Maybe in some other post. Not this one.

I believe the point here is that wealthy people are paying a shrinking percentage of their incomes in taxes at a time when our government is running chronic budget deficits.

Go ahead–make the spending cuts argument. Just don’t forget to tell us which $400 billion per year you’d like to cut.

Raise that upper tax rate. Then the incentive isn’t giant salaries and bonuses for the owners of the company fueled by downsizing, cutting wages, health care and benefits, and moving jobs overseas.

Also, unemployment percentage is up. It’s just that for the last 20 years the government has grown more adept at hiding it by dictating what and how numbers are compiled.

z_adura, poor people pay a high percentage of their income as property taxes too. Although they are less likely to own a house, you have to figure that property taxes are figured into what they pay as rent.

“The question of “fairness” is (or should be): What is the ratio of your share of income compared to your share of taxes?

If you are paying a higher share of taxes than your share of income, then you are paying MORE than your fair share.”

If so, you need to consider all the taxes that people pay:

1) Capital gains
2) Income taxes
3) Property taxes
4) Sales taxes
5) Sin taxes

The typical poor person pays little to none of the first three categories of taxes but pays disproportionately high levels of the latter two taxes. Now, I know you are going to say that the poor are not entitled to the occasional beer or cigarette to which we are entitled but they use them and therefore pay a proportionately higher amount of their income in these taxes.

The wealthy, by and large, pay as a percentage a relatively small amount in sin and sales taxes. Once you’ve sated your need for single malt scotches and Aston Martins, you put your money away in savings after all.

The really smart ones collect much of their income in the form of capital gains, which have a rate roughly equal to the percentage paid by a poor household on marginal income. They also have charitable donations to foundations that provide employment for their legacy and then make donations to their childrens’ school like McCain did. They also set their income in trusts into perpetuity and use offshore bank accounts and a million other schemes to ensure that they pay the smallest possible amount in taxes.

When taken on balance, the wealthy and the poor distribute proportionately very similar amounts of their income to the government. The poor do it through use taxes and the wealthy through capital gains.

Unfortunately, consumerism has also lead to record highs in consumer debt. Emphasizing consumerism as a matter of fiscal policy is a short term response that can have disastrous consequences when the economy takes a downturn. I think we’re just starting to see the effects of that now.

I don’t think that this is the assumption at all. We all recognize that the government can’t be counted on to always make smart decisions with money. I’ll just throw Iraq out there as an example.

I think the assumption is that the government will make choices that will benefit the widest and greatest number of people in that it has the power, structure and mandate to do just that.

If you believe this is unfair

I don’t — Oliver is the one claiming it is unfair to a group of taxpayers.

So your entire point is that the tax code is more progressive because the super rich are paying more and more money in taxes and the poor are paying less and less?

That’s the definition. Oliver seems to think it is less progressive because he only wants to look at one group of taxpayers.

Apparently that yacht boom you are talking about isn’t stimulating the economy the way you claim it is.

Consumerism does more to stimulate the economy than paying higher taxes. Are you wanting to claim that raising taxes is going to make the economy grow at a faster rate?

Your observation that the share of total taxes paid by the wealthy rises faster than their share of income is simple arithmetic.

If you believe this is unfair, the only remedy is a flat tax.

It’s remarkable because people still try to claim that “pee-ons” pay the taxes for the wealthy.

Not only is it indisputable, it’s also entirely unremarkable. Once again, that’s progressivity of the tax table at work. The marginal tax rate is, in fact steepest at the top of the income ladder.

It will always be so until a flat tax rate is implemented.

if you can’t grasp the meaning of marginal utility and marginal benefit

BTW, I grasp these concepts just fine. It is you who are oversimplifying their application to progressive taxation. (Again, let me state for those with reading problems that I am not criticizing progressive taxation — I have demonstrated that that the federal tax system has become more progressive under Bush.)

Since you haven’t bothered to explain how you are using “marginal utility” wrt taxation, I have to assume that you want to claim that it is fair to tax the rich more since they don’t feel as much financial pain when they lose money to taxes. I don’t disagree on a simplistic level. (I will ignore the futility of trying to determine the marginal utility for different people and their personalities BEFORE they actually make their decisions in the marketplace with their money.)

However, we must also consider the marginal utility of the individual’s dollar for society. Liberals assume that the government will make smarter choices with the wealthy’s money than will the individual. Why should the super rich be able to spend a lot of money on an unneeded luxury when the money could be “better” used to buy food for the poor?

This ignores the impact of the purchasing and investing power of the wealthy. When a rich person buys a yacht, that “frivolous” expenditure pays the salary for the employees at the shipyard, the trucking company, and the dealership. On what basis are you going to say that the marginal utility of a rich man’s last dollar is more valued in the government’s budget than in the purchasing power of the individual?

Until you explain how you think marginal utility somehow negates the fact that the rich currently pay more in taxes than their share of income, then you’re just throwing around a term in an effort to look “enlightened” without making an actual point.

In other words, answer the original question (paraphrased): How much higher does the share of taxes need to be for the rich when compared to their share of income to make everything “fair” given your application of marginal utility?

who would stand up for the downtrodden super rich

Wow, you have a serious reading problem. Nowhere have I suggested that the super rich are suffering. In fact, I explicitly stated their income share has increased and will continue to increase. That is clearly a good thing for the rich.

For those that can actually comprehend what they read, what I have argued is that everyone else is not being treated unfairly by the tax code just because the rich got tax breaks.

The rich still pay more in taxes than their share of income. In fact, that ratio has been increasing (the share of taxes is rising faster than the share of income). That is clearly a good thing for those who are not rich.

That obviously needs pointing out since people in this thread have argued the opposite (like the moron who claimed the “pee-ons” are paying the taxes for the rich).

Seriously JWG, if you can’t grasp the meaning of marginal utility and marginal benefit, there is no sense wasting time with you. Go back to not reading since you find us so ignorant. F-off.

Under Eisenhower…the country’s economy was going like gangbusters.

What history did you study?

Unemployment fluxuated wildly under his administration and went as high as 7% in 1958. He endured three recessions and the Democrats attacked him by repeatedly referring to the “Eisenhower Recession” in 1958. And the tax rates were soooo wonderful that they were cut immediately after his administration by JFK.

That’s not to say that the economy struggled overall during his administration. Growth averaged a slight increase through his two terms. But it wasn’t anything like “gangbusters,” especially if you are going to attack the economy during the Bush years.

You’re delusional if you think any administration is going to take us back to an “Eisenhower tax code.”

all us pee-ons paying their entire tax bill

This is an incredibly stupid statement.

The top 1% pay over 33% of all federal taxes.
The top 10% pay over 50%.
The top 20% pay over 67%.
The bottom 50% pay less than 5% of the share.

Just try to reconcile these.

1) Federal taxes involve more than just income.

2) Tax rates affect financial behavior. Higher rates cause earners to work harder to shelter income and defer/avoid taxes. Higher rates also cause employers to hide more salary as nontaxable benefits; so lower tax rates help to raise reported income.

3) EVERYONE’S tax rates went down. Therefore, just because the top 400 earners had tax rates decrease doesn’t mean their tax share can’t increase compared to others with rates falling at the same time.

Over the same time (1995-2005) that the top 400 average income tax rate dropped from 30 to 18%, the lowest quintile (bottom 20%) dropped from -4.4 to -6.5% and the 2nd quintile dropped from 2.0 to -1.0%.

That means:
top 400 tax rate decreased 40%
bottom quintile decreased 48%
2nd quintile decreased 150%

During every administration the income share of the highest earners has increased. That can’t be said about the share of taxes paid by them. During the Bush administration the share of taxes paid by the top earners has increased faster than their share of income. It is an indisputable fact.

Bring it back. We can tax the rich way higher than we do now, and, just like Ike, do it to make the country and the world a better, safer, more civilized place. The JWG tax policy is turning us into a third-world nation of rich and poor. Bring back the Eisenhower tax code.

Under Bush’s term the rich pay a greater share of taxes compared to their share of income than ever before (their share of taxes has increased more than their share of income).

Exhibit 2:

“Over the same period, however, the average income tax paid by this same group has fallen from 30% to 18%.”

Just try to reconcile these.

Search for JWG for my arguments and numbers. The same arguments hold true today for this thread.

The final few comments by me in the thread sum up the points and show the numbers.

“Under Bush’s term the rich pay a greater share of taxes compared to their share of income than ever before (their share of taxes has increased more than their share of income). Likewise, as you move down to lower quintiles the people pay a lesser share of taxes compared to their share of income.”