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The Spectacle Blog
This morning, Jim Cramer of CNBC was speaking critically of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan on the basis that a sales tax is regressive. I oppose 9-9-9 for a very different reason, as I explained here, and have a very different reaction to the idea of a less progressive tax code, as I communicated to Cramer in this note:
Jim,
I oppose 9-9-9 because I don’t want to give the federal government a national sales tax unless the 16th Amendment were repealed.
However, in response to your more fundamental criticism that 9-9-9 or a sales tax more generally would be regressive, I think it’s time for a little more regressiveness in the tax code.
The Buffett thing is a straw man, as even the AP pointed out.
In the meantime, the top one percent of taxpayers pays almost 40 percent of income taxes (while earning about 21% of national income) and more than a third of those who actually file a tax return have zero tax liability.
How about this: “In 2008, this top 0.1 percent filed 140,000 tax returns, reporting nearly 10 percent of all adjusted gross income earned and paying approximately 18.5 percent of the nation’s federal individual income taxes.” (Source)
Of course you’ve heard that the top 1 percent pay more than the bottom 95%.
The Bush tax cuts made our federal income tax system more “progressive” than ever, meaning that fewer people than ever (in percentage terms, in modern America) have any financial stake in the behavior of our government. For 2009, it was estimated that 47 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax.
This means that you have about half of the population who have zero incentive to vote for anything other than the big spending that is bankrupting our nation, since they think they’ll never have to pay the bill. This doesn’t hold perfectly, of course, because many Americans do hope and expect to have their incomes increase over time and history has shown substantial income mobility in the U.S. Nevertheless, when you have about half the country looking to vote themselves the wealth of the other half, you have a serious problem.
In my view, nobody other than the poorest Americans should be able to pay zero income tax, and I say that fully understanding that most low wage earners pay the payroll tax which is not a small number. However the payroll tax pays (theoretically, at least) into Social Security and Medicare, not to support the other functions of government. I want every American to feel that they have a stake in good government, and therefore if I were in charge, I would insist that any family above the poverty line pay something in income tax. And of course I would start chipping away at the EITC and other such transfers of wealth. In short, we are not a socialist country and shouldn’t behave like one.
It’s fine to care about the less fortunate, but it’s time for more people to realize that stated good intentions usually lead to failed or disastrous outcomes, whether we’re talking about Cuba or Venezuela or the USSR…or the Obama administration.
So to the extent that you say a tax is regressive, that tends to make me support it…and I’m not in the top 1% of earners (though I have been in the past and hope to be again.)
Best regards,
Ross
View all comments (63) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Ross Kaminsky
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/10/13/in-praise-of-regressiveness
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SemperUbiSubUbi| 10.13.11 @ 11:41AM
From your mouth to the eventual nominees ears. What the GOP needs to do is run on a platform of tax increases on lower-income Americans.
Don't go looking up the percentage of those 47% non-payers who are retirees living off of fixed income, and the percentage who have very low income due to unemployment or partial employment, or else you'll get cold feet on this. Stay strong. We need to raise their taxes!
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 11:48AM
Ross,
Agree entirely with virtually everything you say here, though (at the risk of nit picking) I always cringe when I hear the poor referred to as the "less fortunate". While there are, to be sure, individuals whose economic circumstances are at least partially due to misfortune, the primary cause is far more commonly due to poor choices and a lack of responsibility. Moreover, describing one's economic circumstances in terms of luck feeds into the liberal notion that the wealth isn't earned, but rather the result of good fortune (which therefore makes the confiscation of wealth less morally reprehensible). Just my 2 cents...
SemperUbiSubUbi| 10.13.11 @ 12:09PM
An excellent point! We need to tell those 47% two things. One, we're raising your taxes because you currently don't pay any taxes at all. And two, if you're unemployed or underemployed, or retired and living off a fixed income that's barely enough to get by on, it's your own damn fault so instead of whining about us raising your taxes just get out there and get a better job.
ncatty| 10.13.11 @ 1:18PM
I thought the Journolist did not exist anymore.
Jeff Perren | 10.13.11 @ 1:07PM
Well reasoned, and I sympathize with your point of view. But I respectfully disagree with this:
"In my view, nobody other than the poorest Americans should be able to pay zero income tax,"
NO one at any income level should pay income tax. There are more effective, more just ways to finance the Federal government - direct military tax, court fees, and a slew of other possibilities.
Since the conversation has now opened for major changes, we might as well advocate the best solutions. Definitely, the 16th Amendment should be repealed - it introduced a major contradiction into the Constitution and is grossly immoral as well. In the meantime, we should never passively accept that everyone suffer equally.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 1:07PM
Federal Income Tax. This is not the only tax Americans pay. How difficult is it for people to grasp this concept?
SemperUbiSubUbi| 10.13.11 @ 3:03PM
It's essentially the only tax, because things like payroll taxes and gas taxes and so on are more like fees for services. You buy gas, so you have to help pay for the roads. The people who pay the money are also the ones using the services. That's the way it should be.
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 3:34PM
The income tax structure presently in place acts as a redistribution scheme. How many people were "refunded" more than they had withheld from their pay?
SemperUbiSubUbi| 10.13.11 @ 3:54PM
How many people were "refunded" more than they had withheld from their pay?
One would be too many. Let's take the 9% tax rate from Cain's plan with no corporate tax and no sales tax. Just 9% from everyone's wages whether you're earning five bucks an hour as a waiter or five hundred an hour as a lawyer. No deductions. No refunds.
Boom. Done.
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 5:06PM
Of course Semper. One would be too many and there were literally millions last year. The flat rate tax is most just and equitable. Any difference in treatment is not the rule of law but rule by men. It is immoral to treat one persons' property in a different manner than anothers'.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 5:25PM
My personal favorite was the $300 tax "rebate" that went to everyone (~2 years ago), regardless of whether or not you actually paid income taxes. I'm still trying to figure out how one can "rebate" something that was never "bated" in the first place...
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 5:49PM
Trini:
It was "bait" to obtain votes.
How the bookkeeppers manage it is quite another question indeed.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:17PM
Indeed (I suppose they should have called it a "rebait"...)
Kingofthenet| 10.13.11 @ 2:28PM
OK the short version, take from the poor to give to the rich, a reverse Robin-Hood! If Ross had a brain in his head he would understand you tax the rich because they can AFFORD it.
Simple Economics:
Super Rich: increase their taxes, no effect on their extravagant lifestyle
Rich: Daughter might not get car on sweet 16
Middle Class: Daughter might not get private piano lessons.
Poor: Daughter might not get new shoes to wear
Get it now?
http://motherjones.com/politic.....hart-graph
Oh and Jon Stewart said it better than I can ever hope to:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/wa.....de-is-over
SemperUbiSubUbi| 10.13.11 @ 3:00PM
Mother Jones? Jon Stewart?
Bwahahahahaha!
Look, my friend, the people who get the entitlements should be the ones who pay for the entitlements. It's the only way they'll have any incentive to vote for politicians who will put an end to the entitlements that are strangling this country in debt.
Yes their taxes will go up in the short term. But in the long term, once the entitlements are gone, the tax rate can go down for everyone, and then the people who now rely on entitlements will have more of their own money to pay their own way.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 4:43PM
By and large, the people who have an income but don't pay federal income taxes are the elderly, the disabled, the working poor and students. These aren't (by and large) lazy parasites. The reason the extremely wealthy are currently paying a larger percentage is not that they are being unfairly taxed. It's that in relation to the rest of us their incomes have rocketed up. They are thriving, not suffering from some crushing tax burden.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 5:37PM
Ever driven through downtown Baltimore at 11:00 a.m. on a weekday? Remarkable how many able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 50 are sitting on the porch with a 40 ouncer wrapped in a brown bag.
The notion that the majority of individuals who aren't paying taxes are elderly, disabled, the working poor, or students is patently absurd. I was simultaneously a member of the latter 2 classes for 4 years of undergraduate and 3 years of graduate school and I can assure you that I paid federal income taxes the entire time. If you believe that 47% of the US population is either elderly or disabled, well, you really can't be taken seriously...
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 6:08PM
Because things are always easier in pie chart form:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org.....eholds.cfm
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:11PM
For simpletons...
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 7:57PM
Well, you either didn't read or failed to understand the article I posted, so I thought I'd make it easy for you. I'm still waiting for you to present a shred of evidence showing that I'm wrong other than your anecdote about the time you saw those guys drinking those 40s.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 9:07PM
Ok; let's take an example. According to the final pie chart, fully one third of those who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll tax are non elderly individuals who make less than $20,000. Since the title states that the units as households, and not working households, this presumably includes those households for whom annual (reported) income was $0. Therefore, it isn't possible to ascertain from this chart what proportion of households in this category had no or very marginal income. Moreover, it tells us nothing about the demographic profile of the larger group of households that paid payroll taxes, but no income tax. I suspect that many households in this category are families whose tax liabilities were reduced by virtue of credits for children and other deductions. Even here, however, I would recur to my argument regarding personal responsibility (were the parents under the impression that there was no cost associated with raising a child?). Pardon me, but I didn't have sex with their wives; why is it suddenly my responsibility to support the result of their failure to act responsibly?
Returning to your original question, I find nothing in the attached chart that allows one conclude that the majority of those not paying taxes aren't lazy parasites (or at least irresponsible parasites). After all, how do you know with certainty that those who fall into the categories of non elderly making less than $20K (paying neither payroll nor income taxes) or those paying only payroll taxes aren't in their present circumstances by virtue of poor choices, lack of motivation, and laziness? For example, a household with less than $20K in income might, in fact, have 2 able bodied parents and a 19 year old child in the home and only 1 of the 3 employable adults working. And why is that 1 person in a low income job? Did he drop out of school? Does he have a poor employment history due to failure to perform or an inability to follow direction or a shitty attitude? Do we really have an epidemic of bright, hard working, educated, and highly skilled individuals who have to work as janitors? Not buying it...
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 9:07PM
Ok; let's take an example. According to the final pie chart, fully one third of those who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll tax are non elderly individuals who make less than $20,000. Since the title states that the units as households, and not working households, this presumably includes those households for whom annual (reported) income was $0. Therefore, it isn't possible to ascertain from this chart what proportion of households in this category had no or very marginal income. Moreover, it tells us nothing about the demographic profile of the larger group of households that paid payroll taxes, but no income tax. I suspect that many households in this category are families whose tax liabilities were reduced by virtue of credits for children and other deductions. Even here, however, I would recur to my argument regarding personal responsibility (were the parents under the impression that there was no cost associated with raising a child?). Pardon me, but I didn't have sex with their wives; why is it suddenly my responsibility to support the result of their failure to act responsibly?
Returning to your original question, I find nothing in the attached chart that allows one conclude that the majority of those not paying taxes aren't lazy parasites (or at least irresponsible parasites). After all, how do you know with certainty that those who fall into the categories of non elderly making less than $20K (paying neither payroll nor income taxes) or those paying only payroll taxes aren't in their present circumstances by virtue of poor choices, lack of motivation, and laziness? For example, a household with less than $20K in income might, in fact, have 2 able bodied parents and a 19 year old child in the home and only 1 of the 3 employable adults working. And why is that 1 person in a low income job? Did he drop out of school? Does he have a poor employment history due to failure to perform or an inability to follow direction or a shitty attitude? Do we really have an epidemic of bright, hard working, educated, and highly skilled individuals who have to work as janitors? Not buying it...
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 11:12PM
The article I linked to earlier provides a much more detailed breakdown of the numbers. Can I get you to at least admit that you were wrong when you said "The notion that the majority of individuals who aren't paying taxes are elderly, disabled, the working poor, or students is patently absurd." The working poor and the elderly are pretty obviously the majority of those who aren't paying federal income taxes. Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that those working poor who don't pay federal income tax in a particular year do pay federal income tax other years. So yes, some of those households may have 1 person working while 2 able bodied people are unemployed. But it's generally not because they're lazy parasites. Here, I'll give you another article that provides more insight into who these non-taxpayers are.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505
Enjoy. I'm done for the night.
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 3:32PM
I have yet to be presented with a cogent moral argument why one persons property should be treated differntly than any others simply by virtue of its volume. If anything the argument is an immoral one in that it is based on resentment and covetousness and are not those attitudes which all people should reject?
Kingofthenet| 10.13.11 @ 4:23PM
It's called common sense accommodation, it's why women and children get into the lifeboats first, Disabled people don't have to heave themselves up stairs etc. Your idea of 'Fair' is that of a 1st grader, we all get treated the same. by your logic if one of a group of friends is Bon Jovi, one is a school teacher and one is a cop, 2/3 of time they go out together, they should be paying for their friend the Rocker, it is so perverse I won't comment.
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 5:09PM
King:
I never used the word "fair". Still, you present no moral argument in favor of progressive tax rates on income. Perhaps it is simply that you resent those who have more than you.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 5:32PM
Ever driven through downtown Baltimore at 11:00 a.m. on a weekday? Remarkable how many able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 50 are sitting on the porch with a 40 ouncer wrapped in a brown bag.
The notion that the majority of individuals who aren't paying taxes are elderly, disabled, the working poor, or students is patently absurd. I was simultaneously a member of the latter 2 classes for 4 years of undergraduate and 3 years of graduate school and I can assure you that I paid federal income taxes the entire time. If you believe that 47% of the US population is either elderly or disabled, well, you really can't be taken seriously...
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 5:36PM
Posted in wrong spot, intended as response to DRed above...
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 5:50PM
Yeah Trini, but it sounds like a plan to me. Maybe scotch though. Baltimore huh?
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:11PM
Pick a city (Detroit, DC, Miami, Brooklyn, Boston...); same story.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 5:59PM
Someone who is sitting on a porch drinking a 40 during a weekday afternoon probably pays no income taxes because they have no income. I'm not sure how you propose we get people with no income to pay more in taxes, but I'm happy to hear your ideas.
And if you think it's patently absurd, show me the studies that prove that most people who don't pay federal income taxes are those who are lazy minorities sitting on their porches drinking 40s. I'd encourage you to read this in the interim:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org.....me-Tax.pdf
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:09PM
Someone who is sitting on a porch drinking a 40 during a weekday afternoon probably pays no income taxes because they have no income. I'm not sure how you propose we get people with no income to pay more in taxes, but I'm happy to hear your ideas.
DRED-
YOU are the one who stated that the majority of people who aren't paying taxes are elderly, disabled, working poor, or students. Clearly, the elderly and the disabled aren't working either, so how could they be paying taxes. I merely gave you another example of a class of citizens who are not only not paying taxes (and yet aren't elderly, disabled, students, or working), but are actually TAKING from the system in the form of welfare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits.
C'mon, man - you're not making sense! You can't make the argument that the people who aren't paying taxes are elderly, disabled, or students and then turn around and say that able-bodied males sitting on the porch drinking malt liquor don't count because THEY AREN'T WORKING! That's the point, dude. Try to keep up...
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 6:33PM
There's this thing in America called Social Security. When you are old, it pays you money. This money is income. However, it's not necessarily taxed (depending on whether or not you have other sources of income, and how much they are) Therefore, some people who live on social security get income but do not pay federal income taxes. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Your point seems to be that we shouldn't pay the poor lazy minorities welfare because they sit around drinking 40s all day. That's fine, but it has nothing to do with progressive or regressive income taxes. Changing tax policy will not affect people who make no money. They will still make no money and therefore pay no taxes.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:48PM
Hey Dumbass:
YOU are the one who made the argument that most people who aren't paying federal taxes aren't lazy parasites. To quote:
"By and large, the people who have an income but don't pay federal income taxes are the elderly, the disabled, the working poor and students. THESE AREN'T (by and large) LAZY PARASITES."
Then, when I point out a class of individuals not paying taxes who ARE lazy parasites, you claim they don't count because....wait for it...they aren't working! WTF are you, high?
Really, sport; I'm all too happy to engage in a battle of wits with you, but I really must insist that you enter the battle armed.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 7:53PM
I'll give it another try. This is an article that makes the argument that federal income tax rates are too progressive. Al Adab said he doesn't know of any moral argument in favor of progressive taxation. You then brought up an irrelevant anecdote about people you saw on the porch drinking 40s in Baltimore. It's irrelevant to a discussion about income tax rates because people who don't work don't pay income taxes. Whether it's a regressive tax, a flat tax or a progressive tax. It just doesn't matter. Do you see what I'm getting at? I get that those people make you mad. But you can change the federal income tax code all you want and they still won't pay any income taxes.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 8:10PM
I should have said 'people with no income don't pay income taxes'.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 9:29PM
No, I was responding to your statement that people who don't pay taxes aren't lazy parasites (by, interestingly enough, citing an example of lazy parasites who do pay taxes). I made no suggestion - in any way - that revising the tax code would cure this problem (I would, however, argue strenuously that providing benefits to such individuals perpetuates the problem).
With respect to the "working poor", I argued that marginal utility is neither a compelling nor a morally defensible argument for taking more from the "wealthy" in order to maximize the "utility" of money that they have earned and therefore rightfully own. I further suggested that this argument proceeds from the flawed assumption that the money doesn't belong to the individual who earned it, but rather to some central entity that is free to redistribute it in a manner that maximizes it's utility. This is classic Marxism (for which, upon reflection, I suspect you have a particular affection). But where do you draw the line? Clearly a jobless junkie can make the argument that the marginal utility of the $50 in my wallet is higher for him as he robs me at gunpoint. Hell, I could make the argument that the marginal utility of your daughter is higher for me than you, so why not send her over to my place this evening? It just doesn't fly...
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 9:30PM
That was supposed to read "by citing an example of lazy parasites who DON'T pay taxes).
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 11:03PM
I should have said marginal value, or maybe marginal worth? The basic idea, as I've said, is that each dollar you have is marginally less valuable than the previous dollar. When you recognize this, it seems fair to take more from those who have more, because what you take from them isn't as valuble. $500 is valuable to me, but it's a lot more valuable to someone making 20K a year. That's the reality reflected in a progressive income tax. And I don't think it's any coincidence that we've had a progressive income tax almost since 1913. While a flat tax seems intuitively fair, 10% of a poor persons income is much more valuable to them than 10% of a very wealthy persons income,. This is, by the way, a long, long way from the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Trinacria| 10.14.11 @ 1:15AM
But it isn't yours to take! If the value of one of your kidneys is higher to someone on dialysis, is it fair for the government to take it and give it to them? After all, you have 2 working kidneys; he has none. Losing 1 kidney will affect you far less than it would him.
By the way, at what point do you draw the line? If it's okay to take more from the wealthy person so long as the marginal worth of a dollar is less than it is for someone making less (say $20,000), is it therefore acceptable to continue taking from him until his net income is equal to that of the person who makes less? Clearly, the marginal value of dollar is by definition always less for him until that point.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 5:35PM
AA,
Stunning how someone can use the absurd Bon Jovi example as a moral argument for confiscating one's property based solely on the volume of said property and then accuse you of having a first-grader's view of fair (the fact that you never mentioned the concept of fair notwithstanding). It would indeed appear that the king has no clothes...
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 5:35PM
The simplest argument is marginal utility. Let's assume (you should agree with this) that all taxation causes suffering in the taxpayer. Who will suffer more if you take a dollar from them? The man with $100 or the man with $1,000,000? To a man with a million dollars, any particular dollar is relatively worthless, so he will suffer much less at the loss of one dollar than the man with $100.
There's also the idea that the wealthy benefit the most from society and that it's therefore morally just for them to pay more for its upkeep.
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 6:01PM
DRed:
Is the purpose of taxation to punish or cause pain? None should suffer yet since all benefit all should be treated equally. The flat percentage, not a flat dollar amount, treats all property (ones wealth or income) the same. If you wish, we could theoretically place a floor on when earnings become taxed. Pick a number, however I daresay many will adjust their earnings to avoid paying any.
The nature of the society determines who "benefits" most from it. Many prefer greater Liberty to financial wherewithall while others seek opportunity to accomplish over guranteed stasis. To single out the wealthy, whatever that may mean, as somehow different or deserving of singular treatment on the basis of some arbitrary class structure creates the very society our republic attempts to avoid i.e. a class ridden one. Law and society should treat all members equitably without respect to station, ethnicity, etc. etc.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 6:19PM
A flat tax doesn't treat people equally because of marginal utility. This is like junior high economic theory. A flat tax would diminish the liberty of the poor much more than a progressive tax rate would. Why are you so dead set on treating the poor unequally?
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:29PM
"Why are you so dead set on treating the poor unequally?"
Again, but slowly this time: 1% of the population pays 40% of all federal tax revenue, while 47% pays nothing. And in your mind, we're treating the 47% unfairly?
Yeah, we can take you seriously...
Romney/Cain 2012| 10.13.11 @ 6:58PM
Liberals hate math. When 1% of the population pays 40% of the taxes then they're paying 40 times as much tax as they would in a fair system. And the 47% who pay zero tax obviously aren't paying their fair share. Cain's 999 plan may not be perfect but the idea of making everyone pay a flat 9% of what they earn and a flat 9% of what they spend is undeniably fair.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 7:15PM
"Liberals hate math".
and logic, hard work, personal responsibility, prosperity, ingenuity, the free market, the truth, freedom, morals, justice, private property, individualism, independence, and deodorant.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 7:55PM
Technically, they pay 40% of all federal income tax income. The fact that 1% of the population pays 40% of the federal income tax sounds bad, but you can't take that figure alone. What percentage of the national income did they make? How much of the nations wealth do they control? When you factor in all other taxes collected by all forms of government, are they still paying what seems to be a disproportionate share?
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 9:33PM
20%. So they made 20%, contributed 40%. This also dent include other taxes, including payroll taxes, that they paid as well.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 8:18PM
I'm talking about a hypothetical flat tax.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:03PM
Do you not see the glaring logical fallacy in your argument? It proceeds from the assumption that the money belongs not to the individual who earned it, but rather to some central entity that is charged with the responsibility of distributing it "fairly".
By your logic, one could justify the imposition of wage limits (the marginal utility of the extra $100,000 the CEO makes would be higher if instead it were paid to the admins and janitors). Importantly, however, your argument fails to account for the incremental VALUE provided by the individual who receives a higher level of compensation.
But let's set aside the flawed premise and concede that indeed the incremental utility of an extra $1,000 is higher for someone earning $25,000 than it is for someone earning $250,000. Why is it not incumbent upon the individual for whom the incremental utility of the $1,000 is higher to take it upon himself to earn an additional $1,000? Why must we assume that it's the obligation of the individual who actually earned it to forfeit the money in order to ensure that its utility is maximized?
And why limit the concept of marginal utility to money? Let's say your daughter is attending college at a prestigious university (and, just for the hell of it, let's also say your busting your hump to pay the $40,000/year tuition). Your daughter is studious, disciplined, and conscientious; she spends nights and weekends in the library and even manages to work 15 hours a week to help pay for books and meals. She's rewarded for her efforts with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Her best friend, however, is not so studious and, frankly, not very disciplined. She has yet to see the inside of the library, and she spends her nights and weekends in the local bars and sorority houses. Unfortunately, her GPA is a rather unimpressive 2.0. Clearly the marginal utility of an additional point on her GPA is higher for her than your daughter, so (applying your logic), we should penalize your daughter by taking a point from her and donating it to her friend, thereby giving them both a respectable GPA of 3.0. I trust your daughter might have a rather less favorable view of "marginal utility" than you.
LiveFreeOrDie| 10.14.11 @ 5:55PM
I enjoy your posts. I like how your "logic" means other people should buy you things. How about you and I go out for a drink and we just each pay for our own drinks? Is that really such a novel concept to you? You're that scourge on society that believes other people should spend money on you if they happen to have more of it.
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 5:23PM
King,
With respect, your argument is intellectually dishonest and absurd on its face. Importantly, no one here has advocated taking from the poor in order to give to the rich; indeed, there's nothing about a system in which 1% of the population pays 40% of all federal tax revenue (while nearly half of US adults pay nothing) that suggests that the rich are "taking" from the poor. If 1% of the population paying 40% of the tab strikes you as disprortionately FAVORABLE to the rich, what portion of our federal tax revenue would this 1% have to pay in order to satisfy your notion of a fair and just tax system? 50%? 60%? 70%? On what moral grounds would you base your assessment? And what do you do when the number of individuals who pay nothing exceeds 50%, allowing the takers to continue to vote favors for themselves?
Setting aside the moral argument, what about the practical consequences of a system that disproportionately penalizes the "wealthy"? You've made the argument that increasing taxes would affect the various income brackets in the following ways:
Rich: Daughter might not get car on sweet 16
Middle Class: Daughter might not get private piano lessons.
Poor: Daughter might not get new shoes to wear
May I suggest an alternative hypothesis:
Rich: Less cash for investment and job creation; fewer jobs for middle class and "poor"
Middle Class: Less disposable income (for those who still have jobs), less purchasing power, fewer purchases, creating lower demand for low wage jobs in retail and service sectors, to name a few
Poor: Doesn't matter what the income tax rate is, because without any job, there's no income to tax. Fear not, however, daughter will still have shoes to wear, because those of us still working will be footing the bill (no pun intended).
Get it now?
Ross Kaminsky | 10.13.11 @ 5:27PM
I see you've been reading your Karl Marx.
If there were a flat tax rate, the rich would still pay a lot more than the poor, by definition.
It is not for you or government to make policy based on how little or how much you think a higher tax rate would impact a rich person's lifestyle.
You are a perfect example of those who support what Bastiat called "legalized plunder." After all, the mugger who steals the rich man's wallet also probably isn't impacting the victim's "extravagant lifestyle." But that doesn't make him any less a victim.
In short, the morality behind your view is reprehensible, or perhaps I should say absent.
Al Adab| 10.13.11 @ 6:03PM
Mr. K:
Bastiat, good reference. Wish I had remembered to cite him
Trinacria| 10.13.11 @ 6:13PM
Amen!
Kingofthenet| 10.13.11 @ 7:58PM
Ross, I think you guys are selfish sociopaths, What is the morality of taxing capital gains that ONLY the rich use so low? The Marginal tax rate for the top 10% is at generational lows, how low do you want to go? and where are all these Jobs from the creators? Unemployment is 9.1%. They aren't creating jobs they are pocketing their windfall. How about we go back to marginal rates under your hero...RAYGUN! The roaring 80's, what do you say?
jgo| 10.13.11 @ 8:45PM
"I don't want to give the federal government a national sales tax unless the 16th Amendment were repealed."
I agree. Let's stop lollygagging and get to it. Why haven't you been trumpeting the Liberty Amendment over the last 60 years and more?
However, what the leftists call "progressive taxation" seems extremely regressive to me.
"1% of the population pays 40% of all federal tax revenue"
But what percentage of their gross income do they pay?
Ross Kaminsky | 10.13.11 @ 8:47PM
They pay a higher percentage of their gross income than people who make less than they do.
DRed| 10.13.11 @ 8:53PM
How much higher? Is it significantly different than it is when you just look at federal income tax? If so, why are you harping on federal income tax? Do you think there's no marginal value to increasing wealth?
lunettes | 10.14.11 @ 4:30AM
debate about taxes will be very difficul in europe next year, I'm very interested by the way america deals with it
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