Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act

reply to post by RRconservative


Its called paying your fair share... I have no problem paying taxes just so long as someone who makes 100 times what I do is paying their fair share... when they are paying less than I do... then that is totally wrong all the way across the board.

Is giving tax cuts to the already well heeled while it is the middle class that is either slipping or stagnate patriotic?

Is pulling your weight patriotic?

Wanting to do more to benefit your country is patriotic.

reply to post by grover


I really doubt that someone making a hundred times what you do is paying less taxes than you unless they are cheating on their taxes. I agree with you about the fair share. Bill Gates and I should pay the exact same amount in taxes each year, because we get the same services that government provides. That is fair.

For those that quote the net worth of Joe Biden, let's look at what Delaware Online has to say:
www.delawareonline.com.../20080906/NEWS02/809060343/1007

First elected to the Senate 36 years ago, the former lawyer lives off Barley Mill Road in Greenville -- northern Delaware's priciest area -- on a four-acre lakefront estate in a 7,000-square-foot custom home. Biden also owns a smaller carriage house on his property, where his widowed mother lives.

Local real estate agents said the Biden property is worth at least $2.5 million -- $1.8 million more than the couple owes. In addition, his latest Senate financial disclosure -- which lists assets and liabilities in wide ranges -- shows that Biden's net worth, excluding real estate holdings and mortgage debt, is between $381,000 and minus $55,000.

Biden and his wife, Jill, an English instructor at Delaware Technical & Community College, have combined salaries of $265,500 this year. Between 2005 and 2007, Biden also received a total of $225,000 in advances for his autobiography, "Promises to Keep."

While their earnings probably would not be enough to purchase their Greenville estate today, the Bidens have managed to live in such splendor partly because of two financially rewarding real estate deals with political supporters.

In 1996, Biden sold a home in Greenville for the asking price of $1.2 million -- more than six times what he paid two decades earlier -- to John R. Cochran III, a top executive at the MBNA credit card bank that was a longtime political benefactor.

Using profits from that sale, Biden paid $350,000 cash to real estate executive and developer Keith D. Stoltz for 4.2 vacant acres -- a long, narrow lot a few miles from Biden's old home. Stoltz had bought that same lot five years earlier for the same price.

Stephen Pyle, who sold the land to Stoltz in 1991, said he was surprised that Stoltz, who lived on a neighboring estate, did not make any profit selling to Biden. "That doesn't sound like Keith Stoltz," Pyle, an artist who now lives in Texas, said of Stoltz, whose company recently proposed a $525 million project at nearby Barley Mill Plaza, a former DuPont Co. office campus.

As for his charity which was brought up, there is this:

Last Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice president, released his tax returns for the years 1998 to 2007. The returns revealed that in one year, 1999, Biden and his wife Jill gave $120 to charity out of an adjusted gross income of $210,979. In 2005, out of an adjusted gross income of $321,379, the Bidens gave $380. In nine out of the ten years for which tax returns were released, the Bidens gave less than $400 to charity; in the tenth year, 2007, when Biden was running for president, they gave $995 out of an adjusted gross income of $319,853.


Here is a chart of the Bidens’ giving for the years covered by the tax returns:

Adjusted
Gross Income Charity

1998 $215,432 $195

1999 $210,797 $120

2000 $219,953 $360

2001 $220,712 $360

2002 $227,811 $260

2003 $231,375 $260

2004 $234,271 $380

2005 $321,379 $380

2006 $248,459 $380

2007 $319,853 $995

Total $2,450,042 $3,690

To take Biden’s worst year, 1999, one percent of his adjusted gross income would have been $2,100. One half of one percent would have been $1,050. One quarter of one percent would have been $525. One eighth of one percent would have been $262. And one sixteenth of one percent would have been $131 — still a bit more than the Bidens gave.

To take Biden’s best year, 2007, one percent of his adjusted gross income would have been $3,190. One half of one percent would have been $1,595. One quarter of one percent would have been $797 — a figure Biden surpassed by nearly $200.

Looking at the ten-year total of Biden’s giving, one percent would have been $24,500. One half of one percent would have been $12,250. One quarter of one percent would have been $6,125. And one eighth of one percent would have been $3,062 — just below what Biden actually contributed.

“The average American household gives about two percent of adjusted gross income,” says Arthur Brooks, the Syracuse University scholar, soon to take over as head of the American Enterprise Institute, who has done extensive research on American giving. “On average, [Biden] is not giving more than one tenth as much as the average American household, and that is evidence that he doesn’t share charitable values with the average American.”

A spokesman for Biden, David Wade, says the figures on Biden’s tax return do not reflect the true extent of his giving. “The charitable contributions claimed by the Bidens on their tax returns are not the sum of their annual contributions to charity,” Wade said in a statement to NRO. “Like most regular churchgoers, they contribute to their church, and they also contribute to their favorite causes with their time as well as their checkbooks, whether it’s [Jill] Biden’s volunteer work with military families or the Biden breast-health initiative, or the way in which the family pitched in driving supplies to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, or the ways Sen. Biden has supported charities that help women, police, and veterans.”

Let me also address the comment made by Biden's tax preparer about regular churchgoers. Virtually every Catholic Church in America has an envelope system. Around December of each year, each parishioner can pick up a box of envelopes which contain envelopes for each week and Holy Day, with many weeks containing two envelopes for special collections. Those envelopes have a unique number on them, to identify the contributor. At the end of the year, at the parishioner's request, the church will send you a statement of your total contributions for the year, which is accepted by the IRS as proof of contributions. Regular parishioners that are itemizing their 1040's, as Joe Biden is, would have no trouble claiming the amount, if he used the envelopes. Since he does itemize, and certainly that is legal, why wouldn't he use the envelope system, since he IS Claiming charitable contributions on his tax form? I can only conclude that it's because he only throws in a small amount each week, and doesn't want it known how little he contributes. Nothing else makes sense, although I'm sure that some apologist for Biden will come up with some reason.

In addition, Biden seems to have a distorted view concerning the Church's teaching on abortion and when life begins.

reply to post by justsomeboreddude


When you look at it a proportional tax scale is far more fair. Look at it this way lets say the tax rate is at 20% and you make $100,000 a year you pay $5000 a year in taxes. Is it fair that a person who makes $100 million a year pays the same $5000?

Originally posted by grover
Wanting to do more to benefit your country is patriotic.

Yes. I believe it's called "Country First"... It's more than just a campaign slogan.

Well, at least for some of us it is...

Originally posted by grover
reply to post by justsomeboreddude

 

When you look at it a proportional tax scale is far more fair. Look at it this way lets say the tax rate is at 20% and you make $100,000 a year you pay $5000 a year in taxes. Is it fair that a person who makes $100 million a year pays the same $5000?

Yes that is totally fair. Lets say the guy who makes a 100 million pays 10 million in taxes to my 5k. What more does he get for the money he paid the government? He uses the same roads, breathes the same air, sends his kids to the same school (or pays his own hard earned money to a private school), etc...

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


I agree.

And to continue my analogy... is someone making $100 million a year and paying the same in taxes as someone making $100,000 a year fair when you consider the amount a person making $100,000 is far more in proportion to their income than it is for someone making the $100 million... and the disparity gets worse the less a person makes.

In short fair tax is another in a long string of lies... it sounds good but it doesn't benefit anyone but the wealthy.

reply to post by justsomeboreddude

I really doubt that someone making a hundred times what you do is paying less taxes than you unless they are cheating on their taxes. I agree with you about the fair share. Bill Gates and I should pay the exact same amount in taxes each year, because we get the same services that government provides. That is fair.

There is so much wrong with your short statement, that I hardly know where to begin.
First of all, your first sentence: There are MANY LEGAL ways to avoid paying taxes for the rich. There are thousands of loopholes, pushed through by rich members of congress and their lobbyists, that only benefit the rich. Many rich people LEGALLY pay little or no taxes.

Now onto your statement about Bill Gates and you. What you are saying is that Bill Gates and you should pay the SAME AMOUNT IN TAXES EACH YEAR.
I have capitalized that so that you can compare it to what you said- it's an EXACT quote with no paraphrasing. Thus, if you only pay $100 a year in taxes, then Bill Gates should pay $100 in taxes. Conversely, if Bill Gates pays $10,000,000 in taxes, so should you and everyone else in this country.

Well, let's assume that you misspoke and meant to say you both should pay the same PERCENTAGE in taxes each year. You stated that both you and Bill Gates receive the SAME SERVICES from the government. Oh, really? So you get breaks for bringing people into this country on the outrageously immoral H1B Visas that Gates goes to Congress to, each year, begging for more, so that he can avoid hiring our well-qualified college graduates, and instead hire some foreign worker at a fraction of the salary. I could go on, and list hundreds of benefits Gates gets, because of his Lobbyists that you could NEVER take advantage of, but at this point, I'll let you do a little work for yourself. Try using Google, and learn something about how the rich legally avoid paying taxes.

Historically speaking... when the bulk of the tax burden is shifted off onto the backs of the middle class and the poor... the seeds of violent revolution is sown.

Time and again this has been proved to be true.

Actually..

Historically speaking

# An enormous percentage of taxes are payed by a minority of Americans:

* The Top 1% of taxpayers pay 29% of all taxes.
* The Top 5% of taxpayers pay 50% of all taxes.

# Our tax system is not so much progressive as it is confiscatory -- Frederic Bastiat called this phenomenon "legal plunder." A progressive tax is based on the premise that those with more income can afford to pay more taxes, and conversely, those with little or no income should pay no tax. However, a quick look at Graph 1A below shows that the U.S. tax system has become far beyond progressive. Fully half the taxpayers contribute almost nothing in individual income taxes.

Income Tax

You all are actually correct in that it is NOT fair... Not by a long shot...

Those that make the most money pay FAR AND AWAY more than they should if it was really a fair system...

Yet the funny thing is.... They aren't the ones complaining... It's those that want the top wage earners to pay an even more unfair percentage.. Funny thing that..

edit to add:

# Furthermore, the Top 1% are shouldering a roughly 50% higher proportion of the overall income tax burden than they did in 1977.
# The argument most oft used against tax breaks are that they benefit only the wealthy. It is clear from even a cursory look at the numbers below that the 'wealthy' will receive the majority of any income tax reduction because they pay a disproportionately huge percentage of the income taxes! To structure a tax break such that those in upper income brackets are excluded would constitute nothing more than transfer of wealth from those who have it to those who don't (i.e. legal plunder.)

Same source

Semper

[edit on 9/19/2008 by semperfortis]

Now let us look at who gets the most "Bang For The Buck"

Overall, we find that America's lowest-earning one-fifth of households received roughly $8.21 in government spending for each dollar of taxes paid in 2004. Households with middle-incomes received $1.30 per tax dollar, and America's highest-earning households received $0.41. Government spending targeted at the lowest-earning 60 percent of U.S. households is larger than what they paid in federal, state and local taxes. In 2004, between $1.03 trillion and $1.53 trillion was redistributed downward from the two highest income quintiles to the three lowest income quintiles through government taxes and spending policy.

Tax Foundation

This is pure wealth redistribution in action..

So you say tax the corporations... In essence you are saying "Tax the Poor"

Smoke screen effect - Any tax on business will be automatically passed down to the consumer. Riley's plan, outlined below, seems fair to poor people but in reality will significantly increase taxes on the poor. Remember, businesses do NOT pay taxes - consumers pay taxes.

Riley's Reform

So either you really do feel for the poor and want them to have a better life by reducing taxes on corporations and thus giving the poor a better life style, or you just don;t care and want the wealth redistributed..

You can't have it both ways

Semper

Historically speaking the rise of the middle class in this country from the late 40's on was directly related to the increased tax base from raising taxes on the wealthy... and both Republican and Democratic presidents did it... in redistributing the wealth away from the highest tax brackets into the middle class they made the way of life that is so under stress today... aka the middle class and there are plenty of references to this.

reply to post by grover



I thought we were discussing the tax burden and not class warfare..

That is why I did not post opinion and hyperbole, but I did post facts and figures in direct support of what I stated..

The simple FACT is that the poor pay a negative tax when placed in consideration with the government services they receive, as well as the FACT that the bottom 25% of tax payers receive 100% of the income taxes back ... The only negative about this is increased corporate taxation which places undo stress on the poor and middle class by raising the cost of living which always directly effects the poor the most.

Semper

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

I really doubt that someone making a hundred times what you do is paying less taxes than you unless they are cheating on their taxes. I agree with you about the fair share. Bill Gates and I should pay the exact same amount in taxes each year, because we get the same services that government provides. That is fair.

There is so much wrong with your short statement, that I hardly know where to begin.

I meant exactly what I said. The richest guy and the poorest guy should pay the exact same amount in dollars, not the same percentage. One thing this would accomplish is it would cause the government to shrink really fast when all the middle class people actually realized how much money is being spent around here. Also it takes care of the loopholes for the rich so that should address your concern. We all get the same bill, no loopholes, no adjustments, etc...

I guess the difference between you and I is that I see government as a bunch of packaged services that have the same value to everyone. You see it more as a way to pick the pockets of the rich and let the government decide who to hand it out to or how to spend it. Did you ever stop to think that maybe rich people are rich because they spend their money wisely and government is in debt up to OUR ears because they dont.

I guess I just dont understand why a guy who makes a 100million should have to pay 10 million for the same services I pay 5k for. It would be like going to get internet service and them making him pay 100k a month because he is rich and I only pay 50 cents because I am not. Is that fair?

[edit on 19-9-2008 by justsomeboreddude]

reply to post by justsomeboreddude

There is so much wrong with your long statement. I meant exactly what I said. The richest guy and the poorest guy should pay the exact same amount in dollars, not the same percentage.

You know, that is so ludicrous, I can't believe you really mean it. Let me, however, assume you do.
Here are the numbers for you. In 2006, the IRS collected approximately $2,000,000,000,000 (two trillion) from approximately 200,000,000 tax payers. That works out to about $13,333 dollars per tax payer. So I assume that anyone making less than that has to wish the IRS's dishes until they pay it off. Of course, the poverty level would have to rise, to compensate for the fact that a family with two wage earners would have to fork up $26,666 before they were allowed to keep a penny. Of course, if their children worked, and there were, say 3 teenages working, and earning enough to pay taxes (oh, wait, you said EVERYONE should pay the same-ok), your family of five bill would be $66,665 (wow-conspiriacy nuts- look at all those sixes) before they could keep a penny.
Oh, you say, cut services. Sure, let's get rid of the defense budget- it's huge, right. I'm sure you won't mind the Russians taking over your tax burden, because soon you'll be learning Russian from those nice Russian soldiers that are patrolling our streets.
Now, why don't you actually learn something about the way our economic system works before you make such suggestions as ludicrous as yours?

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


LOL, well I do understand how economics work.

1. Its ridiculous that we are spending 2 trillion on government, not even including state, county, city, sales tax, and sin taxes.

2. What do you think the economy would be like if 1 trillion of that stayed in the economy and wasnt consumed by government.

3. You are right the amount of money that individuals would have to pay would be ridiculous because the amount of money the government consumes is ridiculous. Under my system it would have never gotten this out of control, because we would have strung up the congress and the president way before this if we realized how much money they spend. People would quit voting for people that will give them whatever they asked for if they actually saw the expense of it.

4. I wouldnt cut the defense budget. It is one of the few things the federal government should be doing. I cut out all the other stuff like medicare/medicaid, social security, paying money to other countries just to behave, a department of education (which is a local government function) and on and on and on. I would also cut out about half of the people that work for the government.

5. With the trillion that is flowing back into the economy the government workers could get jobs that produce something worthwhile,which we would all be able to afford because our pay just increased by like 25% because the government isnt sucking us as dry anymore.

6. The best thing you could do for the poor is to cut government spending. Everytime they shop they are paying an inflated price, because when a business gets taxed more they pass it on to the consumer. To a business taxes are just another expense that gets rolled into the price, which is priced that way to make a profit. Businesses must make a profit to stay in business.

7. Under your thinking, getting taking over by the Russians wouldnt be that much different. Because if you let the government keep raising taxes on the rich then everyone will end up even and we will be communist. So maybe we should just let them take us over and quit dragging this out for another 50 years.


[edit on 19-9-2008 by justsomeboreddude]

reply to post by justsomeboreddude

What do you think the economy would be like if 1 trillion of that stayed in the economy and wasnt consumed by government.

You say you understand our economy and our budget system, but each time you make a suggestion, that suggestion belies your statement. First of all, checking our military outlay:
www.warresisters.org...
we find that 54% of our total outlay goes to the military, so before you even start, you're over budget. Then, of course, there is the 20% that goes to just pay the INTEREST on our debt.

Look, your suggestions cannot be supported by the FACTS.
I cannot keep pointing out every erroneous statement you make by quoting facts. YOU need to do some serious research before you make statements that cannot possibly supported by facts. I,for one, will not waste any more time doing YOUR HOMEWORK.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Ok I will throw you a bone here and cut military spending by 20% so I can stay under budget. Also I will take the trillion dollars a year and pay down the debt for the first few years so we dont have to pay so much interest.

But what you are saying is undermining your statements. What you just said is that under the current way of doing things our government collects 2 trillion dollars a year, but still has to borrow money to stay even. So the current system is not sustainable. So your answer is to keep letting them raise taxes until they can figure it out? So maybe if they collect 3 trillion it will all get better and they will figure out how to spend it right?

Oh and by the way thanks for doing my homework for me. I guess since you are the Professor you are better at those things. Can you fill out my tax forms for me as well, those are really a pain in the you know what.

[edit on 19-9-2008 by justsomeboreddude]

Whats with all this back and forth about who should pay taxes and why?

It already has been proven that the government can pull money out of thin air, why should they need to tax people anyways?

This tax thing is a total shell game in a fiat currency. When the government accountants can make up a digit or 8 somewhere and hand it to someone, what really is the point of taxes?

That is a bunch of BRAVO SIERRA...I served my country for 10 years and I now pay nine thousand dollars a year in property tax.I can barely afford to make ends meet, I have a full time job that pays well, a reasonable car payment and they want to raise my taxes more...wow.. I agree with one of our members when he said , How about creating more jobs, what more can we do as americans?.I am middle class and always will be, having to struggle sucks, Im in the process of selling my house and moving to Georgia where the cost of living is much better than here in New Jersey, Im sick of this and again I ask, What more can we do as americans? Do I have to oragnize a million americans march, Ive thought of this time and time again, we need to organize, shoot they want me and us to be more patriotic..ok..Its on

[edit on 09/17/2008 by cmd18B]