Is Hillary Clinton Right That The Rich Don’t Pay Their “Fair Share” of Taxes?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that “the rich are not paying their fair share” of taxes in the United States and other developed countries. Is she right? It depends on what you consider fair. Using 2006 data, The New York Times found that the richest 20 percent of households were paying 26 percent of their income to the federal government in the form of income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes. The average for all familes? 21 percent. And there’s this: “In 2006, the top quintile of households earned 55.7 percent of pretax income and paid 69.3 percent of federal taxes, while the top 1 percent of households earned 18.8 percent of income and paid 28.3 percent of taxes.” Paying in a lot more than you get out? That doesn’t seem fair. The rich are different than you and me; they’ve got more money. And they pay more taxes. Politicians are different too–they rarely say what they really mean. Perhaps what Secretary Clinton means is that the rich can always pay more than they’re already paying. That would explain why she and the president are lobbying to let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, a policy that would raise all sorts of taxes on all sorts of people. Which doesn’t sound all that fair either. Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie. Go to reason.com for documentation and graphs.
@bullpcp My reliegious viewpoint was brought in by your “will to power” approach to other people and children employed at slave labor rates of pay, time, and conditions. This Nietzchean “will to power” seems to underlie your arguments over foreign workers maltreatment caused by ex-patriot Americans oozing with blood money who left the American workers behind.
To conclude: just think Labor Laws.
Interesting fact about what happens when you target the “rich” with taxes, the Federal Gov’t taxed long distance phone calls to pay for the Spanish American War. ( 1898) because at the time only RICH people had phones, of course the Feds forgot to rescind the tax, and EVERYONE paid that tax until 2006 when it was finally repealed.
@brokkenstar I could care less about Nietzchean “will to power”, “God is dead”, or the “Nietzchean superman” theological philosophical claptrap. I don’t care about religion or philosophy when it purposely diverges from reality. And paying people multiple times the average wage in other countries is hardly slave labor rates. These slave labor rates allow many to get some form of education and the conditions in most factories are far better than a dirt floor in a mud hut. You need to gain con
@brokkenstar cont… You need to gain some perspective on reality. If you would have forced people in the united states to not use child labor 200 years ago you would have caused starvation. I’m not making a philosophical argument at all I’m making a logical argument based on the facts set in REALITY. The options are to end child labor and deprive people of a considerably better option than they had before or to allow them the chance to industrialize so they don’t need child labor to survive.
@brokkenstar Honestly I would love for these countries to be productive enough that they wouldn’t need child labor but, and this is the big one, they simply aren’t productive enough.
@brokkenstar Say there was a super wealthy nation were the average worker made the equivalent of $1 million a year with almost unlimited benefits and worked in luxury accommodations and wanted to open a plant in the united states. The plants would pay three times average wages or over $120,000/year with incredible benefits but protesters of the super wealthy nation said no because these US plants wouldn’t pay enough, have good enough benefits, or have nice enough accommodations. continued…
@brokkenstar The people in the super wealthy nation wouldn’t have done anyone in the united states any favors by shutting down the plants. These protesters would have harmed us because they lacked perspective. This is what you’re doing by shutting down sweatshops in other nations. You are comparing the wages and working conditions of one of the wealthiest nations on the planet with with those of “sweatshops” and deemed them not good enough while they compare them to barely subsistence farming.
@SteamboatCamp First of all you are completely wrong about the 60%-90% but even if you weren’t so what. You are already paying the same amount in productivity taxes. And yes if the government bought end of point sales items they would pay taxes and it would have a geometric progression not unlike the feds required bank reserve rate on the money supply. But AGAIN even if it did take a sales tax of 60%-90% to pay the SAME taxes you are paying now SO WHAT? Maybe you comparing income to sales tax
@SteamboatCamp You need to heed your own advice and check out this thing called math because you must be confused by simple arithmetical or geometric progression or basic algebraic equivalencies. Again even if you were correct about the 60%-90%, and you are NOT, that would be how much you are currently paying now anyway. A 100% sales tax would be the equivalent of a 50% income tax which is approximately what we pay now when all things are considered.
@SteamboatCamp If I make $100 and pay %50 to income tax I have $50 to spend without a sales tax I simply spend the $50. If I make $100 and pay no income tax I have $100 and with a %100 sales tax I would be able to purchase $50 worth of goods and services. Thus 50% production tax is the equivalent of 100% consumption tax in this case. If you need me to explain geometric compounding I could do that also but I’m beginning to feel sorry for you, like I’m picking on you.
@SteamboatCamp They used the 23% number to directly compare with production taxes specifically to avoid the type of confusion you seem to a victim of. 23% income tax is NOT the equivalent 23% sales tax. It would instead be approximately a 29.87% or round off to about 30%. But again what difference does it make? It’s the same taxes all in one place so you can see how much you are paying the government. If you are angry about the high taxes don’t blame FT blame government spending.
@bullpcp nonsense idiot, they used 23% to fool your dumb fucking ass. Got that.
They may as well tax moonbeams and your farts dumb fuck, as to tax the government and the poor. Got that retard? They PRETEND they will make the government the BIGGEST TAXPAYER. Did you know that you fucking retard/
They KNOW that’s fucking insane, but that’s how the got 23% — its pure fucking nonsense.
Bull what part of this don’t you fucking grasp? NO one is trying to pass this piece of shit. NO ONE. Fairtax leaders have run like pussies from any hearing under oath. They fucking know it’s totally insane.
With NO ONE even willing to have a hearing under oath, how the fuck do you think it will ever even get to committee? Much less pass, moron./
bull — wrong — the FT llunatic BS is that it wont cost ANYTHING. Prices will FALL almost exactly as much as the tax will INCREASE. Did you know that? IN effect, dumb fuck — a free lunch. Read the fucking book. Boortz calls it “a wash”. Prices fall, the tax replaces that. Its fucking bat shit crazy you dumb fuck – -and they know it.
@SteamboatCamp As a single entity the Government is the biggest employer and the the biggest payer of taxes NOW did you know that. That’s right it’s the current state of affairs. Welcome to reality
@SteamboatCamp You aren’t the sharpest spoon in the drawer are you? I was comparing the taxation of production to that of consumption and YOU are the one to bring up FT. And since when did the political viability of a policy have anything to do with it’s ethicacy or effectiveness. I wish I lived in a world were it mattered but it doesn’t. A good idea is a good idea regardless of it’s political viability.
@SteamboatCamp Actually you are correct in that some people who support the FT do believe that prices would fall due to increased efficiency or reduced compliance costs enough to counteract the increase due to the sales tax, I’m not one. Increases in productivity and efficiency do give you the equivalent of a “free lunch” this is why we work less and get more today than 100 years ago. Compliance costs already cost many billions of dollars a year for both the income and business taxes.
@SteamboatCamp You never even addressed the real issue of the differences between taxing productivity versus consumption or that if the federal government gets $3+ trillion in taxes and it costs 50% in productivity taxes why it should anger you so much to shift it to a single 60%-90%-100% because even if you assume the same exact efficiency in all tax systems, an incredibly ignorant assumption on your part, you would still have the same tax burden but without the disincentives to produce.
@SteamboatCamp I’m beginning to like you. You are like belligerent foul mouthed Dr. Watson. Continually wrong but you do give others the opportunity to logically dissect all you errors. You are my praxiological aid.
@SteamboatCamp BTW I don’t particularly like the FT that is why I didn’t bring reference it as a good example of a consumption tax, YOU did that, but your critiques have been terrible and superficial. If you want a some good logical critiques try reading some of these:
mises.org/daily/2961
mises.org/daily/2327
mises.org/daily/1975
mises.org/daily/1814
@evensgrey
I think you’re onto something.
@bullpcp Are you fucking insane? I pointed out that FT is a pile of shit – that it’s own leaders don’t dare have hearings on it, that it’s based on layers of absurdities, and that their leaders fucking KNOW it. How the FUCK can that by “superficial” you fucking moron. How fucking stupid can you get without pulling shit out of your brain? Now, I may be wrong on that (Im not) but it sure as FUCK is not superficial you fucking idiot.
@elsquibbs Also keep in mind that she and Bill were the only investors in the Whitewater deal who didn’t spend time in prison over it. Now, they’re BOTH lawyers, and Hillary is giving every appearance of being some kind of investment wizard, and anyone in their right mind is supposed to believe that neither of them noticed that EVERYONE else involved was committing financial crimes? (Bill’s successor as Governor went directly from the Gubernatorial mansion to prison, for criminy sake.)
@bullpcp Don’t forget, in the US you can deduct the current sales taxes from the current income taxes. Annoying to keep all the records for, yes, but it does mean you only pay the greater of the two. Here in Canada, you get taxed earning AND spending.
@bullpcp Simply put, ‘do unto others as we would have them do unto us’, in respects to outsourcing, black Americans depended on manufacturing jobs, since by the time they were freed the monopoly board was all bought up. Outsourcing these jobs, when for 200 years we didn’t allow them to be educated or married, keeps them down. Only token few have overcome such obstacles, our prisons are full of the casualties of outsourcing.