Comments on: Raising Taxes – Another Point Of View. – Grimgold

By: grimgold

grimgold — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:08:53 +0000

Zeke, where are you getting your figures? I don’t believe it.

Joe, thanks for the reply. I have another suggestion – reduce spending. It’s fact that the woman used to be able to stay home and maintain a family.
Not so today. Now the husband earns money to pay bills and the wife works to pay the taxes. Further, they have to fight for constantly increasing wages just to stay even, because of inflation.
I say we need to take down the richest one among us, the one who is also the largest employer: the federal government.
We need less government. Period.
It has proved itself again and again to be the most corrupt and wasteful way to attempt anything, from Katrina dikes to veteran medical care.
Among others, the govt needs to get out of welfare, agriculture, and education. Their track record in these and many other areas of responsibility is unspeakable.
Grim

By: Joseph52

Joseph52 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:42:56 +0000

Come on, Grim, you know as well as I do that NOBODY who works and buys things (or owns property) pays zero taxes, no matter how low their income. Your drinks example is credible only if Federal income taxes alone are considered.

The tax structure we had in 2001, before we very recklessly cut taxes on the richest Americans, was working pretty well. We had just come off one of the strongest, most prolonged expansions in U.S. history. The mild recession we had in 2001 was like the sniffles compared to the financial pneumonia that is descending on us now.

The rich will not be hurt by a restoration of the tax levels we had in 2001. Far from it. Their wealth has increased enormously in the last seven years, and they control an amount of the nation’s wealth greater in proportion to the rest of us than any time since the 1920s or even the Gilded Age of the 1890s. I know conservatives often don’t don’t like to hear this, but taxes will HAVE to be raised at some point to avoid total federal meltdown. We’re just too much in the hole, my man. It can’t be any other way. We’re not going to grow ourselves out of 10 trillion in debt.

By: Zeke

Zeke — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:04:31 +0000

Well, first of all, tax cuts don’t work by cutting a set amount from everyone’s taxes, but by cutting a percentage, so that NOT how it works;
Second, the actual data shows that raising taxes on the wealthy:

1) Increases the stock market growth rate;
2) Increases the economic growth rate; and
3) Raises inflation BUT also increases wages so much as to result in a higher net wage.

This has been shown to be true for top tax rates up to 91% – as it was in the 50s and early 60s – far higher than those of today).

Note that the top tax rate started out as 5%, so if any of the wealthy DID “opt out” of the system due to the raising of taxes, then they were simply replaced.

Zeke