At least everyone can agree that government taxing should be higher than government spending^.
This article is mainly baiting rich v poor division; on a close read it doesn't actually say much.
The real issue is that everything in general has become so complicated that nobody has a hope of understanding how it works. Unless we have accountants on deck today nobody really has a feel for how much the rich pay in taxes (including under the '70%' regime - I bet there was nobody actually paying anywhere near 70%) and nobody has a great feel for how those taxes are being spent. And nobody has a feel for what happens to the money that rich people control and what it actually goes into doing. They aren't hiding it under the mattress, that money is out there causing real outcomes in the real world that go far beyond the rich having nice houses.
The rich could pay 0% taxes if we had confidence that they believed they should invest it all into ordinary people. We could tax at 100% if we had confidence that an enlightened government would spend it with prudence and intelligence. We will do neither because we know both those assumptions are stupid.
Quoting GK Chesterton and observing that politicians are treacherous is not a powerful contribution.
^ EDIT: Thanks neogodless - I mean specific policy for literally right now, to pay down debt.
I'd prefer the government spent the same amount as taxing. Or it does very thoughtful borrowing. (There are arguments about whether a government should have debts, and I don't think that's particularly salient to your point, but I can only assume you want taxes higher than spending to either pay off debt, or save for a rainy day.)
How do the rich think about money and spending? Everything is an investment (or an intentional extravagance to enjoy a little bit of that money.) So there's going to be literal investing (financial vehicles) but also influential investing to ensure things go the way they want. Money at that level doesn't magically translate to power without thoughtful investment.
Anyway, I think we're saying some of the same things. But I don't like the statements saying that we can't examine taxes being paid or spent. We should be working towards that being more transparent - not necessarily that we need to make public the private financial details of everyone (or just the particularly rich), but that there's, at least on the government side, a clear picture of how the various tax policies are being exercised and adhered to.
The '70%' regime was then reinvesting all those profits right back into their businesses to avoid those taxes, which spurred job growth and R&D innovation.
The simple reality is that today's "regime" simply stockpiles that wealth for their own benefit and then gives out a few token amounts to charitable causes and thinks that will stave off the pitchforks when the uprising begin.
Giving money to charity doesn't cleanse your soul of it's moral responsibility to society. As abrasive as it sounds, it may very well be true that if someone is in the position to be giving out millions to charitable foundations that end up making a lot of people fat from managing them, maybe they took too much in the first place.
I don't agree that taxing should be higher than spending. Debt is a powerful tool that every country uses and the US would be lagging behind if not for using debt. The global economy and power struggle is competitive - we'd be tremendously disadvantaged if we didn't use debt.
I was reading economic drivel yesterday that indicated high debt-to-GDP could be making interest payments out of worker productivity increases, which would explain flat buying power (non)growth.
It's still unclear to me how running a huge deficit is not a problem. It doesn't matter, but... how? The natural inclination is that it does.
Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve.
The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely punitive, not productive. Yeah Musk has $billions, he's also creating thousands of jobs (direct & indirect), making the expensive affordable, improving environment, etc - and able to because he's very rich. Even the "mean" rich create jobs & markets etc that gov't can't.
> Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all?
Because the government is democratically elected. Billionaires are not.
> Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead?
[citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, with worse outcomes for the general population.
Why should the average American pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes?
Allowing the rich to choose what organizations and causes are worth supporting is certainly not Democratic. For example, you have private schools getting massive amounts of donations from Alumni, while the local elementary is shutting off water fountains because of lead exposure and they can’t afford to update the plumbing. I also don’t think the kids in the school with books so old they don’t mention 9/11 care about the millions donated to the art museum.
These individuals accumulated their massive wealth by utilizing the infrastructure and economic substrate of our society. So the people who make up that society have a right to decide democratically how some of those resources are allocated. That’s the deal.
Even assuming you are right, there are many more important values than mere efficiency. Governments are the only bodies which can realistically pursue the values and needs of the people in the face of massively powerful multinational corporations. Of course there is always room for improving the effectiveness of government, but the alternative is blind faith that the super-rich know best for us, despite their limited perspective and many well-documented flaws and biases.
"Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve."
Is this actually true? The vast majority of research and innovation is gov't funded. The vast majority of tuition reimbursement and educational spending is gov't. The US Gov't is the biggest employer in the nation of the USA. Medicare, food stamps, disability spending, and social security altogether dwarf any charity that the rich is doing in the US.
What is the rich doing to the public benefit that governments aren't dwarfing them in doing? I'm super baffled here.
Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. The way we accomplish that is through government. Elon Musk is not improving the environment, he's launching cars into space for giggles while mistreating his workers.
You raise an interesting point, and I'd like to follow it further with some numbers across job creation, charity, arts funding, etc, so I can follow things more closely?
Also, how do contributions to these differ across the rich? Are there a couple of 'whales' who keep the numbers high while the other freeload or are they all equally contributing in this efficient manner?
It's also somewhat implicit (correct me if I'm wrong) in your post that government spending and voluntary contributions from the super rich are almost mutually exclusive. To argue devil's advocate, if that's not the case, both can coexist and the overall amount goes up.
One last point, I would like the super rich to be taxed at the same proportion as the middle class. I know wealth isn't linearly distributed but I do expect the relative tax bill to be - would you say that's punitive?
Multimillionaires and billionaires constantly donating to the Harvard endowment while public education--and even other private schools--is certainly overhead free, but far from an efficient use of resources.
2) The amount of tax the super rich pay is way down on the list of issues to be worried about. The top 0.01% (household income above $7.5 million per year, so not even “super rich”) make just 3.3% of all income. Tax them at 25% or 75%—it doesn’t make much of a difference to the Treasury. Taking all of their money would add maybe 3% to total government spending. That wouldn’t pay for Medicare for All. It won’t pay for the Green New Deal. It might just about pay for universal child care and pre-K.
It's probably different in the UK where The Guardian is, but in the USA the bottom 45% of wage earners pay $0 federal income tax while the top 20% pay 87% of it. I'm not sure how much more you should slap on the "evil" job-creating rich before it's "proper", but 87% already seems pretty high to me.
What would you propose, squeeze more water from the stone? The bottom 45% of wage earnes are broke as hell, they hardly have any income to tax. Meanwhile, the top 20% have so much more money that you can raise 87% of income tax revenue even with today's more flattened tax brackets.
Well, 2% of 100 million dollars is more than 30% of $40,000. However, it’s fairly easy to argue that to the earner of that $40,000, that 30% has an impact on their life significantly greater than the millionaire’s 2%.
And, if we set everyone at a flat (for example) 3%, it’s not as if the government would lose money. That additional 1% against all the super-rich would more than cover the missing contributions of those who need the money more.
Too many temporarily embarrassed billionaires in our population to push for this from the bottom, and too many billionaires using their version of lunch money on our politicians to get traction from the top.
This is such a tired take. Is it not possible to just believe that a person shouldn’t HAVE to pay more (percentage-wise) in taxes because they’re successful - while at the same time, be fine with the credits / deductions available to the less fortunate? I can’t be the unicorn here.
This is a problem in the US, and probably other places as well. People know the system is rigged against them but they think they'll be rich one day and want to take advantage of the same system.
I like George Carlin's saying: "They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
Philanthropy, at least in theory, directly benefits people; Taxes don't; We should keep both; The focus of every government must be the well-being of people, and most importantly, setting things so that the people have better opportunities to be the owners of their own lives and being able to care for themselves, returning value to the country and the World. Yes we need money for that, but when people focus on money instead of caring for others, corruption ensues. It is inevitable.
Good luck with the whole killing satan with his own pitchfork thing. All this does is turn those who try into demons; if you can hurt class enemies for being insufficiently good, you can do the same to anyone. And nobody ever accused the proletariat of being excessively possessed of virtue...
This is just a thin veneer over the libido dominandi. "We can't wait to remake society in the image of the blood god, so sacrifices must be made. No, not my kids ha ha"
Extremely wealthy people don't just donate to charity to cherry-pick the social programs they support. They also gain influence over organizations and communities. They promise support to gain favor and threaten withholding to gain influence. People this rich don't need more money, they want more power.
He's also giving thousands of people jobs, making necessities available to millions at low prices, and paying enormous amounts in total taxes. Can gov't really do more with his money than he can? Do you really want to disincentivize what he does for humanity?
You're looking at a single number, his income tax rate.
This is why high tax proponents are never satisfied: we can raise all kinds of rates, but there's always some tax that a "rich" (which is never well defined) person is not paying enough of.
Forget proper taxes: give us a simple, coherent, 21st-century system for taxation that reasonably links what I'm paying to an actual budget, and maybe all of this class-warfare whinging on will sound less laughable.
Paying more than 70% of what you earn is not fair. It is slavery and confiscation.
And it always happens the same way, those in charge, in power, who control this 70% will manage to spend it on themselves one way or another.
In the soviet Union official markets will have stands selling just one potato, or one lemon or egg. Then in the black market the communist families could buy(or access, because with power and influence you don't need money)everything, from good meat, fish...
People that traveled abroad, with public money were the children of the communist... they had access to (imported)TVs, good houses and cars instantly while the rest of the population will wait for years or decades, only to get bullshit TVs, bullshit houses and bullshit cars.
In the UK,and the US with confiscation taxes rich people found ways to not pay taxes at all. It was only a barrier of entry to middle class.
It's only 70% of what you earn on dollars after certain other nominal limits. For example, 70% of what you earn after you've earned your first $1,000,000.00. Please do spare everyone these absurd tears for the "enslaved" rich.
> Er, the United States, an economist sitting next to him replied, where the highest tax rate averaged about 70% from the 1930s to the 1970s, “and those were actually pretty good years for growth”. Rates are nowhere near that now. The supposed populist Trump gave a $1.5tn tax cut mainly to the richest corporations and individuals and the top rate now stands at 37%.
Go ahead and tax the likes of Bill Gates at 70%. You won't get much more than you do now, relatively speaking.
In my opinion, the problem isn't that people hate on Billionaires for philanthropic acts, but increasing wealth gap. In other words - very fact that billionaires exist.
[+] [-] roenxi|6 years ago|reply
This article is mainly baiting rich v poor division; on a close read it doesn't actually say much.
The real issue is that everything in general has become so complicated that nobody has a hope of understanding how it works. Unless we have accountants on deck today nobody really has a feel for how much the rich pay in taxes (including under the '70%' regime - I bet there was nobody actually paying anywhere near 70%) and nobody has a great feel for how those taxes are being spent. And nobody has a feel for what happens to the money that rich people control and what it actually goes into doing. They aren't hiding it under the mattress, that money is out there causing real outcomes in the real world that go far beyond the rich having nice houses.
The rich could pay 0% taxes if we had confidence that they believed they should invest it all into ordinary people. We could tax at 100% if we had confidence that an enlightened government would spend it with prudence and intelligence. We will do neither because we know both those assumptions are stupid.
Quoting GK Chesterton and observing that politicians are treacherous is not a powerful contribution.
^ EDIT: Thanks neogodless - I mean specific policy for literally right now, to pay down debt.
[+] [-] neogodless|6 years ago|reply
How do the rich think about money and spending? Everything is an investment (or an intentional extravagance to enjoy a little bit of that money.) So there's going to be literal investing (financial vehicles) but also influential investing to ensure things go the way they want. Money at that level doesn't magically translate to power without thoughtful investment.
Anyway, I think we're saying some of the same things. But I don't like the statements saying that we can't examine taxes being paid or spent. We should be working towards that being more transparent - not necessarily that we need to make public the private financial details of everyone (or just the particularly rich), but that there's, at least on the government side, a clear picture of how the various tax policies are being exercised and adhered to.
[+] [-] blantonl|6 years ago|reply
The simple reality is that today's "regime" simply stockpiles that wealth for their own benefit and then gives out a few token amounts to charitable causes and thinks that will stave off the pitchforks when the uprising begin.
Giving money to charity doesn't cleanse your soul of it's moral responsibility to society. As abrasive as it sounds, it may very well be true that if someone is in the position to be giving out millions to charitable foundations that end up making a lot of people fat from managing them, maybe they took too much in the first place.
[+] [-] whamlastxmas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snagglegaggle|6 years ago|reply
It's still unclear to me how running a huge deficit is not a problem. It doesn't matter, but... how? The natural inclination is that it does.
[+] [-] ctdonath|6 years ago|reply
The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely punitive, not productive. Yeah Musk has $billions, he's also creating thousands of jobs (direct & indirect), making the expensive affordable, improving environment, etc - and able to because he's very rich. Even the "mean" rich create jobs & markets etc that gov't can't.
[+] [-] AlexandrB|6 years ago|reply
Because the government is democratically elected. Billionaires are not.
> Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead?
[citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, with worse outcomes for the general population.
[+] [-] alphabettsy|6 years ago|reply
Allowing the rich to choose what organizations and causes are worth supporting is certainly not Democratic. For example, you have private schools getting massive amounts of donations from Alumni, while the local elementary is shutting off water fountains because of lead exposure and they can’t afford to update the plumbing. I also don’t think the kids in the school with books so old they don’t mention 9/11 care about the millions donated to the art museum.
[+] [-] xtian|6 years ago|reply
Even assuming you are right, there are many more important values than mere efficiency. Governments are the only bodies which can realistically pursue the values and needs of the people in the face of massively powerful multinational corporations. Of course there is always room for improving the effectiveness of government, but the alternative is blind faith that the super-rich know best for us, despite their limited perspective and many well-documented flaws and biases.
[+] [-] SolaceQuantum|6 years ago|reply
Is this actually true? The vast majority of research and innovation is gov't funded. The vast majority of tuition reimbursement and educational spending is gov't. The US Gov't is the biggest employer in the nation of the USA. Medicare, food stamps, disability spending, and social security altogether dwarf any charity that the rich is doing in the US.
What is the rich doing to the public benefit that governments aren't dwarfing them in doing? I'm super baffled here.
[+] [-] noahth|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnhg|6 years ago|reply
Also, how do contributions to these differ across the rich? Are there a couple of 'whales' who keep the numbers high while the other freeload or are they all equally contributing in this efficient manner?
It's also somewhat implicit (correct me if I'm wrong) in your post that government spending and voluntary contributions from the super rich are almost mutually exclusive. To argue devil's advocate, if that's not the case, both can coexist and the overall amount goes up.
One last point, I would like the super rich to be taxed at the same proportion as the middle class. I know wealth isn't linearly distributed but I do expect the relative tax bill to be - would you say that's punitive?
[+] [-] wycy|6 years ago|reply
Podcast about this specific phenomenon: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-...
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] s9w|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] locopati|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rayiner|6 years ago|reply
1) The bit about the 70% tax rate is wrong. The 70% was on wage income, but other sorts of income was taxed lower, and a lot of income wasn’t taxed at all. https://taxfoundation.org/70-tax-rate-entrepreneurial-income. Actual tax rates on the rich have been highly stable since the 1950s: https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
2) The amount of tax the super rich pay is way down on the list of issues to be worried about. The top 0.01% (household income above $7.5 million per year, so not even “super rich”) make just 3.3% of all income. Tax them at 25% or 75%—it doesn’t make much of a difference to the Treasury. Taking all of their money would add maybe 3% to total government spending. That wouldn’t pay for Medicare for All. It won’t pay for the Green New Deal. It might just about pay for universal child care and pre-K.
[+] [-] geggam|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_Tax_R...
[+] [-] skrowl|6 years ago|reply
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/45-of-americans-pay-no-fed...
[+] [-] DanTheManPR|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcolas|6 years ago|reply
And, if we set everyone at a flat (for example) 3%, it’s not as if the government would lose money. That additional 1% against all the super-rich would more than cover the missing contributions of those who need the money more.
[+] [-] geggam|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_Tax_R...
little note about how much the rich are actually paying here
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-tim...
[+] [-] akhosravian|6 years ago|reply
OTOH the top 400 households in the US paid a lower tax rate than any other group who owed anything last year: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/incom...
[+] [-] lurcio|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcolas|6 years ago|reply
Great concept, won’t ever actually happen.
[+] [-] dwrowe|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mseidl|6 years ago|reply
I like George Carlin's saying: "They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
[+] [-] rafaelvasco|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogus_323423|6 years ago|reply
Lash the sinners into virtue, eh?
Good luck with the whole killing satan with his own pitchfork thing. All this does is turn those who try into demons; if you can hurt class enemies for being insufficiently good, you can do the same to anyone. And nobody ever accused the proletariat of being excessively possessed of virtue...
This is just a thin veneer over the libido dominandi. "We can't wait to remake society in the image of the blood god, so sacrifices must be made. No, not my kids ha ha"
[+] [-] deckar01|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ctdonath|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben509|6 years ago|reply
This is why high tax proponents are never satisfied: we can raise all kinds of rates, but there's always some tax that a "rich" (which is never well defined) person is not paying enough of.
[+] [-] GarrisonPrime|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smitty1e|6 years ago|reply
Back to my fantasizing .
[+] [-] hevi_jos|6 years ago|reply
And it always happens the same way, those in charge, in power, who control this 70% will manage to spend it on themselves one way or another.
In the soviet Union official markets will have stands selling just one potato, or one lemon or egg. Then in the black market the communist families could buy(or access, because with power and influence you don't need money)everything, from good meat, fish...
People that traveled abroad, with public money were the children of the communist... they had access to (imported)TVs, good houses and cars instantly while the rest of the population will wait for years or decades, only to get bullshit TVs, bullshit houses and bullshit cars.
In the UK,and the US with confiscation taxes rich people found ways to not pay taxes at all. It was only a barrier of entry to middle class.
[+] [-] wycy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diegoholiveira|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] signet|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chooseaname|6 years ago|reply
Go ahead and tax the likes of Bill Gates at 70%. You won't get much more than you do now, relatively speaking.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bonoboTP|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiccuphippo|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ctdonath|6 years ago|reply
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