DC Council votes to raise taxes on the “rich”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe the small town America should be dealing with their own homeless rather than shipping them off to the "liberal cities" and then disingenuously talking about those cities' homelessness problems. Many of DC's homeless aren't originally from DC.

This is a myth.

In general, <10% of the homeless in the major cities in America are from out of the metro area. An even smaller percentage is from out of state.

The majority of homeless are “temporarily” homeless — albeit temporary can be a long time, and I can only imagine how long it feels to the family.

Most homeless are families, with a working mom (sometimes dad) and school aged children.

The “Reagan cut funding to mental health” is mostly a red herring these days, so that liberals in the cities (I’m a liberal, in a city) can justify their NIMBY opposition to housing but still live with themselves.

The solution to homelessness is dramatically more housing in our cities. Not “affordable” housing, just dramatically more supply of housing. If we doubled the supply of housing in DC, the demand would be there to soak it up. Sure, my house value in my leafy Ward 3 neighborhood *might* go down. The horror. But there’s also a chance my children might be able to afford to live in the city. I’ll take that.

Whatever you think of his politics, if you are interested in this topic, Mathew Yglesias is a very thoughtful and grounded-in-the-data writer on this topic.

，most of homeless families do not sleep on DC streets.
The homeless people who sleep on street or under bridges are adults with some personal issues that could be mental health and/or drug. When was llast time you saw a homeless family sleeping on street ?

Where do the homeless families go? This is a sincere question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

I'm sick of upper middle class families claiming they are poor and wanting to tax others to subsidize their lifestyle.

People like OP and his ilk really have no politics other than being slightly less loathsome than the GOP.

I agree with the OP.... like student loan forgiveness.... why do I have to pay higher taxes for student loan forgiveness? I'm sorry some people where foolish enough to take out boatloads of loans they are still paying off.

I have neighbors whose HHI is $150k+ and have $200k+ of loans. I'm not paying for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

I'm sick of upper middle class families claiming they are poor and wanting to tax others to subsidize their lifestyle.

People like OP and his ilk really have no politics other than being slightly less loathsome than the GOP.

People like you and your ilk is why the Democratic Party constantly overreaches and then loses elections to candidates like Trump who was stumbling over coffee tables and yet almost wins a second term after killing a half-million Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t go nearly far enough. The income threshold is far too low, and the increase is pathetically inadequate.

It should kick in at $150k for singles, and $225k for couples filing jointly. And it should be a minimum of $6k/yr to start, and scale up rapidly from there.

This. OP is just like everyone else who pretends to be a liberal until it affects them.

If your HHI is over $225,000, you ARE “the rich”.

Start paying your fair share, greedy bastards.

Lol. $225k is a pittance compared to what the truly wealthy make. That’s like when my 8 year old is in awe of her teenaged cousin’s paycheck from her summer job.

So? What’s your point? Tax them, too.

Tax the snot out of everyone making more than mid-$200’s. Then you get all of them. The wealthy AND the mere rich making a pittance of what the wealthy make.

These lines are all completely arbitrary. No one is more virtuous than anyone else. Define pittance.

Yep. Why mid $200s? Why not $175k?

That works for me. Done.

Maybe it should be $100k? They have tons more money than people making minimum wage.

Agree 100%. No argument from me on that. Everyone should be paying a lot more, unless you’re at the very bottom, in which case, all those increased taxes on everyone else should be supplementing you.

This is how we achieve an egalitarian society. By taking the excess wealth of some, and sharing it with others. The closer we get to income commonality, the less income disparity we have, and we achieve economic justice for everyone.

But the problem is that these policies don't take the excess of wealth from some, they take the excess of SALARIES from some. Bezos has a giant house in DC, will he be paying more under this? If not then why are people crowing about families making $225k not paying thier fair share? What does fair share even mean?

For the record I am affected by this and would be thrilled to pay more in taxes if it meant that daycare workers and teacher made more. But the council saying platitudes like "this will cut homelessness in half" means nothing. Or "5 councilpeople voted against ending homelessness." This is a revenue source and they are implementing a policy, you can't say that implementing a tax results in anything until it actually results in it.

It also makes me salty as a DC resident that MD and VA drivers can drive into our city, not pay for the roads, speed, and not pay speeding tickets. I would love the money that is spent on maintaining GA ave as a highway for MD commuters to be funneled into daycare salaries as well.

FYI: If you get a traffic ticket in DC, you WILL pay it. DC excels in collecting on tickets. Patient but relentless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly not surprising to see the poor logic of the “tax the rich” posters.

This isn’t the federal the OP posted about. It is the local rate in DC. If you make the rate too high, the highest earners will leave. Some to VA. Others to zero income tax states.

That Council member who opposed it said 0.7% of DC taxpayers earn >$1M and contribute 23% of DCs taxes. Given the earnings at the highest end of professional services, we’re probably talking about something like 500 taxpayers making $4M or more… contributing by my back of envelope math, something like 18% of the city’s tax base.

You can celebrate soaking the rich, but some of them are just going to move. You can celebrate that, but you’ve just crushed the net tax of this city and the services you supposedly care about.

It’s about being competitive and as OP said attractive in what is now more than ever a comparison between various places to live. The pandemic has re-written the rules for where “knowledge workers” need to be.

Wise up.

If people believe they are being taxed unfairly they will leave. Does not matter if they can afford the taxes or not. You will get more of their more of their money by asking instead of taking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

I'm sick of upper middle class families claiming they are poor and wanting to tax others to subsidize their lifestyle.

People like OP and his ilk really have no politics other than being slightly less loathsome than the GOP.

People like you and your ilk is why the Democratic Party constantly overreaches and then loses elections to candidates like Trump who was stumbling over coffee tables and yet almost wins a second term after killing a half-million Americans.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

I'm sick of upper middle class families claiming they are poor and wanting to tax others to subsidize their lifestyle.

People like OP and his ilk really have no politics other than being slightly less loathsome than the GOP.

People like you and your ilk is why the Democratic Party constantly overreaches and then loses elections to candidates like Trump who was stumbling over coffee tables and yet almost wins a second term after killing a half-million Americans.

+1

Lmao that we’re the reason Hillary sucked as a candidate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder why Tony Williams, our best Mayor ever, would be against this tax? Hmm.

Because it’s money out of his pocket, and rich people don’t pay their fair share.

Too bad. Pay up.

Most rich people in fact do pay their fair share. That’s who the taxes come from now. Flat tax. 25% total from all.

The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers fell slightly, to 20.9 percent in 2018 from 21 percent in 2017. Their share of federal individual income taxes rose by 1.6 percentage points to 40.1 percent.

Since 2001, the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1 percent increased from 33.2 percent to a new high of 40.1 percent in 2018.

In 2018, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.1 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.9 percent.

The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (40.1 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (28.6 percent).

The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.4 percent average individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.4 percent).

First, those figures are highly suspect.

Secondly, if you earn a half million dollars a year and paid 40% of it taxes, you’re still clearing $275k a year after taxes. Compare that to someone making $35k a year, who might keep $25k after taxes.

See the problem now?


The person making $35k should not only pay zero in taxes, but should get an income supplement to bring them up to maybe $60k. And the person making $500k should be taxed to the point where they keep maybe $80-$90k after taxes. So they still earn more, but not vastly more, than others. This is how you eliminate wealth disparity in a society.

No, I don’t see the problem, and also you’re wrong that someone making $35k/yr is is paying that much in tax.

But anyway if you tax me that heavily I’m going to quit my high income job. It’s barely worth it at my current tax rate.

So? Quit your job. Who cares? Someone else, hopefully a BIPOC, will replace you. Win-win. If you want to act spitefully because you just can’t bear to help people with less privilege than you, than good riddance.

Thus post is woke lunacy at its finest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder why Tony Williams, our best Mayor ever, would be against this tax? Hmm.

Because it’s money out of his pocket, and rich people don’t pay their fair share.

Too bad. Pay up.

Most rich people in fact do pay their fair share. That’s who the taxes come from now. Flat tax. 25% total from all.

The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers fell slightly, to 20.9 percent in 2018 from 21 percent in 2017. Their share of federal individual income taxes rose by 1.6 percentage points to 40.1 percent.

Since 2001, the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1 percent increased from 33.2 percent to a new high of 40.1 percent in 2018.

In 2018, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.1 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.9 percent.

The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (40.1 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (28.6 percent).

The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.4 percent average individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.4 percent).

First, those figures are highly suspect.

Secondly, if you earn a half million dollars a year and paid 40% of it taxes, you’re still clearing $275k a year after taxes. Compare that to someone making $35k a year, who might keep $25k after taxes.

See the problem now?


The person making $35k should not only pay zero in taxes, but should get an income supplement to bring them up to maybe $60k. And the person making $500k should be taxed to the point where they keep maybe $80-$90k after taxes. So they still earn more, but not vastly more, than others. This is how you eliminate wealth disparity in a society.

This sounds like something my 12 year old would come up with.

And I congratulate you for raising a child with a social conscience. Not sure where they got it from, since clearly you had nothing to do with it. Probably her teachers, I’m guessing? Good. They’ll undue whatever trumpian influences you try to foist on her.

And the best part is, she’ll vote for people who will create a system of economic equality, rather than what we have now. The future is bright thanks to these kids.

Counterpoint. It's a juvenile take on a complex issue. Socialism doesn't work. It's a fantasy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t go nearly far enough. The income threshold is far too low, and the increase is pathetically inadequate.

It should kick in at $150k for singles, and $225k for couples filing jointly. And it should be a minimum of $6k/yr to start, and scale up rapidly from there.

This. OP is just like everyone else who pretends to be a liberal until it affects them.

If your HHI is over $225,000, you ARE “the rich”.

Start paying your fair share, greedy bastards.

Lol. $225k is a pittance compared to what the truly wealthy make. That’s like when my 8 year old is in awe of her teenaged cousin’s paycheck from her summer job.

So? What’s your point? Tax them, too.

Tax the snot out of everyone making more than mid-$200’s. Then you get all of them. The wealthy AND the mere rich making a pittance of what the wealthy make.

These lines are all completely arbitrary. No one is more virtuous than anyone else. Define pittance.

Yep. Why mid $200s? Why not $175k?

That works for me. Done.

Maybe it should be $100k? They have tons more money than people making minimum wage.

Agree 100%. No argument from me on that. Everyone should be paying a lot more, unless you’re at the very bottom, in which case, all those increased taxes on everyone else should be supplementing you.

This is how we achieve an egalitarian society. By taking the excess wealth of some, and sharing it with others. The closer we get to income commonality, the less income disparity we have, and we achieve economic justice for everyone.

Four legs good. Two legs bad.

Wut???

Holy non-sensical comment! WTH?

Stupid trumpet.

Not an Orwell fan, I see.

NP.

This just shows the effects of schools teaching social justice nonsense books instead of true classics. None of these morons knew one of the most famous quotes in literature. They all know defund the police and tax the rich though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t go nearly far enough. The income threshold is far too low, and the increase is pathetically inadequate.

It should kick in at $150k for singles, and $225k for couples filing jointly. And it should be a minimum of $6k/yr to start, and scale up rapidly from there.

This. OP is just like everyone else who pretends to be a liberal until it affects them.

If your HHI is over $225,000, you ARE “the rich”.

Start paying your fair share, greedy bastards.

Lol. $225k is a pittance compared to what the truly wealthy make. That’s like when my 8 year old is in awe of her teenaged cousin’s paycheck from her summer job.

So? What’s your point? Tax them, too.

Tax the snot out of everyone making more than mid-$200’s. Then you get all of them. The wealthy AND the mere rich making a pittance of what the wealthy make.

These lines are all completely arbitrary. No one is more virtuous than anyone else. Define pittance.

Yep. Why mid $200s? Why not $175k?

That works for me. Done.

Maybe it should be $100k? They have tons more money than people making minimum wage.

Agree 100%. No argument from me on that. Everyone should be paying a lot more, unless you’re at the very bottom, in which case, all those increased taxes on everyone else should be supplementing you.

This is how we achieve an egalitarian society. By taking the excess wealth of some, and sharing it with others. The closer we get to income commonality, the less income disparity we have, and we achieve economic justice for everyone.

But the problem is that these policies don't take the excess of wealth from some, they take the excess of SALARIES from some. Bezos has a giant house in DC, will he be paying more under this? If not then why are people crowing about families making $225k not paying thier fair share? What does fair share even mean?

For the record I am affected by this and would be thrilled to pay more in taxes if it meant that daycare workers and teacher made more. But the council saying platitudes like "this will cut homelessness in half" means nothing. Or "5 councilpeople voted against ending homelessness." This is a revenue source and they are implementing a policy, you can't say that implementing a tax results in anything until it actually results in it.

It also makes me salty as a DC resident that MD and VA drivers can drive into our city, not pay for the roads, speed, and not pay speeding tickets. I would love the money that is spent on maintaining GA ave as a highway for MD commuters to be funneled into daycare salaries as well.

FYI: If you get a traffic ticket in DC, you WILL pay it. DC excels in collecting on tickets. Patient but relentless.

+100

The organs of the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwewlth will be efficient and merciless with those who disregard our laws!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

I'm sick of upper middle class families claiming they are poor and wanting to tax others to subsidize their lifestyle.

People like OP and his ilk really have no politics other than being slightly less loathsome than the GOP.

People like you and your ilk is why the Democratic Party constantly overreaches and then loses elections to candidates like Trump who was stumbling over coffee tables and yet almost wins a second term after killing a half-million Americans.

+1

Lmao that we’re the reason Hillary sucked as a candidate.

Democrats couldn't win the Senate, barely kept the House, and Biden won by less than 5% of the vote.... after he killed half a million Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

I'm sick of upper middle class families claiming they are poor and wanting to tax others to subsidize their lifestyle.

People like OP and his ilk really have no politics other than being slightly less loathsome than the GOP.

People like you and your ilk is why the Democratic Party constantly overreaches and then loses elections to candidates like Trump who was stumbling over coffee tables and yet almost wins a second term after killing a half-million Americans.

+1

Lmao that we’re the reason Hillary sucked as a candidate.

Democrats couldn't win the Senate, barely kept the House, and Biden won by less than 5% of the vote.... after he killed half a million Americans.

Democrats couldn't win the Senate, barely kept the House, and Biden won by less than 5% of the vote.... after Trump killed half a million Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s sad that so many people who likely think of themselves as progressives are so out and out opposed to building an equitable society where people are much closer together in terms of their standards of living.

All of you hate the right wing, but you practically agree with them when it comes to “your” money. We’re never going to fix this country.

Posters like this continue to miss OP’s point. It’s about relative tax rates across states. Higher state taxes do nothing to achieve an “equitable” society! Are CA, NYC and Washington DC beacons for equitable society?

I’m agreed with OP. Can’t speak for him/her, but I’m actually fine with higher Federal tax rates (especially doing away with things like the carried interest loophole and increasing estate taxes etc). As a matter of public policy, those could achieve more equitable outcomes.

Higher DC taxes on the highest earners will only drive marginal net outmigration of the highest earners! You cannot achieve “equitable society” via state taxes.

But it is much more convenient for you to call names than it is to try and stretch your mind around concepts that are obviously a bit new to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t go nearly far enough. The income threshold is far too low, and the increase is pathetically inadequate.

It should kick in at $150k for singles, and $225k for couples filing jointly. And it should be a minimum of $6k/yr to start, and scale up rapidly from there.

This. OP is just like everyone else who pretends to be a liberal until it affects them.

If your HHI is over $225,000, you ARE “the rich”.

Start paying your fair share, greedy bastards.

Lol. $225k is a pittance compared to what the truly wealthy make. That’s like when my 8 year old is in awe of her teenaged cousin’s paycheck from her summer job.

So? What’s your point? Tax them, too.

Tax the snot out of everyone making more than mid-$200’s. Then you get all of them. The wealthy AND the mere rich making a pittance of what the wealthy make.

These lines are all completely arbitrary. No one is more virtuous than anyone else. Define pittance.

Yep. Why mid $200s? Why not $175k?

That works for me. Done.

Maybe it should be $100k? They have tons more money than people making minimum wage.

Agree 100%. No argument from me on that. Everyone should be paying a lot more, unless you’re at the very bottom, in which case, all those increased taxes on everyone else should be supplementing you.

This is how we achieve an egalitarian society. By taking the excess wealth of some, and sharing it with others. The closer we get to income commonality, the less income disparity we have, and we achieve economic justice for everyone.

But the problem is that these policies don't take the excess of wealth from some, they take the excess of SALARIES from some. Bezos has a giant house in DC, will he be paying more under this? If not then why are people crowing about families making $225k not paying thier fair share? What does fair share even mean?

For the record I am affected by this and would be thrilled to pay more in taxes if it meant that daycare workers and teacher made more. But the council saying platitudes like "this will cut homelessness in half" means nothing. Or "5 councilpeople voted against ending homelessness." This is a revenue source and they are implementing a policy, you can't say that implementing a tax results in anything until it actually results in it.

It also makes me salty as a DC resident that MD and VA drivers can drive into our city, not pay for the roads, speed, and not pay speeding tickets. I would love the money that is spent on maintaining GA ave as a highway for MD commuters to be funneled into daycare salaries as well.

FYI: If you get a traffic ticket in DC, you WILL pay it. DC excels in collecting on tickets. Patient but relentless.

+100

The organs of the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwewlth will be efficient and merciless with those who disregard our laws!

Why are they failing so many kids right now. And why are those failures translating to murdered 6 year olds and gunplay in the streets.

So typical, fail at the big things and change the subject.