Posted on 11/11/2012 9:58:55 AM PST by i88schwartz
BILL KRISTOL: The leadership in the Republican party and the leadership in the conservative movement have to pull back. Let people float new ideas, let's have a serious debate. Don't scream and yell when one person says, 'You know what? It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.' It really won't, I don't think.
I don’t really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000 -- make it $500,000, make it a million. Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile to Republican principles.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
That’ what we’re planning. We run a post production company in Hollywood and plan to open a branch in the Philippines. No obamacare needed for those future employees. And we keep our conservative staff intact.
Idiotic. I expect that level of reasoning from Juan or Beckel.
Any increase for those that create jobs results in higher prices for the services or goods they produce.
So who ends up paying that tax on “millionaires” ?
Wall Street Bankers, Mortgage Bankers, Rating Agencies, Real Estate brokers, assessors, FreddieM and FannieM played a key role in using complex investment vehicles to camouflage fraud and negligence. I think the Bush tax cuts should be continued for all except the industries involved with the real estate and Wall Street crash of 2008. All those involved should pay the higher rates plus forfeit all exemptions plus a 10 percent rate for Economic Damage Reparation. The millionaire who sold products one could see and understand, hired people should be left alone to continue on. Wall Street was never open nor simple, rather its complexity was used to hide fraud from consumer and gov regulators. IMHO this is where the Dems and many in the GOP will agree to.
Another problem is that there will never be an end to how much the “rich” should be taxed. It would eventually get to France’s 75%. The Dems will ALWAYS say we need to tax them more and ALWAYS put the Republicans in the position of saying, “No, we can’t raise taxes on the rich.”
Kristol’s right that this IS an unpopular position. Far more unpopular with the voters than the public’s stance on social issues. I think it’s easier to make the moral case for a flat tax with no deductions than it is to argue how much of a higher rate the rich should pay. The latter becomes a judgment call. The former is a bedrock moral principle that can be defended on the level of fairness. Why is “fair share” not defined as everyone paying the same percentage on all of their income? How is everyone being charged the same rate unfair?
Welkommen to ze United Staetz of Capitualation.. Resistance is futile.. Jaaa!
“We can tax the rich to a fare thee well and it won’t make a drop in the bucket as far as the deficit.”
I think of all the principles the GOP has betrayed in the past 20 years. And I think, THIS is the one thing they think is worth fighting for?
It won’t kill the millionaires, they’ll figure out how to get out of paying it....that’s not the point.....it will kill the economy, that’s the problem.
Yep, let’s let the crack of destruction become wider.
But it WILL kill jobs and NOTHING else you moron!
(When can I expect my stuff?)
Won’t help it either dip ship. Why bother? Just to feed the class warfare BS?
Absolutely. I’ve been in the tax advising business for almost 40 years. Ive seen numerous attempts to tax the rich. They always miss the rich and hit the middlle class. Why? Because they don’t draw a distinction between high income and rich.
A person with high income may not be rich. A person without lower income may be. It depends on whether they are relying on their investments or their labor. A person who does not have to work to live as they wish is rich, but a person who has to work, no matter how much they make, is not rich.
Th reason they always miss the rich and tax the middle is partially intentional - it’s where the money is. There are fewer rich people.
It may also be unintentional, but maybe the tax law writers realize this. If one is rich, one may move one’s investments for tax advantage, in order to realize maximum after-tax earnings and mimimize the risk. Moving one’s labor is more complicated, and more difficult.
Lucy pulling the football away again. One last time. We run trillion + deficits. You could confiscate the wealth of the top 1% and not wipe out one years borrowing from China. Who do you suppose they’ll come for next?
That’s what I’ve been advocating. Give the people who voted for this what they want... good and hard.
Start with repealing tax shelters for Hollywood and the media industries.
Move on to charitable remainder trusts and foundations, which finance a great deal of left wing mischief.
Then start removing deductions - eg, allow mortgage interest deductions for only one’s own primary home, and then index it to the median price of homes in your area of residence.
Oh, thinking about other things... a transaction tax on selling/buying securities on Wall Street - say, a half-cent per transaction. Poof, HFT dies quickly and we regain some semblance of sanity in the markets. Tax unregistered bespoke securities at a rate which will flush the CDO’s and CDS’s out into the open.
The list goes on and on of ways that the GOP could give Obama supporters exactly what they want: higher taxes.
Remember the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)? That was intended to soak the rich, and instead it wound up soaking the middle class. Just as the next “soak the rich” plan will.
It would be far better to move to a consumption tax (eg, national retail sales tax) which would truly level the playing field between rich/poor and offshore vs. domestic producers.
It would also make the stimulation of the national economy a much more important thing to the Congress, since they’d derive their tax revenues directly from the national economic situation, rather than a derivative of same.
If those things happen my taxes will come down in year 2 as I report less income. The takers will be on their own once we stop printing money.
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