaign promise to open up NAFTA in order to beef up protection for labor? Now he is saying we have to wait for the economy to get better before he will protect labor from NAFTA.

"I'm asking you to believe. ." -Sen. Obama

[Papasito]

Are "rich" people who make $250k?
A small business owner who "grosses" $250k is not "rich".
Someone who owns a small pizza shop or a convenience store can make that, but they work thier butts off for 70+ hours a week, and put a lot of what they make back into the business.

Wouldn't "rich" be more like people making $1M or something?