DCUM Class warfare

[Anonymous]

"So are you saying everyone should aspire to be a CEO or lawyer? Who will teach your children? Deliver your mail? Watch your children while you are at work? Pave your roads? Police the community? Work at your grocery store or favorite restaurant? Your attitude is frankly astounding, and rather frightening. "

My attitude is that if you want higher income, you need to go into a higher paying profession. If not, don't complain when you can't stay afloat. I couldn't afford to be a teacher; maybe in retirement. It's a luxury to pursue a profession you want if it's not super high paying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really think a better way to have a reasonable conversation is for Obama liberals (which doesn't include all Democrats) to admit that they are Socialists and that they actually support higher taxes due to some moral leaning that they have as opposed to just sheer need and the we can try and work to a middle. If you admit that people who make a lot of money need to share much of their earnings with everyone else then the conversation switches to defining the roles. Then we can ask ourselves do we want a country less like the America of now and more like Europe? Until they plainly state their true motives and then show your work we'll never have consensus. Socialists please stand up.

I agree. I'm a non-socialist Dem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really think a better way to have a reasonable conversation is for Obama liberals (which doesn't include all Democrats) to admit that they are Socialists and that they actually support higher taxes due to some moral leaning that they have as opposed to just sheer need and the we can try and work to a middle. If you admit that people who make a lot of money need to share much of their earnings with everyone else then the conversation switches to defining the roles. Then we can ask ourselves do we want a country less like the America of now and more like Europe? Until they plainly state their true motives and then show your work we'll never have consensus. Socialists please stand up.

If corporations would distribute their money more fairly to their workers, this would not be needed. If it were easy to move between jobs (without loosing your health benefits, without disrupting your family, without losing a huge hunk of money when you sell you house), this would not be needed. In the real world, taxes are needed to make sure we have parks, schools, roads, a defense, and things that benefit everyone. With most people making so little money, there is no way for the middle class and poor to pay for these things. If we want a decent society, yes, there have to be taxes, and the rich have to pay their fair share of those taxes. (and yes, I'm a socialist... what is wrong with that? Are you confusing socialist with communist? Or yourself with an anarchist? because confusing a socialist with a communist is equivalent to confusing a libertarian with an anarchist...)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Second, those people that paid "no tax" used the exact same deductions as you did. The child care credit, standard deduction, etc. Its just that once they deducted those things, they owned nothing. Most paid Social Security and Medicare, so its not as if they got off completely "free". And the 50% is a high mark. It was 40% in 2007. The statistics have only been tracked since 2004. "

I'd love to know your AGI. I don't get the childcare credit, I don't take the standard deduction. My IRA contributions are nondeductible. Our deductions are reduced due to our income by a percentage.

AGI = ~170k. We only qualify for a fraction of the child care deduction. However, we do use standard deductions, and our retirement plan was deductible.

You're saying that the combined total of state income taxes, mortgage interest, real estate taxes and charitable giving are less than the standard deduction?

We don't own a home. Have previously, but not now. Residents of Texas, so no state income tax. Give cash to church, we don't bother tracking, minimal cash donations to other charities like St Judes, then donate house hold items to Salvation Army. So yes, standard deduction is better for us.

[Anonymous]

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public Service Announcement to ManWithAUsername:

You have interesting points on substance to make but I just can't read your comments anymore because you harp on "Rep/Faux" stuff. It isn't helpful when you assert or assume that those on the right are all being led like a pack of wolves and that everything they do or say is a "tactic." I accept that you believe these things but it just derails the conversation when you keep saying it.

Unless the comment really calls for a discussion of "tactics," could you go back to just accepting the other side's positions for what they are and addressing those?

I don't think the rank and file are employing a tactic. That's part of the sad reality. Relative to this, I'd group the Reps roughly as follows:
1) a small group elite leadership in government and media who employ these as tactics, though now perhaps habit or compulsion;
2) a very large group of people thoughtlessly believing it and parroting it, and therefore in great anxiety;
3) a smaller group of people outside of that process.

It's hard to gauge the relative sizes of 2 and 3 because I assume that 2 is more vocal.

It's fairly easy to distinguish between 2 and 3, because people in 2 say ridiculous things like Obama hates business and vilifies business leaders daily. They also tend to use the Rep/Faux talking points, like "class warfare." That's not an assumption; it's a judgment, one with which you're free to disagree.

You say that it's not helpful for me to assert that judgment when I've made it. I think it is helpful for the more thoughtful of us to maintain that perspective, so that instead of pointlessly addressing the fiction we address what's really going on - vulnerable and foolish people being manipulated by powerful and cynical people. When someone makes an absurd and unsupported allegation, it's actually counterproductive to address it, because it just legitimizes the accusation - again, exactly the tactic.

Let's say we're having an argument, and I say, "You seem like a child molester to me." I hope you wouldn't start trying to make your case that you're not. I assume that you'd say, "WTF?" and demand some basis for the statement.

Why are you so convinced about the nature of group 2? That would be a very hard thing to be sure of, it seems to me.

When a lot of people say "class warfare" I take them to mean something like telling average and low-income people that the wealthy are harming them somehow and should be better controlled or perhaps punished for their wealth. You may prefer another phrase but it isn't a content-free phrase. And if a lot of people use it because it came from a "talking point," well that's how shorter phrases that convey a larger idea are used. It's a matter of shorthand.

But at least now I know your position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really think a better way to have a reasonable conversation is for Obama liberals (which doesn't include all Democrats) to admit that they are Socialists and that they actually support higher taxes due to some moral leaning that they have as opposed to just sheer need and the we can try and work to a middle. If you admit that people who make a lot of money need to share much of their earnings with everyone else then the conversation switches to defining the roles. Then we can ask ourselves do we want a country less like the America of now and more like Europe? Until they plainly state their true motives and then show your work we'll never have consensus. Socialists please stand up.

If corporations would distribute their money more fairly to their workers, this would not be needed. If it were easy to move between jobs (without loosing your health benefits, without disrupting your family, without losing a huge hunk of money when you sell you house), this would not be needed. In the real world, taxes are needed to make sure we have parks, schools, roads, a defense, and things that benefit everyone. With most people making so little money, there is no way for the middle class and poor to pay for these things. If we want a decent society, yes, there have to be taxes, and the rich have to pay their fair share of those taxes. (and yes, I'm a socialist... what is wrong with that? Are you confusing socialist with communist? Or yourself with an anarchist? because confusing a socialist with a communist is equivalent to confusing a libertarian with an anarchist...)

If you go to school, work hard, work in a needed capacity you will be paid well. You have something of value and that can be transferred. The unemployment rate for people with Bachelor's degrees is only 4% and with Masters is 2%. You keep talking about all these things and it seems to slip your mind that people already pay taxes. the top earners are paying over 80% of all the taxes in America. So if you want them to pay MORE because we don't have a "decent society" then please tell me what this socalled Nirvana would entail. What the FUCK will Americans get for more taxes? More parks? Parks in space? You think more taxes will cause companies to move manufacturing back to America? Will more taxes cause the teacher's unions to actually allow underperforming teachers to be fired? Will more money make DC schools better? They already spend the most in the nation and have the worst results. Will more money mean that the government will be more efficient and not so redundant? What the hell will more taxes do? Because in your eyes we have NO army, No parks, No roads. I thought the $800b stimulus was supposed to be shovel ready to shore up all of that.

No one called you communist, so pipe the heck down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How did Bob "toil" on this investment? Called his broken buddy and said "make me more money!" Really. He didn't "work" for it at all. Apple made a new widget which a ton of people bought. Apple stock went up. Bob reaps the benefit. Uncle Sam takes a slice off the top.

Bottom line, the money made on that investment is still INCOME. It's why its taxed. The arguement is how much should it be taxed. I think it should be taxed the same as regular income.

But that money is ALREADY taxed. If Bob was saving some of his earning every year that money is taxed at regular rate, then taxed again at capital gains. It's double taxation. That is also the money that goes around to fuel M&A activity, venture capital etc.

No, the money was not "already taxed". If he earns money, taxed on it, and then invests 100k and makes 10k on that investment, only the 10k made on the investment is taxed, not the 100k that he previously earned and was already taxed on. How dense are you?

And he pays tax on that gain, a gain that wouldn't have occurred if he didn't provide that initial pot. And that helps to fuel millions of jobs and the basis of our economy which is our capital markets.

So you agree. Since I work and make $100k, pay taxes that build parks and subsidize farms and pays teachers They wouldn't get that tax out of me if I decided not to work. And Apple wouldn't have sold that iPad. Yes, money is taxed around every bend. So why should gains be any different?

[Anonymous]

"We don't own a home. Have previously, but not now. Residents of Texas, so no state income tax. Give cash to church, we don't bother tracking, minimal cash donations to other charities like St Judes, then donate house hold items to Salvation Army. So yes, standard deduction is better for us. "

That quite frankly blows my mind. We already pay six figures in income tax, can't imagine what we'd pay if we settled for the standard deduction. You don't track your cash charitable contributions? I guess they're not hundreds every month.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous
My "fair share" is already 1/3 of my income. Half the people in this country pay zip.

If there are married filing jointly and you have two dependent children you pay no income tax on at least $26000 of your income.

That's just using four exemptions and the standard deduction, so you probably have more tax-free income than that. The top income tax rate is indeed now 35%, but that's the marginal rate; it only applies to amounts over $373,650. That's taxable income, by the way, not gross income.

After you subtract the 26,000 you pay the same rates as everyone else; 10% up to 16,750 , 15% up to 68,650 and so on. If someone else is doing your taxes and he tells you that you are paying over 1/3 of your income in Federal income tax, it's not true. I hope you are not being cheated.

Other taxes everyone pays -- Social Security, sales tax, property tax.

[TheManWithAUsername]

Anonymous wrote:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:I don't think the rank and file are employing a tactic. That's part of the sad reality. Relative to this, I'd group the Reps roughly as follows:
1) a small group elite leadership in government and media who employ these as tactics, though now perhaps habit or compulsion;
2) a very large group of people thoughtlessly believing it and parroting it, and therefore in great anxiety;
3) a smaller group of people outside of that process.

...

It's fairly easy to distinguish between 2 and 3, because people in 2 say ridiculous things like Obama hates business and vilifies business leaders daily. They also tend to use the Rep/Faux talking points, like "class warfare." That's not an assumption; it's a judgment, one with which you're free to disagree.

Why are you so convinced about the nature of group 2? That would be a very hard thing to be sure of, it seems to me.

Let's look at the situation. I encounter someone who, without any support, says that it "seems" to him/her that Obama vilifies business as evil on a daily basis.

This is a ridiculous, indefensible statement. (Well, the "seems" language in a sense makes it invulnerable, but that doesn't really change the analysis.) We ask ourselves where from where this idea may have come. Why do things "seem" that way to this person?

It's possible that the person somehow arrived at this conclusion on his/her own. I'd like to think that random insanity isn't as prevalent as it would have to be to explain the many people saying things like this. I also know that Rep political and media leaders have been pushing this idea for weeks on Faux, and that 40% of people rely on Faux as their primary "news" source. Are you seriously going to say that it's a leap to connect the two?

Anonymous wrote:When a lot of people say "class warfare" I take them to mean something like telling average and low-income people that the wealthy are harming them somehow and should be better controlled or perhaps punished for their wealth. You may prefer another phrase but it isn't a content-free phrase.

I don't know why we would take them to mean anything in particular, given the huge numbers of people who regularly abuse the term "socialist." But most clearly are not using it that way, because they accuse the Dem leadership of "class warfare" merely for proposing higher taxes.

I agree that it has slightly more content than "liberal" and "socialist," as used by Reps/Faux. Those terms basically just mean "poopie-head." They started abusing "liberal," but it lost its punch with overuse, so they ramped things up with this administration. I assume that the next Dem president will be a "communist," but I don't know where we'll go from there. But "class warfare" is still being warped beyond recognition, very deliberately by the Rep/Faux elite and recklessly by "group 2."

Anonymous wrote:And if a lot of people use it because it came from a "talking point," well that's how shorter phrases that convey a larger idea are used. It's a matter of shorthand.

Yeah - almost always, it's shorthand for "thing that Dems are doing to which you should object." And the specific term is carefully chosen by Frank Luntz for emotional impact, not meaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"So are you saying everyone should aspire to be a CEO or lawyer? Who will teach your children? Deliver your mail? Watch your children while you are at work? Pave your roads? Police the community? Work at your grocery store or favorite restaurant? Your attitude is frankly astounding, and rather frightening. "

My attitude is that if you want higher income, you need to go into a higher paying profession. If not, don't complain when you can't stay afloat. I couldn't afford to be a teacher; maybe in retirement. It's a luxury to pursue a profession you want if it's not super high paying.

Are you for real? If you are the same person who has responded multiple times about how you chose a high-paying profession and those did not should shut up and suck it up, I agree with the PP you quoted; you are frightening.

To you and the OP: many of us don't care how much you make. My family would be considered middle class around here, but I realize that compared to most people in this country and in the world, we are very lucky to have a home, good food to eat, clean water to drink, a good education, etc. I did all the things that the rich people on this thread are patting themselves on the back for (working hard in school, etc.), but I don't feel that I am entitled to riches and luxuries based on this. I also prefer to have a profession that I believe helps others and contributes in a notable way to society rather than to pursue a career based purely on the hope for a high salary. I would not condemn you for making a lot of money; I would condemn you for your obvious and misplaced feelings of superiority and your lack of basic humanity.

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to throw this out there in case all the people on this thread ranting about how the poors pay no taxes (except state taxes, sales taxes, etc.) care to read. I'll even put some nice relevant quotes in here to make it easy.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_16/b4224045265660.htm

For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate—what they actually pay—fell from almost 30 percent in 1995 to just under 17 percent in 2007, according to the IRS. And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1 percent of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29 percent to 23 percent in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600 or so.

and

For those who can afford a shrewd accountant or attorney, our era is rife with opportunity to avoid, or at least defer, tax bills, according to tax specialists and public records. It's limited only by the boundaries of taste, creativity, and the ability to understand some very complex shelters.

And for those of you who keep parroting about how all the money that is being "stolen" from you via taxes would otherwise be used to create jobs and help the poor teeming masses, well please tell me how well "trickle-down economics" worked the first time...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If you go to school, work hard, work in a needed capacity you will be paid well. You have something of value and that can be transferred. The unemployment rate for people with Bachelor's degrees is only 4% and with Masters is 2%. You keep talking about all these things and it seems to slip your mind that people already pay taxes. the top earners are paying over 80% of all the taxes in America. So if you want them to pay MORE because we don't have a "decent society" then please tell me what this socalled Nirvana would entail. What the FUCK will Americans get for more taxes? More parks? Parks in space? You think more taxes will cause companies to move manufacturing back to America? Will more taxes cause the teacher's unions to actually allow underperforming teachers to be fired? Will more money make DC schools better? They already spend the most in the nation and have the worst results. Will more money mean that the government will be more efficient and not so redundant? What the hell will more taxes do? Because in your eyes we have NO army, No parks, No roads. I thought the $800b stimulus was supposed to be shovel ready to shore up all of that.

No one called you communist, so pipe the heck down.

Finally an argument from the libertarian side I can understand. If what you really want to say is "I'd give you the money, but I honestly don't think you need it, and if I gave it to you, you'd waste it", I can perfectly understand that. Saying "class warfare" and "I got mine, you get your own yourself" was just confusing me to death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you go to school, work hard, work in a needed capacity you will be paid well. You have something of value and that can be transferred. The unemployment rate for people with Bachelor's degrees is only 4% and with Masters is 2%. You keep talking about all these things and it seems to slip your mind that people already pay taxes. the top earners are paying over 80% of all the taxes in America. So if you want them to pay MORE because we don't have a "decent society" then please tell me what this socalled Nirvana would entail. What the FUCK will Americans get for more taxes? More parks? Parks in space? You think more taxes will cause companies to move manufacturing back to America? Will more taxes cause the teacher's unions to actually allow underperforming teachers to be fired? Will more money make DC schools better? They already spend the most in the nation and have the worst results. Will more money mean that the government will be more efficient and not so redundant? What the hell will more taxes do? Because in your eyes we have NO army, No parks, No roads. I thought the $800b stimulus was supposed to be shovel ready to shore up all of that.

No one called you communist, so pipe the heck down.

Finally an argument from the libertarian side I can understand. If what you really want to say is "I'd give you the money, but I honestly don't think you need it, and if I gave it to you, you'd waste it", I can perfectly understand that. Saying "class warfare" and "I got mine, you get your own yourself" was just confusing me to death.

Well the argument that comes from the President is "pay your fair share" which is an emotional argument because "fair share" is not a quantifiable measure. So if the argument is that we need more taxes and here is why, then let's look at everything dollar for dollar and see what we're getting. The president isn't willing to do that. Even Republicans need to put defense spending on the table. The problem isn't revenue it's spending. Yet that is always left out and we just blame people who go out and make a good living. If we weren't spending money on bombers that were 20th centuries or brought our troops back from Japan, or had effective education spending people would be open to giving more away. But we are vastly inefficient and everyone knows taht. To then just say "give us more" and not "gives us more, please" but "gives us more or you're a selfish and an asshole that lacks compassion" will always get pushback. PErsonally I will sit home this election (I live in the District so that doesn't affect his math) but I've been disappointed by the tone of this man. He came to unite but continues to divide our country. He's carrying on in the Bush tradition. America has big problems and huge structural changes here we have a president that doesn't want to lead us but to put people down.

[Anonymous]

Don't forget that roads, parks, and schools don't maintain themselves. We once had an excellent network of railroads, now gone, for instance.

During the Clinton administration the government ran a surplus. Early in George W. Bush's administration, he cut taxes, but those cuts were ostensibly temporary. Now that the government is running a deficit it's time to let them expire.