Where is the US economy headed?

I challenge your belief here. More assets do not necessarily at all indicate that the government spends more time protecting those assets. Not at all.

As I have already stated, I am even willing to look at higher marginal tax rates, but don't you think blaming the rich has gotten way out of hand?

I don't know the answer to your question without looking it up, probably during the past 10 years, but I would ask you this, has the portion of taxes paid ever been higher by the rich than it is now, and has the portion of taxes paid by the bottome half of the population ever been lower than during the Bush years? Just who is not paying their fair share? I think I am entirely correct to point out that blaming the rich has been taken way too far.

Federal, though I highly doubt that matters one whit. The answer is still the same.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Federal, though I highly doubt that matters one whit. The answer is still the same.

Cycloptichorn

I'm going to guess that the answer is: Right now. Am I right?

Quote:

I challenge your belief here. More assets do not necessarily at all indicate that the government spends more time protecting those assets. Not at all.

Of course it does, and the fact you can't understand a simple point like this is ridiculous.

Let us say that in order to provide police, fire and other emergency services to a town, a certain amount of money is required per residence (in the form of property taxes) to maintain these services. Just for the sake of simplicity, let us say that it's $100 per residence for everything, all year.

Well, if you are rich and own 8 houses, the city is paying $800 a year in order to properly protect your investments. If you are middle class and own one house, the city pays $100 a year to protect your assets. The person who owns more assets, gets more protection dollars spent on their assets. How hard is this to understand?

Quote:

As I have already stated, I am even willing to look at higher marginal tax rates, but don't you think blaming the rich has gotten way out of hand?

Who said anything about 'blaming them?' I'm not 'blaming them' for anything. I'm merely pointing out that they are paying the lowest levels of taxation historically since WW2 and coincidentally our country's finances are in the shitter. The appropriate thing to do is to revert to higher taxes on them in order to help balance the books - as you've already agreed.

Quote:

I don't know the answer to your question without looking it up, probably during the past 10 years, but I would ask you this, has the portion of taxes paid ever been higher by the rich than it is now, and has the portion of taxes paid by the bottome half of the population ever been lower than during the Bush years? Just who is not paying their fair share? I think I am entirely correct to point out that blaming the rich has been taken way too far.

Are you serious? This is because under Bush, the amount of wealth held by the Rich increased [it]tremendously[/i]. When your tax rates go down and you still end up paying an even higher share of overall taxes, it's indicative that your wealth went UP, not DOWN, Okie.
Cycloptichorn

•The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than their income share.

•Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.

No, not at all, cyclops. You are jumping to conclusion to assume that the city spends more to protect every single house.

In terms of wealth becoming more concentrated, I do not believe at all that it is due to the taxing system.

So while you may think the wealthy arent paying their "fair share" the numbers show otherwise.

Tell me, if you increased the tax on the wealthy, would you be willing to reduce the tax on everyone else?
For every percentage point you increase the tax on the wealthy, would you reduce everyone elses taxes by the same amount?

Well, if you are rich and own 8 houses, the city is paying $800 a year in order to properly protect your investments. If you are middle class and own one house, the city pays $100 a year to protect your assets. The person who owns more assets, gets more protection dollars spent on their assets. How hard is this to understand?

I would say anytime before 2/3/1913

Since you seem to think taxes on the wealthy are low, what do you think the rate should be.
Keeping in mind, federal, state, local, property, sales, and all of the other associated taxes we pay everyday.

It would be anti-American to raise anyone's taxes especially while the country suffers under Obamanomics.

H2O MAN wrote:

It would be anti-American to raise anyone's taxes especially while the country suffers under Obamanomics.

Plus the fact that raising tax rates will only likely hurt the economy and jobs

so that the libs cannot simply calculate all of the new revenue from higher tax rates as an automatic thing that will happen. It is not a straight line equation with only one variable. You multiply x times y, but the magnitude of x also affects the value of y, so they cannot simply plug in a higher value for x and assume y will stay the same. In other words, 4 x 4 is not much better than 3 x 5, if raising the 3 to a 4 causes the 5 to become 4.

Then how come your party is not rushing headlong into raising taxes dramatically, if all of what you say is so obviously true?

okie wrote:


H2O MAN wrote:
It would be anti-American to raise anyone's taxes especially while the country suffers under Obamanomics.

okie wrote:
Plus the fact that raising tax rates will only likely hurt the economy and jobs


Cyclo wrote:
No evidence that this is true. Our economy has done great under higher taxes than this. You continually forward this illogical lie, Okie.

H2O MAN wrote:

It would be anti-American to raise anyone's taxes especially while the country suffers under Obamanomics.

Plus the fact that raising tax rates will only likely hurt the economy and jobs, so that the libs cannot simply calculate all of the new revenue from higher tax rates as an automatic thing that will happen. It is not a straight line equation with only one variable. You multiply x times y, but the magnitude of x also affects the value of y, so they cannot simply plug in a higher value for x and assume y will stay the same. In other words, 4 x 4 is not much better than 3 x 5, if raising the 3 to a 4 causes the 5 to become 4.