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Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 07:43 AM
Soak the rich? Americans say go for it

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/04/democrats-taxes-economy-policy-2020-1144874

Policies once seen as far-left enjoy broad support in polling.

By BEN WHITE 02/04/2019 05:15 AM EST

The prospect of 70 percent tax rates for multimillionaires and special levies on the super-rich draw howls about creeping socialism and warnings of economic disaster in much of Washington.

But polling suggests that when it comes to soaking the rich, the American public is increasingly on board.

Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million — including 54 percent of Republicans.

The numbers suggest the political ground upon which the 2020 presidential campaign will be fought is shifting in dramatic ways, reflecting the rise in inequality in the United States and growing concerns in the electorate about the fairness of the American system.

“There is a deep wellspring in terms of perception of unfairness in the economy that’s been tapped into here that either didn’t exist five years ago or existed and had not had a chance to be expressed,” said Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management who has studied the latest tax proposals. “This is quite a moment in American economic history where all of a sudden in a matter of months this thing has kind of exploded like this.”

Even proposals that sound radical poll well.

A plan from first-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to slap a 70 percent marginal rate on income earned over $10 million clocked in at 59 percent support in a recent Hill/HarrisX poll.

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, conducted Feb. 1-2, found that 61 percent favor a proposal like the “wealth tax” recently laid out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would levy a 2 percent tax on those with a net worth over $50 million and 3 percent on those worth over $1 billion. Just 20 percent opposed the idea. The poll surveyed 1,993 registered voters and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.

It showed 45 percent favored a plan like that laid out by Ocasio-Cortez while 32 percent opposed it.

Democrats are facing some backlash from conservatives, corporate America and moderates like former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz over their embrace of higher tax rates on the rich and corporations. Shultz recently called Warren’s wealth tax “ridiculous.” Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a potential moderate Democratic candidate in 2020, likened it to policies in socialist Venezuela.

But Republicans who think they can use the proposals as a political weapon in 2020 to paint Democrats as wild-eyed, tax-and-spend liberals — a winning strategy since Walter Mondale called for higher taxes in 1984 and got crushed — may find it challenging.

“There is certainly an appetite for more taxes on the rich, though the threshold matters,” said Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “There is also some support for redistributing income.”

Historical trend data from Gallup show that the percentage of people describing their taxes as too high peaked around 1970 at 69 percent when the top marginal rate was around 70 percent, though the effective rate after deductions and other tax-avoidance strategies was much lower.

The numbers mostly began to decline along with the top marginal rates during the Reagan tax-cut era of the 1980s. Last year, 48 percent described their own taxes as “about right” compared with 45 percent who said they were “too high,” helping lay the groundwork for Democratic proposals to raise top marginal rates and institute things like a wealth tax to help pay for big, expensive proposals like a “Green New Deal” or “Medicare for All.“

Some Democrats piling into the 2020 race are now competing to get further to the left on boosting taxes on the rich. After Warren’s wealth tax announcement, likely candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who bucked recent political tradition with calls for tax hikes in his 2016 campaign, unveiled a proposal to increase the number of wealthy Americans subject to the estate tax.

Those who aren’t calling for big new taxes — including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who prefers refundable tax credits — are facing some heat on the left as insufficiently progressive.

In an interview, Warren said polling numbers suggesting fairly wide public support for plans like hers to tax the rich did not come as any shock.

“It’s not surprising to me at all. Washington has been working so long for the billionaire class that people around here cannot imagine crossing them,” she said. “It never even becomes a topic of conversation. The ultra-millionaires have gotten so much from this country that it’s not unreasonable to ask them to give back a little bit.”

She added that she would feel no pressure to tack back to the middle on taxes should she win the Democratic nomination. “That’s just wrong. Why on earth would I do that? It makes no sense. I think I’ve already lost the billionaire vote.”

In 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump tapped into the populist moment by railing against Wall Street and promising to deliver blue-collar manufacturing jobs back to the industrial Midwest. He also has a history with the idea of a wealth tax.

In 1999, while contemplating a presidential bid on the Reform Party ticket, Trump proposed a one-time 14.25 percent tax on those with over $10 million in wealth in order to entirely wipe out the national debt.

"By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90 percent of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan,” Trump said at the time, sounding very much like Warren does today.

Trump has long since abandoned that idea, focusing instead on wedge issues like immigration to target voters concerned about their jobs and wages as well as those worried about demographic changes in the country.

But he may have vulnerability on the tax issue heading into 2020 given his biggest legislative accomplishment as president so far was a $2 trillion tax cut that showered most of its benefits on corporate America while offering much smaller reductions to middle-class taxpayers.

Republicans believe the plan will ultimately lead to consistently faster growth and higher wages. But for now, polls consistently show the tax cut faring poorly. The latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found that 33 percent said the bill helped the economy, 41 percent said it hurt or made no difference and 25 percent said they didn’t know or had no opinion. Also in the poll, 65 percent said the nation was on the wrong track and 56 percent disapproved of Trump’s job as president.

The top issue for voters in the poll was the economy, including taxes, wages, unemployment and spending, with 27 percent citing it as their top concern. Security issues, including the border, came in second at 23 percent.

The idea of making the rich pay more has also caught on in some unlikely corners of the corporate world. “I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said last week. “And I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society.”

Republicans are watching the rising support for dramatically higher taxes on the wealthy with some concern, given their brand for decades has been around slashing taxes and reducing the role of government.

“The wrong approach is to try and argue this from a purely ideological lens,” said Kevin Madden, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and top adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “Arguing it ideologically puts you into a corner where it looks like you are defending the ultra-rich, and that’s just not a good place to be politically right now.”

Madden said Romney suffered on this point. “This is one of the problems we had in 2012, where at times it looked like Mitt was teaching a course on economics,” he said. “If you are going to push back on the idea of all these taxes, you have to have a compelling case for why a punitive approach on one sector of the economy won’t solve the problem of inequality, and then marry that to a comprehensive plan to address the income gap.”

Cembalest said he takes no position on the wisdom of the Warren or Ocasio-Cortez proposals. And he acknowledged the rise of inequality. But he said it’s important to note it’s not true that taxes now are dramatically lower than in the pre-Reagan years when the marginal rate was as high as 94 percent. Using “effective tax rates” calculated by the CBO, he said the percentage of income paid by the top 1 percent of earners right now is not much different than it was in the 1970s.

“It’s a sloppy argument because the marginal rate on the last dollar of income doesn’t take into account deductions,” he said. “You could almost say the top marginal rate is meaningless.”

Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 07:47 AM
Of course, the problem is that "rich" is subjective.

To many of the New Jacobins, I'm "rich".

And the perverse idea of stealing wealth in the name of "equity".

But try explaining that to your average idiot AmeriKunt these days.

They want poverty, tyranny and dependence.

Freedom is not popular.

Let's import another 20 or 30 million more that think the same way...that'll solve the problem.

phill4paul
02-04-2019, 07:51 AM
Of course, the problem is that "rich" is subjective.

To many of the New Jacobins, I'm "rich".

And the perverse idea of stealing wealth in the name of "equity".

But try explaining that to your average idiot AmeriKunt these days.

They want poverty, tyranny and dependence.

Freedom is not popular.

Let's import another 20 or 30 million more that think the same way...that'll solve the problem.

How about we import ONLY those making $500 million or more a year and then ONLY if they give us 90% of it?

Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 07:57 AM
How about we import ONLY those making $500 million or more a year and then ONLY if they give us 90% of it?

When did TheTexan hack phill's account?

phill4paul
02-04-2019, 08:01 AM
When did TheTexan hack phill's account?

:D Well, wouldn't revenue neutral work? For every destitute immigrant brought in they must be matched with an immigrant that can provide twice the national median.

euphemia
02-04-2019, 08:28 AM
Deductions and tax shelters are designed to help the wealthy. Remove them and see the revenue rise.

And make people pay Social Security on all their income. Period. 100% of my income is subject to Social Security taxes. So should Nancy Peloisi’s.

DamianTV
02-04-2019, 09:37 AM
The Federal Reserve when it was still in its Bill form was sold to the public the same way, by telling the public "the bankers hate it" so the people would vote for it.

Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 11:33 AM
The Federal Reserve when it was still in its Bill form was sold to the public the same way, by telling the public "the bankers hate it" so the people would vote for it.

So was the income tax amendment.

Superfluous Man
02-04-2019, 11:55 AM
Deductions and tax shelters are designed to help the wealthy. Remove them and see the revenue rise.


Revenues rising is a bad thing.

Danke
02-04-2019, 12:06 PM
Deductions and tax shelters are designed to help the wealthy. Remove them and see the revenue rise.

And make people pay Social Security on all their income. Period. 100% of my income is subject to Social Security taxes. So should Nancy Peloisi’s.

WTH?

They tax up to $128,000 at 12.4%.

That is $16,000 per year. 40 years of earnings that is $640,000.

SS payout is capped at less than $3000 a month, and that is taxed. So for high income folks, they would only see less than $2000 per month.

Better solution, let people opt out.

Swordsmyth
02-04-2019, 02:32 PM
Deductions and tax shelters are designed to help the wealthy. Remove them and see the revenue rise.

And make people pay Social Security on all their income. Period. 100% of my income is subject to Social Security taxes. So should Nancy Peloisi’s.
Simplify and flatten the income tax and then push rates down until it's gone.

Social Security tax needs to be done away with and the program should be funded out of the general budget until it can be eliminated through a phase-out.

Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 02:51 PM
Revenues rising is a bad thing.

This.

"Revenues" have risen for ten years.

Spending outstrips it every year.

DamianTV
02-04-2019, 05:05 PM
So was the income tax amendment.

It was the same bill, the 16th Amendment.

106459
02-04-2019, 05:25 PM
Yeah. This is one argument that's made me have to think a lot more than I usually have to. The discussion requires a lot more nuance than "government bad, never raise taxes."

Honest question, does anyone here understand the concept of one million dollars? That using the "safe withdrawal rate" of 4%, you're just sitting on an income of $40,000 a year, for doing nothing? That you get 26 consecutive two week vacations, for your entire life? At two million dollars, you're bringing in $80,000, and if the stock market goes apocalyptic & loses 50%, big whoop. Now you're back to the cozy aforementioned $40k.

And then again, there's even more relativity. So, assuming a $100 bill weighs 1 gram, one million dollars is 10,000 grams. 22 pounds. How much does one billion weigh? 22,000 pounds. You try walking away with money weighing the equivalent of a school bus. Or, imagine being able to casually rake in 40 million dollars, for nothing.

So, by that point you have to understand you're talking about the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, and where are you going to draw the line? If we simply decide "the 1% have it too good. Soak them." Well, then anyone reading in America better be ready to ship most of their belongings to Africa. Smartphones that didn't exist a couple decades ago, cars, HVAC, more music and internet content than you could ever listen to. Being in America & having a 0% risk of starving to death puts you very high on the global inequity index.

But, lets keep things local and assume the best case scenario. Assume that the "rich" people (to be defined) have it too good, and "we" need to take their money. Who is "we"? It's the government. Hey lefties -- let's get those taxes brought on in, get Trump a check for a few trillion dollars, figure he'll do a lot of good, eh? Man, we could have a rocking border down south. Ever hear of be careful what you wish for?

But, more seriously, no. Let's assume best case scenario we just pour the money into education (currently, public schools). How will that help? Honestly, go back and think about what 18 years of school taught you. It completely failed me. It teaches you nothing of value. English, instead of teaching you how to write and be articulate, it's just a circle-jerk of Shakespeare and Beowulf. Oh yes, how relevant those 11th century works are (who knows, who cares when they were written).

Funny, you only have to take 3 years of math and science (but four of English and history). Can't say I use algebra or geometry at all. Learning about every other culture's lifestyle and government except my own certainly didn't help, either. Lmfao. It was required to take 1 civics class, and it's a little funny thinking of it now. "You're going to remember, and recite the preamble to the United States Constitution". Really? That's the only important part to study, huh? Nothing else? That's actually laughable to write out, all these geniuses with these grand ideas on how to fix our system and they've never even read how it's supposed to be working in the first place. Pathetic.

So, congratulations. A few people have had some lightbulbs go off and say "Hey - it's not such a good idea for people to have billions of dollars, forever". Great, now come up with a better solution than stealing it and giving it to one of the most diabolical institutions I can currently think of.

That about sums it up, though I forgot to work in a ZeroHedge article that I now can't find. It was talking about the distribution of wealth in America, it showed how it currently was, and let people arrange the bar graph "how they think it should be distributed".

That was pretty laughable. What credentials do they have to determine the ideal wealth distribution? What basis did they possibly have, other than "It looks better than the other graph". And "It's more fair." What does that even mean? Do they have any idea what they're trying to do? It's a deeply philosophical question. If .1% of the population is actually going to account for 90% of humanity's progress, does it make sense to give them 50% of the world's assets? Do we want to concentrate that much influence in the hands of those few individuals? Who knows.

So, I'm open to being enlightened on new ideas to fix problems that exist. Of course, one of the most reasonable ones being killing Social Security so that I can earn & save 12.4% more than what I currently can now. If you earned $40,000 a year, that would give you an extra $4960. Invest that over 43 years, 9% interest, retire with 3.3 million bucks. A multi-millionaire, instead of the peanuts SS won't pay you, because they're already bankrupt.

But, why shrink government when you can grow it. Why focus on solutions that make everyone richer, instead of everyone poorer.

Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 09:03 PM
And then the assholes run like rats from the stinking fucking mess THEY voted for. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/out-of-state-buyers-flock-to-miami-11549325267)

People truly are morons.

If freedom and limited government are ever going to be truly put in place, roughly 80 percent of the population is going to have to be bitch slapped into submission and banned, for life, from voting ever fucking again.

Bunch of feeble minded, window licking retards, the whole fucking lot of them

phill4paul
02-04-2019, 09:23 PM
And then the assholes run like rats from the stinking fucking mess THEY voted for. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/out-of-state-buyers-flock-to-miami-11549325267)
People truly are morons.

If freedom and limited government are ever going to be truly put in place, roughly 80 percent of the population is going to have to be bitch slapped into submission and banned, for life, from voting ever fucking again.

Bunch of feeble minded, window licking retards, the whole fucking lot of them

https://external-preview.redd.it/-A4ZVPuQaK24I_vUh3-FQXWOgujbia46w__BVlvPsv0.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&1bb0fa5c

Well, shit. RPF won't let me link a funny as shit irreverent meme (invalid). What the fuck is this world coming to?

6326

NVM. Found it.

Anti Federalist
02-04-2019, 09:42 PM
https://external-preview.redd.it/-A4ZVPuQaK24I_vUh3-FQXWOgujbia46w__BVlvPsv0.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&1bb0fa5c

Well, shit. RPF won't let me link a funny as shit irreverent meme (invalid). What the fuck is this world coming to?

6326

NVM. Found it.

https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg0JstydL8HCg/giphy.gif

https://media.tenor.com/images/f7354b8c66dcf774a0cd75d1806e0d56/tenor.gif

TheTexan
02-04-2019, 09:49 PM
If we were to tax all of Zuckerberg's net worth, we could pay for cable TV for every household in America for a year.

I say go for it.

TheTexan
02-04-2019, 09:52 PM
How about we import ONLY those making $500 million or more a year and then ONLY if they give us 90% of it?

An immigrant tax wouldn't be a bad idea. Tax non-citizen immigrants at a flat 20k per year, and if they can't pay it they get deported.

Living in this country is a privilege, it shouldn't come free.

Pauls' Revere
02-04-2019, 10:00 PM
Deductions and tax shelters are designed to help the wealthy. Remove them and see the revenue rise.

And make people pay Social Security on all their income. Period. 100% of my income is subject to Social Security taxes. So should Nancy Peloisi’s.

Eliminate all loopholes, make a flat tax. Same rate for people as for corporations. I like Rick Perry's idea of being able to file on a form the size of a postcard.

phill4paul
02-04-2019, 10:01 PM
An immigrant tax wouldn't be a bad idea. Tax non-citizen immigrants at a flat 20k per year, and if they can't pay it they get deported.

Living in this country is a privilege, it shouldn't come free.

Revenue neutral. For every poor, needy, fuck, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me," for everyone of those fucks.....it has to be matched by another that has double the standard U.S. annual income in wealth.

euphemia
02-04-2019, 10:34 PM
Revenues rising is a bad thing.

True, but instead of raising taxes on people who are charged taxes on all their income, remove the shelters for the wealthy. That’s who they were designed for.

Nobody is going to slash government to the point that present revenues will pay the commitment. We are at a saturation point. Remove the shelters.

euphemia
02-04-2019, 10:35 PM
Eliminate all loopholes, make a flat tax. Same rate for people as for corporations. I like Rick Perry's idea of being able to file on a form the size of a postcard.


Phil Gramm ran for president on this plan.

oyarde
02-04-2019, 10:40 PM
Do what you like . Everyone is on notice from me . I will not be paying taxes . I will not be sharing my wealth .

Pauls' Revere
02-05-2019, 11:41 PM
Phil Gramm ran for president on this plan.

When the hell was that? I must've been asleep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm

Gramm sought the presidential nomination in the 1996 Republican primaries but dropped out after the first set of primaries. Gramm retired from Congress in 2002. He became a lobbyist for UBS and founded a public policy and lobbying firm, Gramm Partners.[1] He was a senior economic adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Yep, I wasn't "woke" then.

DamianTV
02-06-2019, 03:10 AM
And then the assholes run like rats from the stinking fucking mess THEY voted for. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/out-of-state-buyers-flock-to-miami-11549325267)

People truly are morons.

If freedom and limited government are ever going to be truly put in place, roughly 80 percent of the population is going to have to be bitch slapped into submission and banned, for life, from voting ever fucking again.

Bunch of feeble minded, window licking retards, the whole fucking lot of them

Most people are total fucking morons, and it wasnt any different back in the 1700's either. Thats why the Founding Fathers created a Republic with Representatives. No Taxation without Representation. And therein lies the problem. No one in government truly represents the people. Then when people vote, because so many are fucking morons, they only vote on things that will benefit them directly and will do ZERO research in how a vote could negatively affect others, thus, they are very quick to vote away the freedoms of others.

Anti Federalist
02-06-2019, 11:28 AM
Ren and Stimpy


https://youtu.be/HpQPDW48uHQ

Pinky and The Brain

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.x2Be-CPbzaY4gsV6aCZTUAHaFx&pid=Api

euphemia
02-06-2019, 11:34 AM
When the hell was that? I must've been asleep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm

Gramm sought the presidential nomination in the 1996 Republican primaries but dropped out after the first set of primaries. Gramm retired from Congress in 2002. He became a lobbyist for UBS and founded a public policy and lobbying firm, Gramm Partners.[1] He was a senior economic adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Yep, I wasn't "woke" then.

There you go. He campaigned a lot, and this was his major issue. Of course it was clear that GHWB was going to win, Gramm couldn’t raise enough money, and he dropped out.

I’m sure there are a lot of people (think pro athletes) who have no idea how much they pay in tax. Writing a check every month would make it clear to all how much they pay.

Pauls' Revere
02-06-2019, 10:15 PM
Phil Gramm ran for president on this plan.

Are you saying I should run for office? ;)