Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicTang
Will has some excellent points and I agree with many of his views on the subject. People have to take some responsibility and play by the rules. However, if we can't call a spade a spade and look at the other side here then we're all hypocrites.
The wealthiest 1% of the population has more financial wealth than the bottom 95%. That didn't happen by hard work, superior intellect, or just being born lucky. That happened by gaming the system. And worse, the disparity is growing.
According to a Federal Reserve survey in 2001 the wealthiest 1% owned 39.7 percent of the financial wealth, while the bottom 95 percent owned 32.5 percent.
They did another survey in 2004 which found that the top 1 percent owned 42.2 percent, compared to 31 percent for the bottom 95 percent.
In the 2007 survey data the top 1 percent held 48.4 percent, compared to 20 percent for the bottom 95 percent. For the second straight survey, in fact, the concentration of wealth increased.
Will, you make a show of wanting to metaphorically hang those at the bottom gaming the system to get a free ride, and I agree with you there. But you can't seriously give a pass to all rich people and assume they made it to the top honestly and without trampling on the backs of people with no money and no way to protect their rights or enforce the rules to make it a fair game.
This country is not a free-loving democracy where everyone has the same opportunities. That's the bullshit line they feed everyone and we all buy it because deep down we all hope to get rich one day and live a good life. This country is more and more becoming a plutocracy--rule by the wealthy elite. Bankers, Wall St. types, CEOs of MNCs and the politicians who do their bidding enjoy the fruits of a rigged game while making their money on the backs of everyone else.
Our free market capitalist system is an illusion. The game is fixed and most buy it because they hope that one day they get to sit at the adults' table. Until there's some REAL reform there is no way to call this a free country or a market economy. What we have is a plutocracy.
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I agree there are people in the top that did illegal acts to get there. While I don't agree it's all of them or even a large percentage, I think anyone would be an idiot to not realize that some people did illegal acts to get where they are today. Hell our politicans, as a group, probably fit that category better than any one else.
Those people who did illegal acts should be pointed out and convicted, and hung. I have no more compasion for a person who deals drugs and collects wellfare (and soon to be free health care) than I do a corporate person who did something illegal to get wealthy.
However that may be, disportionitly taxing the hell out of the people who make the most money is not a justified punishment. For one thing if someone "stole" 10 million dollars and had to give 5 million of it up for taxes, is that really punishing them? no. They still +5 million to the good. Now what about all of the other people who actually earned their money legally? They would be the ones suffering for it.
Here is a copy of the US income tax rates for last year:
There is a lot of professionals who make more than $208K or $372K who are getting taxed to hell in the higher brackets. Not to mention business owners, small med and large who make that much or more. The majority of these people worked hard and earned the money legitimately. The rest either came into wealth from an inheritance, won it (lotto) or received it from a lawsuit. Regardless if they worked hard for it or not, they obtained the money legally. In the cases of inheritance chances are the govt took a huge chunk of it, which is another rant for another thread. The taxed money that had already paid taxes on.
If you (a family) make 250K a year, I wouldn't consider you rich, maybe upper middle class. After you pay taxes to social security, medicare, medicade, now more money to cover more people for health care, and then you pay income tax, you don't have a ton of money left over. Then factor in all other living expenses, even more if you have kids, you may live well but you are not rich. Never mind all the other taxes you get hit with:
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)
Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
I think it is terrible that a lot of people have the mentality, well the rich make a lot of money let's let them pay for it.
Just from income tax, here is how it brakes down right now: (my math should be close)
Person making 30K a year pays: $3,600.00 average of 12% of their income goes to income tax.
Person making 250K a year pays: $60,256.00 average of 24% of their income goes to income tax.
If it was fair and everyone paid say 20% the person making 30K would pay 6K and the person making 250K would pay 50K. By nature of making more money, the person making 250K would still pay over 8x more in taxes than the person who made 30K. You think that would be enough... nope. Both people use the roads, school, police department, etc.. the same amount. One person is contributing a lot more to society. He is successful therefore he pays more, but at least it is fair because everyone is taxed equally. Why should the person who makes 250K have to give up 24% of his income to pay taxes when the person making 30K only gives up 12% of his income? And this is just for income. You throw in taxes like this new health care bill, only people making more than 250K will pay for it...
That is the problem with this country. Tax the rich, make them pay for it should be our motto. A lot of people really think it is fair to keep making the rich pay for these things instead of everyone paying for it. There is no valid justification for that. That is just a bandade to the real problems. Instead of holding people accountable and stop giving out hand outs to people who don't deserve or need it, we just robin hood them. Keep throwing money at them, instead of making them responsible and forcing them to contribute to our society instead of bringing it down. The more we tax the rich to throw money at the irresponsible poor and hand feeding them, we are just teaching entire generations of people to be unproductive. They teach their kids to be loosers, they still stay poor and ignorant and the more money taken from the people at the top, especially business owners, the less jobs they can offer and less productivity they can provide to society.
Many of these people will live generation after generation on wellfare or in the projects. For those of your liberal heart bleeders, you are really not helping that person by throwing money at them. You would really be helping them if you made them take responsibilty for their actions, that is the only way these people will ever amount to anything. Taking money from the rich to throw at them because you feel bad is not fixing the problem. Or throwing more money at them so they can go buy more drugs, alcohol, gamble, keep having kids they can't afford, etc...
The problem isn't just with the people on the bottom that is not responsible, but with our own goverment who just prints more money to pay for everything. What kind of message does that send, you can't balance a budget are trillions in debt and you just print more money. Or the bail outs and ceo's who make millions and/or got bonuses for running corporations in the ground and costing us all lots of tax money. I don't like seeing my tax money wasted on anything.
Bottom line is if we don't hold people responsible for their actions then this country is just going to keep getting worst and worst till we become 3rd world country. People need to take personal responsibilty and how is that ever going to happen if we keep letting them off the hook. We keep rewarding them everytime they fuck up and tell them it's ok keep fucking up we can get a lot more tax money (from the rich) to help you.
(note, this is for people who abuse the system, not the people who actually try and need help. If there was less people abusing the system, there would be more money to go to the people who were trying and actually needed it.)