Paul's New Tax Plan

[Free Bird]

Have at it, progressives.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/blow-up-the-tax-code-and-start-over-1434582592

[Free Bird]

Okay. I must ask. What is this forum's hatred of rich people? What is wrong with people making their own money by honest toil and keeping it?

[Free Bird]

Okay. I must ask. What is this forum's hatred of rich people? What is wrong with people making their own money by honest toil and keeping it?

Nobody likes taxes per se.  We all hate paying taxes, but it's necessary.  The government needs a ton of money to operate, provides services and public benefits.  Thus, there's the question, who pays?

Democrats think rich people should pay more for several reasons.

1.  They have more money.  It's impossible to get $1 million in tax revenue from someone who brings in $25k a year.  So, it's necessary to bring in the necessary revenue.

2.  Money means relatively less to rich people.  The difference in happiness and resources between $1 million in assets and $800k in assets is smaller than $2k and $1k.  We should be more worried about the needy than people who have all of their basic needs taken care of several times over.

3.  Rich people hoard money, while poor people spend money and spur consumption because they need to spend almost all of their income to live.

4.  Basic utilitarian principles: The greatest good for the greatest number.  There are more poor and middle class people than rich people.

5.  Society works better with a more equal distribution of wealth.  Just think of it this way, there are talented, potentially productive children of all income levels.  But, wealth is going to distort that.  Talented, hardworking poor kids are going to be handicapped forever by growing up poor, while lazy, untalented rich kids will advance in society.  We'll miss out on the productivity of the poor kids while we suffer through the incompetence of the unfairly rewarded rich kids.

6.  Nobody earns a ton of money on their own, the famous Elizabeth Warren point.  The economy is interdependent.  The CEO relies on the poor workers here and abroad, the infrastructure built by the government, the public services, the schools to train their workers, the court system to enforce their contracts, etc.  We're all in this together.  The Ayn Randian idea that rich people are just better is just a myth created by sociopaths and propagated by the rich and powerful to fool gullible men who flatter themselves to think they'll end up CEO of Exxon someday.

Thanks for not simply snarking this off.

The income tax only brings in $152 billion a year, which could easily be cut if we eliminated unconstitutional programs. A higher rate is a drop in the bucket. I feel an income tax as a whole in unneeded. This is because judging people on net income is too black and white. It is the same mistake Sanders makes. Not all rich people hoard or manipulate money, so taxing them like that is foolish. You can weed out the hoarders by focusing on the capital gains tax, which wouldn't punish the honest rich people. I like what Jesse Ventura said. Why should someone living in a studio apartment with a beat up Volkswagen that makes a million a year pay the same as some guy with 50 sports cars? With a national sales tax, the latter would ACTUALLY be taxed like a rich person. The idea of income redistribution is also foolish. It defies what America was founded on. It causes the rich to get poorer so that the poor can be a little better off, and that is simply divisive. A higher capital gains tax ensures that the rich people who made it honestly are REWARDED, not punished for their success.

[Free Bird]

It's a good thing we don't craft policy around your feelings Free Bird. Also, the personal income tax brings in way, way, way more than $152 million, more like 1.4 trillion dollars, or just under half of all taxes collected by the federal government. You could never raise enough money from capital gains taxes to offset the losses from eliminating the personal income tax. Like, I don't even really know what to say beyond that other than asking if you and I are living in the same universe.

Caught me. I live in Alpha Centauri. I must have looked at a dated statistic.

[Free Bird]

Honestly I don't see how anyone can say that this hurts the poor. The first $50,000 is exempt. And taxes ARE a judgment. It punishes success more or less.

[Free Bird]

Okay. I must ask. What is this forum's hatred of rich people? What is wrong with people making their own money by honest toil and keeping it?

1. Much of the wealth in America is inherited. It's about keeping what Daddy or Grandpa made and living well off it without doing real work while ensuring that most who do the real work endure poverty.

2. The rich have a disproportionate influence upon political life, and they generally look out for their interests at the expense of everyone else.

3. The rich get a rap for supporting economic and political hierarchy at the expense of democracy. On an individual basis such may be untrue, but on the whole it seems true to most of us.

4. We all envy the economic security that the rich have decided is theirs alone as all others are to live under fear as a motivator.


Plutocracy is not freedom.
   

You can deal with all you said with the estate tax and Wolf Pac Amendment