Posts tagged taxes
The Incomplete Cynic
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Robert Reich tells Californians and New Yorkers why they ought to vote for Rick Perry
On the other hand, fiscal secession would be a boon to most blue states. The citizens of California — harder hit by the recession than most — receive from Washington only 78 cents for every tax dollar they send to Washington. New Yorkers get back only 79 cents on every tax dollar they send in. Massachusetts, 82 cents. Michigan, 92 cents. Oregon, 98 cents.
In other words, blue states are subsidizing red states. The federal government is like a giant sump pump — pulling dollars out of liberal enclaves like California, New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon — and sending them to conservative places like Montana, Idaho, Oklahoma, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Old South.
As a practical matter, then, Rick Perry’s fight to save America from Washington is really a secret plan to save blue states from red states.
Perry, it turns out, is a closet liberal.
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Reblogging this for a few things.
One, it was tagged under taxes. I can’t see the word taxes in this quote at all so I’m confused as to how a quote on voluntary, charitable giving got misconstrued into a quote to support theft and violence.
Two, I do notice the word should. Should is different than must in that it urges someone to do something, apart from threatening wealth redistribution with threats of force or imprisonment. Philanthropy can’t be forced.
Something tells me this is the only thing the economically illiterate left have actually read by Adam Smith.
Two other things: first, the obvious fact that our system of progressive taxation guarantees that the rich will be paying something more than an equal proportion of their revenue. Not only that, our system has reached a point where only half of income earners paid income taxes last year. In case you’re curious, that is most certainly the bottom half. So, if anyone’s not paying their “fair share” it’s me, the father of two who’s been in the workforce since I was 16 and never not gotten a refund.
Second, and slightly less obvious: to say something is “not very unreasonable” is not the same as saying it’s the right thing to do. There are most certainly other solutions. Of course, we’ve already chosen this one, unfortunately, a bunch of people who pay no taxes or something like 8% after credits and deductions, think it’s a travesty that someone who earns more only has to give up 30%. If that’s you’re idea of “in proportion to their revenue”, then we are, as a society, well and truly screwed.
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They spend WHAT? The real cost of public schools.
Real spending per pupil ranges from a low of nearly $12,000 in the Phoenix area schools to a high of nearly $27,000 in the New York metro area. The gap between real and reported per-pupil spending ranges from a low of 23 percent in the Chicago area to a high of 90 percent in the Los Angeles metro region.
To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school.
Citizens drastically underestimate current per-student spending and are misled by official figures. Taxpayers cannot make informed decisions about public school funding unless they know how much districts currently spend. And with state budgets stretched thin, it is more crucial than ever to carefully allocate every tax dollar.
Didn’t you know this already?
People often don’t believe me when I say that a localized, privatized school system would be both better and cheaper for even the poorest Americans. Now I have numbers to back it up.
How are the poorest Americans going to afford private school? Public education is free, private schools cost money. When it comes down to feeding your family or paying for your child’s education, feeding your family comes first. Education is not supposed to be limited by your ability to spend money. So my only real question is “how do we get the poorest Americans enough money to send all their children to private money costing schools?”
“Public education is free”? Are you kidding? You just reblogged a report that public schools cost twice as much as private.
And, historically, education was limited by your ability to pay for it. That meant that you may not be able to go to a regular school, but you could be an apprentice somewhere if you worked hard. Or a community would pool their money and hire a teacher for their children. It can work.
But since most communities have a tax base, and are apparently accustomed to spending around $20k per student, why not give vouchers, encourage people to form new private schools and expand existing ones, and take advantage of schools that are better and cheaper than the public system?
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Lawrence O’Donnell: Jesus Wanted Us to Have a Super Intense Progressive Tax Structure!!!!!
This is pretty repulsive. Progressive income tax is “Christ’s path to righteousness”? Is this guy trying to be “The Voice”?
His whole argument is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of words like “give” and “take”, and an inability to comprehend even the simplest stories. Jesus will accept whatever is given; he will “take” nothing. This story is about giving - you know, voluntary contributions - and was separate from the taxes given to Caesar.
He wouldn’t take from each according to his ability to pay, but he judges the value of each offering based on the giver’s ability to pay and attitude while paying. If you want to get technical, the Law instituted a flat “tax” - everyone was to give 10%. Eat that Larry!
And did he really say “…specified specific…”?
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It’s a sick society that worries about the marginal cost to the guy making $100,000 a year more than the basic living conditions of those in poverty.” I think it’s a sick society that sees their fates as being in conflict; who sees this as a zero sum game. Every day, the man making $100,000 a year buys things from people that employ people who make less than he does. When you raise his taxes, who does it hurt? Does it hurt him because he has to cut a few expenses? Or does it hurt the guy who used to cut his grass? The woman who used to serve his coffee? The installer who used to service his cable?
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“New Deal or Raw Deal?
[FDR’s] key advisers were frantic at the possibility of the Great Depression’s return when [World War II] ended and the soldiers came home. The president believed a New Deal revival was the answer—and on Oct. 28, 1944, about six months before his death, he spelled out his vision for a postwar America. It included government-subsidized housing, federal involvement in health care, more TVA projects, and the “right to a useful and remunerative job” provided by the federal government if necessary.Roosevelt died before the war ended and before he could implement his New Deal revival. His successor, Harry Truman, in a 16,000 word message on Sept. 6, 1945, urged Congress to enact FDR’s ideas as the best way to achieve full employment after the war.
Congress—both chambers with Democratic majorities—responded by just saying “no.” No to the whole New Deal revival: no federal program for health care, no full-employment act, only limited federal housing, and no increase in minimum wage or Social Security benefits.
Instead, Congress reduced taxes. Income tax rates were cut across the board. FDR’s top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%. The lowest rate was cut to 19% from 23%, and with a change in the amount of income exempt from taxation an estimated 12 million Americans were eliminated from the tax rolls entirely.
Corporate tax rates were trimmed and FDR’s “excess profits” tax was repealed, which meant that top marginal corporate tax rates effectively went to 38% from 90% after 1945.
Georgia Sen. Walter George, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, defended the Revenue Act of 1945 with arguments that today we would call “supply-side economics.” If the tax bill “has the effect which it is hoped it will have,” George said, “it will so stimulate the expansion of business as to bring in a greater total revenue.”
He was prophetic. By the late 1940s, a revived economy was generating more annual federal revenue than the U.S. had received during the war years, when tax rates were higher. Price controls from the war were also eliminated by the end of 1946. The U.S. began running budget surpluses.
Congress substituted the tonic of freedom for FDR’s New Deal revival and the American economy recovered well. Unemployment, which had been in double digits throughout the 1930s, was only 3.9% in 1946 and, except for a couple of short recessions, remained in that range for the next decade.
