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Their Fair Share (Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share?)
Wall Street Journal ^ | 21 July 2008 | Unsigned Editorial

Posted on 07/21/2008 5:12:16 AM PDT by shrinkermd

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To: shrinkermd
Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support the other half.

America is on a cusp. The liberals’ relentless insistence that America’s higher income earners pay an ever higher percentage of the income tax reveals their desire for America to abandon the Republic in favor of a Democracy.

This article reports that the top 50% of the nation’s wage earners pay 97.1% of the income tax. I have no good reason to doubt this data. I also have no good reason why the top 50% of the nation’s earners could not shoulder the remaining 2.9% of the income tax burden. America’s top 50% income earners will pay 100% of the nation’s income tax.

Having digested that for a bit surely it would not be too much to ask the top 49% of earners to pay 100% of the income tax. America will now have achieved the Democracy the founders so wanted the nation to avoid but the socialist and liberals have been driving us to. To the delight of the socialist and liberals, the bottom 51% of America’s earners will be able to tell the top 49% of America’s earners how much income tax they will pay and what to spend that tax on.

61 posted on 07/21/2008 3:38:21 PM PDT by MosesKnows (Love many, Trust few, and always paddle your own canoe)
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To: onlylewis
If con is the opposite of pro, doesn't that mean congress is the opposite of progress?

ROTFLM*O!!!!!! That IS a keeper!!! Thanks~!

62 posted on 07/21/2008 4:38:16 PM PDT by kcm.org (Conservatives bashing Sen. McCain has Ronald Reagan spinning in his grave!!!)
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To: Little Ray

The working “poor” would get all their FairTax rebated to them, wouldn’t they ? And the FairTax eliminates both the Income tax and the SS/M taxes.

Yet they would still get full credit for SS/M benefits, right ?

At least today, they might contribute something to SS/M, but under the FairTax they could easily contribute nothing at all.

And the “rich” could easily spend most of their money outside the country and legally avoid paying taxes altogether.

Sounds like the FairTax would have both “rich” and “poor” paying less — and that would leave just the “middle” to pay for everything.


63 posted on 07/21/2008 6:27:48 PM PDT by Kellis91789 (I used to be Dilbert. Then I was Wally. I retired before I became the Pointy Haired One.)
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To: Bernard

A good first step would be to get people to make the distinction between “General Fund” spending (which is paid for by income taxes, excise taxes, and import duties) and “Social Insurance” benefits payments (which are paid for by mandatory FICA contributions from wages).

Why ? Because it is important that people realize the so-called “social security taxes” they think make them “taxpayers” are nothing of the kind. They don’t pay for a dime’s worth of national security, infrastructure, judiciary, etc. That money is loaned to the Treasury and may never be paid back, but at least on paper, it doesn’t pay for anything except the over-promised SS/M benefits.

I’d like people to talk about the two separate Federal Budgets again rather than lumping together “taxes and contributions” on one side and “spending and benefits payments” on the other.


64 posted on 07/21/2008 6:36:28 PM PDT by Kellis91789 (I used to be Dilbert. Then I was Wally. I retired before I became the Pointy Haired One.)
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To: Smokin' Joe
Sure you can. Google "Earned Income Credit".

Technically, that is not a tax, it is a rebate, or a refund. Taxes don't go into negative numbers, they go to zero, and anything less than that is technially a rebate.

65 posted on 07/22/2008 12:12:06 PM PDT by nobdysfool (Taglines are so last year.....)
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To: nobdysfool

Call it what you will, but I prefer “negative income tax”. It is income based, filed with tax forms and can bring a “refund” greater than the amount paid in.


66 posted on 07/22/2008 12:18:37 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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