@jtsanders. I don’t think we are talking about taxing the top 2 percent as a fix number on each individual.
Since the top 2 % own or control more then 50 % of our wealth, including more of that amount above 250k would indeed increase Medicare income. There are 6 people in the same family(Walton).the ones who own Walmart, who have more wealth then the bottom 42% of our entire population…yes, these 42% people pay little or no fed tax but still are responsible for a bulk of entitlement budget from their payroll tax, with little or no help from this family.
dagosa, are you saying the Walton’s pay little or no fed tax, or the bottom 42% pay little or no tax. There seems to be a lot missing in those three…'s
No…I am saying that the Walton family pays little payroll tax as a percent of their total Income, that amount of money dedicated for providing funds for social security and Medicare. My comment was directed to the wealthy who don’t support Medecareand SS at a rate that even approaches what the lower, 42 % pays by way of their payroll tax. Many of the top 2 % avoid these taxes altogether. The comment was with respect to jt and Medicare and social security funding.
Now, if we talk federal income tax, many of the 2% still pay a lower rate then the middle class, which is shrinking and still bares more of the burden for the rest of the budget…while the wages remain stagnant or worse.
Oh man, get me started on the Waltons. They are subsidized dearly in every city they are in. They pay their people squat, don’t allow them to get to full time for benefits, and train them how to get food stamps, medical care, housing assistance, and so on from the governments. The money the Waltons saves goes in their pockets and I’ll guarantee they pay less tax percentage than Mittens. All the while push local businesses out of business because how can you compete? “They didn’t invade our shores but they attacked from within and we were unaware.”
The Waltons are the greatest benefactors of entitlements in this country. Just add the cost of EIC checks, medicaid and food stamps to the prices paid at Walmart. Maybe they aren’t such a bargain after all.
Driving off cleft is a bad idea. Just as using this group to state your political opinion.
I disagree with both accounts. I used the general discussion section. Joe, weren’t you around when this site had a “Rant and Rave” section, it was a lot of fun then. I miss it. Remember, even one of the bros used the general section to express his “political” opinion on raising the gas tax, boy did that one get a lot of responses. So I guess I’m on good ground for that.
I have a lot of other opinions on how badly we are being governed, but for now, I am just saying that going off the fiscal cliff is not only not going to be a disaster, but it will actually be good for the economy overall. The real danger to the economy is going to come a little later, the debt ceiling debate. It will make the fiscal cliff look like a crack in the sidewalk.
I also go back to the “Rant & Rave” era and enjoyed that wide open format. My political persuasion in the mid 90s was much more conservative than today but all in all the posters on car talk then and now voice their opinions in a civilized manner. I enjoy having some insight into the opinions of intelligent people outside my little corner of the woods even when I adamantly disagree.
@dagosa, @Docnick seemed to imply that reducing Medicare and Social Security payouts to people with over $250,000 of income would have a substantial impact on those programs. I don’t believe it. Hardly anyone has that much income in retirement. Elimination those payouts would have almost no impact to those programs.
@jtsanders I agree completely. But that has never been my suggestion. But finding a way to tax more of their income that in many cases for the very rich is taxed as capital gains, would be a huge help. Means testing them, I agree, would help only marginally. Most of the income of the rich, like Romney is NOT subject to payroll tax.
Ben Stein had an interesting misquote this morning on the CBS Morning News. He was quoting Count Oxenstierna whose actual quote was “Thou dost not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed”
How true, but that is another subject.
Yeah I miss Rant and Rave too. I don’t see anything wrong with a couple of threads allowing people to express their ideas and opinions as long as its respectful. I have my opinions but I see both sides and actually like to hear divergent views. We all have the ability to be blindly wrong sometimes. Most times we tend to agree on the town and the restaurant to end up at, its just the road or pathway that is taken to get there that’s a question.
How come we cant have rant and rave now?-Kevin
Allan Greenspan’s loose money dropped interest rates to near ZERO which pushed the 50+ crowd to draw out their savings and CDs to invest in the markets. That move pushed the market much higher and gave the illusion of financial prosperity. We have yet to see the inflation that will result from the liquidity that has been poured into the markets. But it will come.
Rod, what pushed the markets up to false levels was the 401k. Since the 401k’s were managed by stock brokers, many did not offer bond funds or money funds, only stock funds. This funneled huge amounts of money into the stock market and that money had to be used to buy stocks, so the verage price of stocks went up.
Imagine the disaster we would be facing if congress had allowed social security money to also be funded into the market. It would have put off the recession of 2000 to about 2008, but the crash would have been far greater. The DJ would have fallen from 30,000 instead of 13,000, but there are a lot of stock brokers that would have gotten unfathomly richer than they did already.
BTW, under Greenspan, the interest rates were actually pretty high, they dropped after the recession of 2001. A CD in 2000 would pay up to 8%.
But none of this has anything to do with the fiscal cliff.
I agree Rod. We won’t be a solvent nation until the prime is north of 5%, savings accounts can keep up with COLA, and home interest rates are 8 to 9% which makes them legitimate middle class investments they were meant to be. Think of it. How else can you ever save outside of a volatile stock market ?
Lowering interest rates was one of the biggest ploys for the rich in banking and wall street to get more of the middle class’s money. Next, they want our social security payouts and more of our health insurance premiums. But, only the premiums of the healthy. When you get sick, let the govt. take care of you. All of this follows from too low prime rates . Gee, I wonder what AG’s net worth is now that he is out of the lime light ? Let me check.
$10 million…hmmmm. Wonder if being chairman of the fed at a paltry $180k a year can add up to that much. Must have made some pretty shrewd investments while the rest of us were loosing ours.
@dagosa, Alan Greenspan likely took a pay cut to become the chairman of the Federal Reserve. He was president and chairman of an economic advisory firm in NYC for over 30 years prior to the Fed. I imagine he made most of that loot before he became a govie. If that’s not enough, I’m sure he got a bit of extra cash as a board member of 8 large companies.
@jtsanders… To be perfectly realistic, and a tad less naive on my part, I doubt that like Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan took any pay cut as we know it to work in the public sector. The idea of deferred payments, stock options, escrow, trust funds and the like give these guys a lot of shuffle room that you and I will never realize. Some of these guys, never leave a job salery wise, they just add on. Look at Romney and what little we learned about his continual financial growth from the firm he was previous head of. Don’t you think that his public support of 0% tax rate on capital gains affects his previous and future wealth growth ?
Guys like that accumulate wealth while seemingly working elsewhere. Imo, they may still be “working” for a previous employer and never divest in a way you and I would think. That he (Greenspan) now works in an “advisory” capacity for many of these same firms indirectly says it all IMHO.
The sad part about it is, that once in office, the decisions many of them make can continue to add on to their accumulated wealth. They are often bought prior to ever being elected. Not that we can ever be immune from that phenom. in any public serpent (I mean servant), but we should at least be in favor of full public disclosure…We DONOT want public servants making decisions out of personal convenience instead of conviction.
A least in local govt. the board member who votes his contractor business to maintain the town roads is being obvious.
@jtsanders There is a very long list of things to cut back on to reduce the budget. They all add up. However, an overall tax increase is still needed, although closing all the loop holes will get us about half of the revenue shortfall.
If everyone in France or Italy paid the proper amount of tax dictated by the rules, both goverments would collect TWICE as much as the do now! The US is not quite as bad, but it shows the what the result of tight housekeeping can bring in.
I do hope that by “loopholes” you don’t mean deductions. Deductions are another way that taxes are used to control peoples behavior. In the early days of the income tax, deductions were used to stimulate the economy. Deductions for loan interest encourages consumption, especially the mortgage interest that spurs the housing market.
There were/(are?) deductions available to the corporate world for investments that make jobs available. Deductions for charities are an incentive to get people to give to good causes. Deductions for investing in public or municipal bonds provided for schools, parks and libraries.
The problem today is that wealthy donors often get targeted deductions that only benefit themselves, such as a big deduction for owning a 1000 acres in a certain county in Texas for which only one person/family qualifies.
The wealthy now want to eliminate many of these deductions as a way of increasing revenues. Of course they do because most of those won’t affect them. How often does a mega millionaire or billionaire float a mortgage, or any other loan? This is a blatant way of shifting more of the tax burden to the middle class.
We do need to eliminate all those targeted deductions that only a very few privileged get to enjoy. all tax deductions should be reviewed and judged by how much those contribute to the common good, not to the individual good, though many of those overlap and that is OK.
Eliminating deductions is not how we need to avoid the fiscal cliff. Corporate deductions should be limited to those that help the US economy and create jobs in the US. That whole structure needs to be revised so that it is no longer more beneficial to locate corporate offices outside the US or be more beneficial to foreign economies and companies than our own.