Vox’s new presidential tax calculator - 2016 version

a reply to: DBCowboy

Yeah yeah - go ahead and mock me.
Whatever. Bernie won yesterday.
Suck it up, buttercup.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Well, VOX doesn't jive with just about EVER OTHER SITE:

Are those based on household income or individual income? Also Bernie isn't decreasing taxes which is bummer. Taxes is another way that a corrupted system stays in power.

I wish Bernie would only stick to the following issues before trying to tackle taxes :

1. Congregational term limits

2. campaign financing reform.

3. Lobbying reform

4. doing away with super-pacs

5. Revolving door between gov't and private sector

6. Transparency

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: Teikiatsu

Funny, those "plucky group of colonists" were pretty anti-aristocratic...

And these days? The party that venerates them (The GOP/Republicans) kiss and kneel before the wealthy.

Somehow folks of this political persuasion believe the neo-aristocracy will bestow upon them blessings of trickle-down wealth if only they serve with unquestioning loyalty and loving adoration.

That's some straight up brainwashing if you ask me.

The government is just a front for the corporations and wealthy. It adds legitimacy, gives a softer "for the people" mask to the people. The corporations and wealthy elites run the show, and use the government as if it were one of their own limbs. The 'government' doesn't do anything on its own, it does what its paid to do by the people with the money to pay it.

Uhm, the Founding Fathers were among the wealthiest, dare I say elite members of society. Most of them were self made men, but the men they themselves made were the aristocracy of this fledgeling nation at that time.

What they opposed and were "anti" was excessive taxation, regulation, and meddling in the business of the individual and individual communities by a centralized power. They flat out rejected the idea of a central government serving as mommy, daddy, and concubine.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

What they opposed and were "anti" was excessive taxation, regulation, and meddling in the business of the individual and individual communities by a centralized power. They flat out rejected the idea of a central government serving as mommy, daddy, and concubine.

The industrial revolution at the turn of the 20th century was ALL ABOUT exploitation of labor, tax evasion, and monopoly.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Ruining your own mic drop.... just sayin.

Assuming he could actually make that happen, which is a giant assumption -- on both ends.

Why, because he did such a great job at managing the VA?

Oh, wait....no....bad example.....

a reply to: Lysergic

It's a different day.

Just saying. OP isn't here anymore anyway - now the rest of us are talking.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

OK, but how does that connect to the Founders of this country and whether they were very wealthy men or impoverished serfs?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

They were wealthy - there is no question about that. But the claim that they were "self-made men" is very dubious.

They were aristocrats from birth. Privileged and moneyed "gentlemen." Educated, literate, philosophically educated, etc....in fact, at the beginning no one who wasn't "as smart or rich" as they were, COULD NOT VOTE. And no women at all could vote.

So - splain that!!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Eh ... the thing is, they understood the danger of inherited wealth:

Early Americans were all too familiar with European Aristocracy and as they began to conceive this new nation they wanted a new idea based not on Aristocratic order but on shared political power. For that to happen they believed there had to be relative equity in wealth among the citizens of America. There was a strong belief that inherited wealth would lead to a rising Aristocracy with wealthy families consolidating unfair political power. Both Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, that great Conservative champion, found it impossible to accept that great wealth should be passed on from parent to child. Because of this they stood firm on a redistribution of wealth in the form of an inheritance tax.

So, they may have been well-educated and had some money ... but the real rich and wealthy folks were back over in England still. Making your way to America was kind of a big gamble back then.

In fact, a lot of people escaping things in Europe came to America... lol A lot of us have criminals in our family tree if we go back far enough

If developing laws and tax policies that redistributed wealth with the specific purpose of creating relative equity among the citizenry were priorities for the Founding Fathers, how would they feel about the current marriage of politics and economics in our country today? Would they be horrified by the American Aristocracy and its spokesman, Mitt Romney's comments about the 47%? Would our Founding Fathers, knowing even then how extreme wealth corrupts democratic institutions, condemn or accept the Citizens United ruling? Would the Founding Fathers shake their heads at the lowest tax rates going to those who, by luck of their own birth, inherited their wealth as well as to those who do no actual work for their gains?

Linky

a reply to: defiythelie

If you could get single payer health insurance and federally funded schooling you just may fair better under the higher tax rate.

Nope. Health insurance already (mostly) paid for by employer, and no kids, so taxes going to free schooling doesn't help.

a reply to: TommyD1966

Whatever you do pay from your paycheck to cover your health insurance would go away, and unless you make over $250,000 a year your taxes would stay the same.

So, your taxes would stay the same.

You wouldn't have to pay any money from your paycheck for health insurance...

Sounds like you might have more $$ every paycheck to me.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: burdman30ott6

They were wealthy - there is no question about that. But the claim that they were "self-made men" is very dubious.

They were aristocrats from birth. Privileged and moneyed "gentlemen." Educated, literate, philosophically educated, etc....in fact, at the beginning no one who wasn't "as smart or rich" as they were, COULD NOT VOTE. And no women at all could vote.

So - splain that!!

Well, as far as "aristocrats from birth," it simply isn't true.
Ben Franklin's father was a candle and soap maker. NOT a lot of money there.
John Adams was a shoemaker's son.
George Washington's father died when he was 11 and he quit school to help his mother ensure their plantation would fall to ruin and their debts would remain paid.
Alexander Hamilton was the bastard son of a traveling salesman.
William Davie was born to a farmer father who ran a very small farm.
Robert Yates father was a small merchant.

The vast majority of the wealth inside the colonies was fiercely loyal to Britain. While the founding fathers were certainly not destitute, they were far FAR removed from today's political dynasty families and trust fund twits seen in DC so often. They were average, middle class gentlemen and, if I'm being perfectly honest about it, had a much more intelligent and sustainable voting policy than the open door policy America uses today. I certainly fail to see any downside about making sure anyone who votes on the future and current policies in this nation have skin in the game AND have a hair's width of common sense and knowledge before allowing them 100 yards from a polling place.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Although...

Candle and shoe makers weren't "poor" by any means. If you had a good product, you did well in the colonies -- better than some farmers even.

Business owners in the new world were at the top of the economic strata back in those days.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Perhaps... I'm sure Ben Franklin wishes his father had fit your view of where he should have been in the economic strata.

www.earlytorise.com...

Franklin was the youngest son of 17 children. His father was a poor candle-maker. He simply couldn’t afford to supply his youngest son with opportunities early in life. Franklin decided that it was up to him to make his own way in the world.

Franklin (and other Founding Fathers) were po' growing up, by today's and yesterday's standards. *Most* of them, when they penned the Declaration of Independence, had worked themselves up to middle class. After Independence and freedom from taxation and the meddling of the centrally-powered Crown was defeated from this land, they made wealth alongside most of the new country. They really did "build that."

a reply to: MystikMushroom

So, they may have been well-educated and had some money ... but the real rich and wealthy folks were back over in England still. Making your way to America was kind of a big gamble back then.

Yes, indeed it was.

In fact, a lot of people escaping things in Europe came to America... lol A lot of us have criminals in our family tree if we go back far enough

I am aware of that, and have the pedigree to prove it.....
my 13th generation-ago ancestors on my mom's side came over in 1635 - they were in a ship that was part of Penn's fleet.
At least one of them was a criminal..... it ran in the family on that branch. And that, of course, is 130 years BEFORE the "Revolution."

My forebears were part of the original "pilgrims" - later arrivals on another branch of that same tree were part of the Revolution.

By the very early 1900s, all of my pertinent ancestors were already here. From all over: Germany, Scotland, Ireland, England, Poland, Finland......
and it all got mixed in together..... = me!!! Tadaaa!!!