Soaking the rich: The enduring myth

Oak Lawn (IL) Reporter ^ | 10/16/03 | Michael M. Bates

[mikeb704]

Don't Tax You, Don't Tax Me, Tax the Fella Behind the Tree

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[KC Burke]

his "top two brackets" that he wants both the tax break rolled back on and taxes raised on start at about $130,000 for a married couple filling jointly as I understand it.

In many areas of the country this is not even close to affluence.

[NotQuiteCricket]

Wesley "I have more waffles than IHOP" Clark

International House of Pancakes.

Maybe they meant Waffle House?

Jeeze

[Sergio]

Get rid of the IRS, get rid of income tax and go with a national sales tax.

Save to show my liberal friends.

[mikeb704]

Maybe they did mean IHOP, which does sell waffles and, with over 1,100 outlets, probably sells a lot of them.

[Salgak]

Waffle House isn't everywhere: IHOP is. And more's the pity: there aren't many north of the Mason-Dixon line....

It's definitely a "red zone" chain. . .

[Blood of Tyrants]

Think of it this way, to balance the budget why don't we just start with the richest person in the U.S., seize ALL their assets, and proceed to the next and the next until the budget is balanced? What is wrong with that?

[mikeb704]

Think of it this way, to balance the budget why don't we just start with the richest person in the U.S., seize ALL their assets, and proceed to the next and the next until the budget is balanced? What is wrong with that?

There are going to be some red faces among the Democrats who didn't come up with that idea first.

[mikeb704]

Save to show my liberal friends.

You will probably have to read it to them, right?

[mikeb704]

I confess to never having heard of Waffle House, possibly because there are only two of them in the Land of Lincoln.

[Cobra64]

IMOHO, the term "tax the rich" is a misnomer. Wages and salaries is on the INCOME statment. Whereas the rich have healty BALANCE SHEETS. If a family of 4 earns $100,000, it pays about 50% in taxes. Then there's the mortgage payment, college tuition, etc. Are they rich?

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Last week someone called to ask Rush what percentage of the income was earned by the top 1% of earners; the answer (as of a couple of years ago) was, Rush said, about 21%. And the percentage of the taxes paid by that 1% was something over 40%.

That struck me as an excellent way of emphasizing the "progressivity" of the tax code:

"The top 20% of income pays 40% of the income tax."

IMHO there's no need to add that the top 20% of income goes to 1% of the earners; count on the Democrats to point that out.

But in fact the percentage of taxes paid by the top earners went up when Kemp-Roth tax cuts went into effect. So raising more revenue from "the rich" is not as simple as just jacking up the tax rate and raking in the dough.

[Clock King]

Think of it this way, to balance the budget why don't we just start with the richest person in the U.S., seize ALL their assets, and proceed to the next and the next until the budget is balanced? What is wrong with that?

Some should create a set of charts to show just how very short this would go. I remember calculating it many years ago and you realize REAL quick that the even the Uber Rich don't have enough money to pay for everything. The government would be able to apend their assets in a matter of a couple months, then you're stuck.

[Clock King]

P.S. problem is, we all know that liberals were terrible at math in high school and probably avoided it as much as possible in college. So don't expect they to be open to such hard evidence.

"Math is Haarrddd...! That technology stuff confuses me..!"

[Flying Circus]

No they won't. Guys like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Ted Turner all give a lot of money to Democrats and leftist causes. The dirty little secret of the Democrats is that they really are the party of the exordinarly rich and could not survive without them and the organizations that front for them. It is the middle and upper middle class shmoes that are really getting soaked by 'soak the rich' politics.

[mvpel]

I'm rather pleased that I managed to structure my financial affairs so that I wound up paying only about 17% of my income in taxes.

Killer mortgages in California will do that, though.

[mikeb704]

I remember calculating it many years ago and you realize REAL quick that the even the Uber Rich don't have enough money to pay for everything. The government would be able to apend their assets in a matter of a couple months, then you're stuck.

J. Peter Grace wrote in 1984 that ". . .if we take all income above $75,000 a year that isn't already taxed, take it all, leave no one above $75,000, we'd raise the sum of $17 billion, enough to run the government for about ten days."

[agincourt1415]

My proposal, 5%NRST and thats it no income tax. I can't believe Bush won't get on the NRST band wagon.