No offense but I find it hard to find anything the French are doing that we should emulate in the US.
No, in my opinion,the elimination of having to keep up with special fuels should create less bureaucracy,if you ever paid one of those multi thousand dollar fines for using “dyed” on road,you would probaly understand what I was referring too(would give the DOT more time to check for serious infractions like bad brakes and steering components) dyed fuel has damaged aircraft fuel components before,they already have a system for toll roads and bridges
(I dont need someone sneaking around sticking a test stick in my fuel tank,I have been told by more then one fuel vendor the the only differnce between the fuel grades was,the addition of dye in the same fuel stock(same PPM on the sulfur content)So I dont think its such an enviromental concern as its supposed to be,if we were really worried about sulfur emissions I imagine most powerplants would be shut down
@Mustangman,they have over half the wealth too.I imagine that 38% of 10 million,would be easier to swallow then 10% of 25 thousand yearly earnings,a lot of wealth is created by using infrastructure the "public "has paid for,so its not all out of pocket for the well off.I would sooner have the remaining 6.2 million to try to live on then the,22,500 dollars left for the "blue collar"worker after the gummint gets their share.
Taxman, taxman, don’t tax me
tax that man behind the tree
It’s amazing that people of modest income are still willing to give the filthy rich a pass on taxes…when the taxes that they don’t pay is made up by them. That’s a very very liberal idea.
Let’s go back to when this country was founded…and only businesses and crop producing land owners paid taxes.
@kmccune That infrastructure was paid for by the same 20% who pay the most in federal taxes so they’ve covered the bulk of the cost for all of us to make money. The rest of the cost of roads and bridges we drive on every day is covered by state and local taxes plus gasoline taxes. Those taxes are user taxes; Buy more gas, use the roads more, pay more tax.
As for holding wealth. I haven’t seen anyone make an argument as to why this is a problem except to say “historically, this has never been sustainable.” It appears to me to be simple jealousy.
Yesterday’s wealth was measured in land and piles of rare gold, silver and jewels. Today it isn’t the only measure. Wealth can be created from simply an idea. The richest guy on the planet, Bill Gates, has wealth he’s giving away, created from ideas and 1’s and 0’s. No impoverished person had a meal taken from them because of this. On the contrary, a tool was created to make that impoverished person rich withOUT digging for gold or buying a plot of ground to farm.
Wealthy folks buy planes, yachts, houses, and really nice cars. Lots of cars. Really cool cars that wouldn’t exist without them. Built by folks making a living and sometimes their own fortune off of rich folks buying these toys. And once you get enough wealth, it grows faster than you can spend it (ask Bill Gates about that “problem”).
If someone has a rebuttal link or argument I would welcome it. I would really like to understand the argument against someone getting wealthy.
I think a big problem with the tax code is at least the strong perception of unfairness. It always seems like the tax breaks always go to somebody else. I look at the whole package, Fed, State, Local, + FICA & Medicare, sales taxes, the gov’t takes close to 40% of everything I bring in. And then I hear about guys making 9 figure incomes paying 11%., companies like GE making billion$ in profit and paying $0 in federal taxes (full disclosure: I own stock in GE). I understand about not penalizing the rich for being successful, but the folks in the middle are being punished for working hard. Someone like me applies for a grant to pay for education to go get a better job, “Oh sorry, you make too much money to qualify for that.” Well, if I hadn’t paid 40% to the gov’t maybe I would have too much money. Someone like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, etc. applies for billion$ to cover their own bad bets, “Oh here’s a blank check, fill it out for as much as you like at the full expense of the taxpayers.”
Not sure if I like the idea of taxing road use “per-mile”. It sounds fair on the surface, but then you’ve got the gov’t keeping track of all the miles you drive. It will create another intrusive gov’t bureaucracy. Will the IRS send out auditors to read odometers? Or will the gov’t require everyone to put tracking chips in their vehicles? That’s the problem with taxes now, you’ve got to report every thing you do to the gov’t when you file your income taxes. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind paying a little more if they made it simple enough to understand that I didn’t have to hire someone to translate my own language back to me every year.
What most people seem to forget is that even those who do not drive benefit from roads and bridges. All food and non-food products are transported to get raw materials to producers and finished goods to consumers. It is ironic that government regulations force higher fuel efficiency in vehicles, helping inflate the cost of vehicles, then complain that better fuel efficiency is starving fuel tax revenue right while handing out tax break incentives to migrate to EVs. As the line from the old cartoon where the dog uses an adding machine to calculate why dog doesn’t chase cat who doesn’t chase mouse and ends with a result which the dog declares “It just don’t add up!”
companies like GE making billion$ in profit and paying $0 in federal taxes (full disclosure: I own stock in GE)
Did you not have to pay personal income tax on your percentage of those profits? (dividends)
Did not every shareholder have to pay taxes on their share of that profit?
Why should people who invest in corporations have their earnings double taxed?
There was an article in the paper today talking about the myth of the 1% and really is a political ploy to divide and hate. The upper 20% of income pay 80% of all the income taxes collected. The next 20% pay 13%. So the bottom 60% of earners pay the remaining 7%. Yet from all the political rhetoric you would think it was just the opposite with the bottom 20% paying 80% of the income taxes. And oh please don’t start talking about local sales and real estate taxes and license fees and hotel taxes and so on. I have said for a long time that it is a dangerous thing when so many people do not share the same tax burden but are able to get someone else to foot the bill.
Always be wary of politicians that promise you “free” stuff paid for by “others”. Those "others: always end up being you! Let’s raise corporate taxes! Cool, right?
Not so fast. Everything you buy from those same corporations now have that income tax added in PLUS the cost of their accounts and tax lawyers overhear added in PLUS the extra IRS weenies to collect it. You are now paying $1.25 to get $1 of value to your tax dollars. Plus the profit that the shareholders didn’t get, isn’t taxed and some of those shareholders have now decided the risk isn’t worth the profit margin so they go elsewhere. Maybe overseas. Bad deal for everyone.
Same for money made overseas that stays overseas. Other industrialized nations don’t tax that money coming back since it was already taxed. The US does. Profits made overseas, taxed overseas and returned to the US is taxed again. So businesses keep it overseas rather than have 35% of it taken away by the US government.
Just an example of unintended consequences of a silly tax code. Go to FairTax.com if you’d like to see a tax code that makes more sense, IMHO.
And just to continue on, I don’t at all begrudge folks making a higher minimum wage or getting paid sick days, vacation days, minimum time between shifts, and so on. BUT who pays? When we buy a meal, rent a room or a car, it will be us that pay the higher price to support this. Its not free. The ones that pay for it are us. And I don’t mind paying more. I’ve put my time in at minimum wage. Its just that the way the whole thing is sold is the us against them mentality. 1% vs the 99%, white vs black, singles vs married, conservative vs liberal, business against labor and on and on and on. Oh for a just decent discussion of the issues and a reasonable resolution for a change instead of all the divisiveness.
So isn’t it interesting that after the government puts the guzzler tax on cars and gives a credit for EVs, now it finds that it must find a way to get the money back from the EVs and little cars that aren’t paying enough for the roads? Sounds like all we need to do is eliminate the guzzler tax and eliminate the EV credits. Or maybe its an EV or high mileage tax for those cars getting high mpg. And round and round we go with unintended consequences as we attempt to manage the markets. A new five year plan ye all say? Didn’t work too well for the Politburo.
Well this is labor day and a time to reflect on our heritage and capitalistic system. Hope we don’t ruin it all for our kids kids.
Dont know about that,if you have much,much will required(the rich made it off of somebody)around here the land hogs(usually very well off people get extremely good breaks to hoard the land and let the fields grow up in brairs and weeds,plus getting tax subsidized useless tree species.
The behavour of the well off around here,tends to make me not want to take them too seriously.I’ve heard one class of people complain about the time and cost of their education(which they claim,they would be lucky to recoup) at the same time these people own several new vehicles,hunting camps,horse farms,aircraft,boats,practically any whim.So I tend to compare my situation vs theirs and say “really”?I think the real test on this issue is where you happen to sit at the time,A musician Friend of mine(has a conscience) was engaged to do a gig by some wealthy coal mine owners after playing for them and hanging with and listening to them,His opinion of them hit rock bottom,they asked Him to return and play again(He never went back)So the rich do need to pay their share of taxes(they didnt create wealth out of thin air) and at the same time every bit of the infrastructure benefits them more so then the "commonman"
Think “parity”
A number of ‘rich’ folks made their money by creating things - companies, even industries. Their are more ways to wealth than taking it from others. Somebody owns a factory that employs several hundred people - is that a bad thing?
Just do the math. If you invest ten years and $300,000 in an education, you need to make a lot more in the remaining years just to break even. You also have to consider the lost earnings during those years as part of the cost. While it sounds nice and socialistic for everyone to have equal pay and wealth, it really doesn’t work that way in a free society. The best we offer is equal opportunity to go for the brass ring. The rest is up to you.
Just do the math. If you invest ten years and $300,000 in an education, you need to make a lot more in the remaining years just to break even.
Who the heck goes to college for 10 years? A PHD program is 8. Most who graduate only go for 4. That would be $120k…NOT $300k.
While it sounds nice and socialistic for everyone to have equal pay and wealth, it really doesn't work that way in a free society. The best we offer is equal opportunity to go for the brass ring. The rest is up to you.
That’s the problem. Equal Opportunity is slowly being eroded away.
How did this turn into a discussion dissing wealthy people? I don’t think anyone ever said you can’t be wealthy. Could someone show me the link?
The discussion has been about the wealthy people or businesses paying their fair share of taxes.
Wealthy folks buy planes, yachts, houses, and really nice cars. Lots of cars. Really cool cars that wouldn't exist without them. Built by folks making a living and sometimes their own fortune off of rich folks buying these toys. And once you get enough wealth, it grows faster than you can spend it (ask Bill Gates about that "problem").
Probably would even work it these companies weren’t moving good manufacturing jobs out of the country.
Did you not have to pay personal income tax on your percentage of those profits? (dividends) Did not every shareholder have to pay taxes on their share of that profit? Why should people who invest in corporations have their earnings double taxed?
So you’re saying we should shift the tax burden to individuals. Businesses should be exempt from taxes? Very very very liberal idea.
Somebody owns a factory that employs several hundred people - is that a bad thing?Hear, hear! As somebody who grew up (figuratively and literally) in the shadow of the steel mills, and where half the public assets are named after Carnegie, Mellon, and Frick, I know all about the "bad stuff" wealthy people can do. (And visited the Johnstown Flood memorial this Labor Day weekend, where I got a refresher course.) That said, it isn't innately "evil" to be successful, or to employ many people. Power and wealth are simply neutral attributes that can be utilized morally, immorally, or mixed.
The best we offer is equal opportunity to go for the brass ring.Well, it certainly makes inequality much more palatable, if we assume a meritocracy. I'm not sure I still buy it, though: being born rich seems to give too much of a head start out of the gate...and even then, some mediocre folks achieve positions of power, simply based on ancestry. (Note that to keep this automotive, I'm referring to the Ford family, rather than much more recent and obvious political parallels...)
“Who the heck goes to college for 10 years? A PHD program is 8. Most who graduate only go for 4. That would be $120k…NOT $300k.”
Try med school. My nephew just finished his PhD and it was 7 years after four years of college. He worked it so that he got paid some for research but still its 11 years at a reduced or no income plus expenses. Now my son was another matter. Yes he makes a lot now but it was a long expensive haul some of it paid for by moi.