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Greven
Far too many people don't seem to understand that marginal rates work like this. I've seen stories of people NOT wanting to earn a little more money because it would put them in a higher tax bracket, which they assumed would mean they would earn less due to higher tax rates. This, obviously, is stupid and wrong - but even highly educated individuals like medical doctors have had this idea.
originally posted by: macman
An America that never was?????
Yea, seems to be that this existed before the welfare state was created.
Oh what short memories people have. Or lack of understanding history.
Oh, so the handup retort. I guess I could use a "hand up" as well.
Talk about hyperbole.
originally posted by: Greven
Did YOU look up the income tax rate of a person earning $200K in taxable income? It's most certainly not 33%.
Our system is based on marginal income tax rates. Do you know what marginal income tax rate means? It means, in a bracket, you pay X% on income earned in that bracket. This means parts of that $200K is taxed at different rates.
Here's what it would look like using 2013 brackets for a single individual return (it's a LOT different for married)-
10% $0 – $8,925
15% $8,926 – $36,250
25% $36,251 – $87,850
28% $87,851 – $183,250
33% $183,251 – $398,350
So, on the first $8,925, he has to pay 10% ($892.50). On the next $27,324, he has to pay 15% ($4,098.60). On the next $51,599, he has to pay 25% ($12,899.75). On the next $95,399, he has to pay 28% ($26,711.72). On the final $16,749, he has to pay 33% ($5,527.17).
Total income is $200,000 and total tax liabilities is now $50,129.74, which is barely over 25%.
Far too many people don't seem to understand that marginal rates work like this. I've seen stories of people NOT wanting to earn a little more money because it would put them in a higher tax bracket, which they assumed would mean they would earn less due to higher tax rates. This, obviously, is stupid and wrong - but even highly educated individuals like medical doctors have had this idea.
originally posted by: NavyDoc
the example enumbra used about the guy paying more of his income than the higher earner was still wrong and disingenuous even taking into account your point.
originally posted by: daskakik
Seems I'm right.
originally posted by: daskakik
Because it doesn't match up with yours? Maybe you're the one that is wrong.
Just check out Shay's rebellion or the whisky rebellion and see how the system was way back when.
originally posted by: daskakik
That is what they are there for. If you really needed it and it's there, it would be pretty dumb not to use it.
originally posted by: daskakik
Somehow your use of the word here doesn't quite fit the definition.
That is the Progressive mindset. Cloaking envy with fairness.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: macman
Dude, I've been studying it for years. YEARS. Decades. You don't know what you're talking about - you're just repeating Bill O'Reilly nonsense. You even admitted it!!
for average working people, there is no such thing as a middle class in "normal" capitalism. Wealth accumulates at the very top among the elites, not among everyday working people. Inequality is the default option.
You can see this trend today in America. When we had heavily regulated and taxed capitalism in the post-war era, the largest employer in America was General Motors, and they paid working people what would be, in today's dollars, about $50 an hour with benefits. Reagan began deregulating and cutting taxes on capitalism in 1981, and today, with more classical "raw capitalism," what we call "Reaganomics," or "supply side economics," our nation's largest employer is WalMart and they pay around $10 an hour.
This is how quickly capitalism reorients itself when the brakes of regulation and taxes are removed - this huge change was done in less than 35 years.
The only ways a working-class "middle class" can come about in a capitalist society are by massive social upheaval - a middle class emerged after the Black Plague in Europe in the 14th century - or by heavily taxing the rich.
This is the main reason why, when GM was our largest employer and our working class were also in the middle class, CEOs only took home 30 times what working people did. The top tax rate for all the time America's middle class was created was between 74 and 91 percent. Until, of course, Reagan dropped it to 28 percent and working people moved from the middle class to becoming the working poor.
Other policies, like protective tariffs and strong labor laws also help build a middle class, but progressive taxation is the most important because it is the most direct way to transfer money from the rich to the working poor, and to create a disincentive to theft or monopoly by those at the top.
History shows how important high taxes on the rich are for creating a strong middle class.
If you compare a chart showing the historical top income tax rate over the course of the twentieth century with a chart of income inequality in the United States over roughly the same time period, you'll see that the period with the highest taxes on the rich - the period between the Roosevelt and Reagan administrations - was also the period with the lowest levels of economic inequality.
You'll also notice that since marginal tax rates started to plummet during the Reagan years, income inequality has skyrocketed.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
It's DECADES. And if you have enough time to sit there and read posts and bash on Progressives, you have enough time to LOOK IT UP.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Here's a vid from just one Progressive source, a 1:13 second explanation.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
The main theme? "We're here to defend the public interest AGAINST PRIVATE GREED."
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
You have a problem with that?
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
I'm middle-aged+, now, and have been working since I was 12 years old. Mostly in the trenches.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Good luck with your business.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Good for not watching O'Reilly.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Please stop condemning "Progressives" - you admitted that you don't know what Progressives really stand for.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
You said you don't have time to learn about it. So why spend time vilifying it?
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
We have to make a choice. Social upheaval (already happening), or tax reforms. Oh, and btw, I said I worked in the trenches mostly - and that is true. The irony? I am a PROFESSIONAL, with an advanced degree in this stuff.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Please, take the time to read the article. It's not just one guy's rant; he cites facts and other sources as well.
originally posted by: eNumbra
originally posted by: NavyDoc
the example enumbra used about the guy paying more of his income than the higher earner was still wrong and disingenuous even taking into account your point.
My example, was for nothing more than to explain the faulty mathematics behind the headline and an explanation as to why nobody should be listening to the propaganda farms in the media.
That has a striking resemblances to things defined by the Marx writings?
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Yeah, whatever. Read my last post before this one. No, I wasn't 'digging ditches', and sure, you can have a cigarette. I worked for decades with the disenfranchised, the poor, the mentally ill. HELPING THEM. Rather than sitting on my high throne ordering others around and just flinging money at politicians or attending fancy-assed 'fundraisers'. I wrote - and GOT - a grant for a program designed to help inner-city youth get out of substance abuse, learn life skills, and be more productive citizens.
I didn't say you were this, I said the woman on the video. You seem to have related one to the other. I wonder why when I called the statement from the woman in the video, you came across as it being a statement about you?? Are you the woman in the video?
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Still think I'm a blubbering ditch-digger with poor reading comprehension? You said you don't have time to pay attention.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Whatever. This forum makes my blood boil.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
My husband and I are both educated, we are in the 'middle class' for now. But if SHTF again, we won't be able to survive more than about a month on our current assets, because when we were both out of work a few years ago for OVER A YEAR,
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
we drained ALL of our savings, cashed in our retirements (and paid the hefty fines to do so), and had to start back at square one.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
We WILL, however, survive because he knows how to hunt, and I know how to garden and forage, and we both know how to make fires, preserve/cook food, build structures and make do with what we've got to work with.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
But you don't care about the dilemmas of anyone else, so......
for a third time. Whatever.
originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
I'm out.
I thought you stated above that you couldn't survive??? Are you confused?