"tax the rich, and they will leave"...not really

I'm a big proponent of taxing the rich. Like "50% for everything over $1 million" tax. From WWII till Raygun, taxes on the rich were over 60%. Know what we got for that? The moon. Literally. The gov had enough money to go to the moon. We also had wages that went up for the middle class. Company pensions. A debt to gdp ratio that decreased. Since Raygun cut taxes on the rich we have none of that. Wages stagnant. Fend for yourself retirement. Ever increasing debt (Raygan up 186%, Bush the 2nd up 100%, Obama up 80%).

"But if you tax the rich their fair share, they will leave!"

Not true.

Here's how I know. They could leave now! When you have enough money to spend over a million dollars a year for the rest of your life, and still have money left over, you really don't care about taxes. Taxes annoy you, but don't really effect you (unless you cheat on them). Paying your taxes out your check won't mean the difference between keeping the lights on and your belly full, like it will for over 50% of Americans. For example, at $8 an hour and 40 hrs you make $320 a week. After ss and medicare you take home $267.80, or a little over $1000 a month. Now pay rent, food, electric and see how much you have?

("Get an education so you can get a better job!" How? You work all the time to keep the lights on, and one semester for one class in Florida is $337, plus $100 for the book. Even if it was free via Pell grant, you still wouldnt be able to do more than 3 classes if you want to pass with a high grade and work all the time. A typical A.A. is 67 credits and a typical class is 3 credits, so thats 22 classes. At 3 classes a semester, or 9 hrs, thats almost 4 yrs to get a 2 year degree, which gets you nothing in this job market.)

Sorry for the digression. I felt like Stephen King for a moment.

Wanna know another way I know the rich won't leave if taxes are high? Sean Hannity. He's worth over $80 million. He's 54. He says he pays over 63% in taxes a year; cause he works in New York and lives in the 2nd highest home tax county in the country. He still works. Twice a day. He could spend $2 million dollars a year, and still have money left over when he dies. So why work? Why pay the taxes? Because he wants too! Not only that, but even at 63% he takes home the yearly wage of more than 20 median American families.

The rich work because they want to work. Not like the rest of us that work because we have too. I don't know a single person that would work if they had $50 million. They would open a store or bar and hire a good manager to oversee it, showing up to work just to get out the house and have something to fret over.

The rich work, regardless of the tax rate. We should exploit that, just like they exploit us, by paying us low wages, and raise their taxes to pay for the stuff we, the poor, need like medical care and public transportation.

Now for you "going Galt" people (yes, I've read "Atlas Shrugged") show me one rich person that gave up and left due to taxes to live off their vast fortunes.

a reply to: stormson

show me one rich person that gave up and left due to taxes to live off their vast fortunes.

Outsourcing for tax purposes.. Offshore tax havens.. Swiss bank accounts.

You don't have to physically leave the country to avoid paying your fair share. The more money you have, the easier it is.

They won't leave but their bank accounts will soon leave.

a reply to: stormson

Of course they won't because with wealth you can choose exactly where you want to live in the first place which is why they are living where they are living.

How many would seriously buy some tropical island and up sticks and move there? Hardly any because there wouldn't be the sycophants and others to worship them and scurry around after them there in the droves they are use to.

Also If you enjoy a lavish lifestyle where would the restaurants, theatre, ballet and whatever else floats the boat be - you have to live nearby. Even airports for your private jet are getting clogged up so its a useless threat which too many swallow.

Tax people fairly and don't let friends of Oinky Cameron and his ilk get away from paying their taxes and also those corporates like Google. etc. If they paid what they were due to the tax till for the ordinary workers would be far lower and people could afford to regenerate our economy.

originally posted by: stormson

Now for you "going Galt" people (yes, I've read "Atlas Shrugged") show me one rich person that gave up and left due to taxes to live off their vast fortunes.

Gérard Depardieu

Welcome.

a reply to: stormson

Tax the rich, and they will leave !!

Tax the rich, and they have no incentive to work !!

Very common cries from the rich and their advocates in the media.

These people are like the rest of us, they have to live somewhere. Unless they created their own private country then they are subject to the laws, taxes and obligations that go with all citzens in all countries so that would not change in which ever country they went to.

However they are very mobile and never have trouble moving from country to country so that may leave their country of birth and they may more the headquraters of their corproation, but hay, we cant win them all.


Tax the rich, and they have no incentive to work !! ABSOLUTEcrap, money has long ceased to be an incentive for them to work, its greed for money, power, influence and access which they crave and this craving is what drives them on. Their tax rate does not come into it all, once they get rich.

How much is rich? I'll leave that to you to decide.

Lets make the rich pay their fair share of tax by taxing their share trades at say, 15%. Such a rate may even balance the budget. Yes I know, I know, the working mums and dads buy shares too but the 80-20 rule applies. This rule says 20% of the population buys 80% of the shares that are brought and sold each day.

How can the stock market serve an important economic function if its not taxed but the rest of the economy is taxed? This kind of aberration or anomaly in the economy is what puts the economy out of whack.

None of that is going to happen as long republicans are the majority in congress. They just today tried to repeal obamacare, again for ??????times. That is the level of intelligence running the country.

a reply to: MOMof3

If by that you mean Obama who has ignored what is clearly what the people want ... then I'd agree. It is the people who elected Congress who keeps passing the repeal orders and Obama who keeps defying Congress with vetos at this point. So who is actually being obstructionist?

If you try to confiscate 90% of what people have they will leave. That they aren't gone at the moment only means they have the means to keep that from happening under current law, not that they don't care.

a reply to: stormson

"The social organs are constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social laboratories, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their inflationary or monopolizing banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and their equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun — reject all systems, and try of liberty — liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work"

-Frédéric Bastiat

Thats why you gotta eat them, I thought we all knew this, I thought this was the plan.

a reply to: Lysergic

I taste delicious.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus


I hopes its old money
Smothered in bordelaise....

a reply to: Lysergic



Feel free to raid my wine cellar for a bottle of Rothschild.

originally posted by: MOMof3
None of that is going to happen as long republicans are the majority in congress. They just today tried to repeal obamacare, again for ??????times. That is the level of intelligence running the country.

The Democrats have had majorities along with presidents in the past.

Where did they fail?

originally posted by: xuenchen

originally posted by: MOMof3
None of that is going to happen as long republicans are the majority in congress. They just today tried to repeal obamacare, again for ??????times. That is the level of intelligence running the country.

The Democrats have had majorities along with presidents in the past.

Where did they fail?

That was 6 years ago. It was still Bush's fault then.

a reply to: ketsuko
If it is repealed I won't be able to get insurance like before because of pre existing conditions. So how do you speak for me?

a reply to: ketsuko
"What the people want?"

Obamacare is currently at this very moment saving my child's life. Literally. As in hospital.

Perhaps if your life experience were different you wouldn't hate it so much and see how it is actually helping people. Or not. I don't know.

Please just don't assume that the Republicans speak for "the people" with their "Repeal and um...yeah! Then we will...um...?? Just...REPEAL!!!"

I'm sorry ketsuko, but you are speaking to one very stressed out parent who is particularly grateful to have the insurance we do right now.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

If it is repealed I won't be able to get insurance like before because of pre existing conditions. So how do you speak for me?

They will open pre-existing conditions to Medicare.

That's all they had to do in the first place.

A law for that would have been one page instead of 900.

The "Public Option" (killed by Democrats btw) will be resurrected.

The details and restrictions would have been simple.

a reply to: xuenchen

Do you have a source for that because I have not seen that reported anywhere.