Still Hating America.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I'm really responding to sidd but I can't be bothered to find the post you quote: the problem isn't that rich Dems just send their kids to private schools- the problem is you do so AND support fucked up and failed policies and teachers AND block things like vouchers that prevent less wealthy people from getting their kids out of the fucked up schools your policies created. But sleep tight. All is well!!!

And yet, you have to admire how we've managed to keep such a strong long on policies even after so many years.

Maybe six years of complete Republican control of the federal government wasn't enough. I'm sure you can point to some nice Red states, maybe in the Deep South, where the public school system is truly the envy of the world.

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
So, in what line item do you place the money the rich paid into the SS system during their lives?

You don't. It was spent years ago.

I've maxed it for a long time. Is that money just a gift to someone?

No. It was a tax. The revenues it raised were spent on someone else's benefit (or in the general fund) each year that you paid in.

I just think its amusing when someone tells me its not mine, and that I shouldn't be entitled to what would never have existed but for my efforts.

In no sense is it yours. Nothing exist that wouldn't have existed. It is all gone. Every penny of it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Adder
Money is not taxed. Persons are taxed.

That's probably the best admission of the warped thinking of the progressive tax mindset to come out of this argument.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
That is not a subsidy at all. You're conflating the govt's tax revenues with the non-wealthy's bank accounts.

Um -- as long as government is spending money, someone has to pay it.* When it takes less from rich people, it needs to take more from poor people. Now, or later.



*Since Spanky is apparently on holiday, I won't deal with the "no, we can borrow and never pay it back!" argument. You're drunk, not stoned or tripping -- right?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
And yet, you have to admire how we've managed to keep such a strong long on policies even after so many years.

Maybe six years of complete Republican control of the federal government wasn't enough. I'm sure you can point to some nice Red states, maybe in the Deep South, where the public school system is truly the envy of the world.

Schools can't be fixed by the Feds, they can be fucked up by the Feds, but not fixed.

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
That's probably the best admission of the warped thinking of the progressive tax mindset to come out of this argument.

you can call it warped, but it is merely a description of the system. And, because I wasn't reading carefuly, it was also wrong as we were specifically talking about captial gains and not dividends, but whatever.

As wonk has said, there is no argument that capital gains have been taxed twice. That is why I got confused.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Adder
You don't. It was spent years ago.

No. It was a tax. The revenues it raised were spent on someone else's benefit (or in the general fund) each year that you paid in.

In no sense is it yours. Nothing exist that wouldn't have existed. It is all gone. Every penny of it.

I think we're in agreement on this. That is how SS works. Now if they'd just admit it.

But they can't because then everyone would freak out because suddenly all of our tax rates would jump.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I presume the rich people getting SS today paid in when they were working. What you're saying is rich people should pay the tax but not get anything back later. That's what you an NB mean would need to occur for SS not to be "taking money from the poor to give the rich?"

Am I the only one who sees this as pointing to the lack of any reason to go on here?

Absolutely not. I specifically said that some of the programs were good ideas. I just think that it is exceptionally disingenuous to suggest that the rich receive no benefits at the expense of the poor. (And I am a fan of social security as it is -- I don't think that we should means-test, and think that any changes in retirement age or cap level need to be *very* carefully thought out.)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
The dividend and cap gains cut ended up putting nearly a Trillion dollars of immediate liquidity back in the Capital Markets.

Thank God. Someone had to fund the Bush deficits. We can't let China have all the fun.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
when he was running his handlers made him diet, which changed his personality greatly. now he can eat all the Amazon-raised beef that Mickey D's can throw out the drive through, so he is more relaxed. Anyone know if he buys green vouchers for all the rainforest acres his fat ass has caused to be turned into grazing land?

FYI, if you're interested in offsetting your own emissions: http://www.drivinggreen.com/

According to their calculator, my '99 2WD Explorer at 10,000 miles a year emits 11,000 pounds of greenhouse gasses a year.

I think that programs like the above make sense for someone like me. I find the SUV I drive to be extremely useful and don't really see the economic benefit in buying a much more expensive yet fuel efficient car. I also recognize that I could be harming the environment, and an offset program makes sense until whenever I get around to buying a new, more fuel efficient car.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Sit down with a tax person who still has the patience to explain this to you, yet again, and ask them to refresh your vodka-soaked memory on something called "basis." That's the part of the capital investment that's already been taxed.

Then, if you're really in a lucid moment, you can ask em how to justify taxing the carried interest the promoters of private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund managers as capital gains. That's money they never had before, and it's really just the return on their labor, but it's taxed at 15%.

Unfair? Right.

Gee, hossss... thanks. I weren't aware of them arguments.

It's not a return on your labor. It's an acccrual of income on the already taxed return on your labor. In the case of the average person who works and has investments, it's making up the amount of your intial income lost to taxes.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by taxwonk
BTW, you're talking out your ass. His salary, a minor portion of his annual income, is taxed at the highest margnial rate. His dividends and capital gains are taxed at 15%. I think they should be taxed at the same rate as any other form of income. Income is income. It should be taxed as such.

Under that theory, it should be taxed at the difference between the corporate tax rate and the individual tax rate. The income has already been taxed at the corporate level, right?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Schools can't be fixed by the Feds, they can be fucked up by the Feds, but not fixed.

So six years of glorious and complete Republican control should have freed up those red states, happily free of limousine liberals like me, to do wonderful things. Have you found some examples yet?

Or did you not manage to read the second paragraph of the post you were responding to?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Um -- as long as government is spending money, someone has to pay it.* When it takes less from rich people, it needs to take more from poor people. Now, or later.



*Since Spanky is apparently on holiday, I won't deal with the "no, we can borrow and never pay it back!" argument. You're drunk, not stoned or tripping -- right?

That is ass backward. You're fixing the revenue target when you ought to be instead fixing the revenue stream. This gets to the heart of the starving the beast approach... We continually set the budget and then decide who pays what to meet its needs. Suppose we did the reverse. Suppose we initiated legislation that set an across the board decrease - the poor getting a tax break of some sort equal to that the rich are suggested to be receiving via the cap gains rate. And suppose we set it lockstep - that if one level of taxpayer receives a benefit, all levels must receive a benefit. The rich would naturally lobby for breaks at the top, creating breaks at the bottom. Everyone would get a break except the govt, which would be forced to subsist on less. Seems totally fair - everyone is treated equally (in theory - somebody'd figure out hot to game it to his benefit in some way, but lets assume that distortion were de minimus).

But then, wouldn't this kind of resemble a soft form of a flat tax system?

Conceptually, we have to get past the idea of thinking of govt as a fixed expense to be met, and start thinking about it as something we pay for acccording to what we can afford. That's the real problem with a lot of Democrats, and our current crop of Liberal "Republicans." They set the services, then go get the money to pay for them. We ought to do the reverse.

You wouldn't walk into a store and buy something without knowing how much was in your bank acccount. Why should the govt.

I know... I know... "Oh, Sebby... that's so simple minded. You have no understanding of how the govt works." Actually, I do. And that it works so damned badly but appears intractable in that regard doesn't mean we should just accept its continual failure. A good idea's worth throwing out there to see if it can get any traction toward effecting a necessary change. Otherwise, we're headed for a borrowing binge in the next 30 years that'll make Spanky blush.

ETA: Don't respond with "our budget is based upon revenue expectations based on previous years."

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by LessinSF
Are you suggesting that those who pay a 36% or 39% rate are poor?

No. All I'm saying is that the bulk of the Bush tax cuts were subsidies for the rich. That's what I have been disagreeing with all along.