Obama Is Right to Take on the Very Rich

Where did I say they were the devil? They're just not working for their money. [Suppose you buy stock and live off the gains; i.e. people] work for you and their products bring in so much revenue that you get to live off the profits and not have to work on your own, how is that not living on the dole? It's just not the government dole. You're taking it directly from the [revenue earned by] people [who make goods and sell them]. I wouldn't say you're the devil for doing that. But to be fair, you owe those [people] some taxes.

[Edits in square brackets].

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Originally Posted by JelenaCD

It's time for the comsumption tax or the flat tax , taxing work is insane , you should tax consumption yet that will never happen except with cap and trade which will bankrupt USA ! its backwards theory , tax people who are productive and give handouts to unproductive , that is a plain insane !

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A consumption tax shifts the tax burdon to those least able to pay it. The less money one has, the higher the % that goes to consumption. Investment is not consumption. Neither is savings. A consumption tax hits the poor at a higher rate than the rich. It's just an artificial rise in consumer prices. That stifles consumption & lowers sales volume.

The point of a progressive income tax is to tax disposable income. That's what's left after necessities & debt service. It's not a tax on work. A businessman is better off paying the income tax & not screwing with the consumer base that gives him all that disposable income. Everybody makes more money when there's money flowing from the bottom up. This is a consumer based economy. 70%+ of GDP. Who do you think buys all this shit?

The whiners who piss me off the most are the assholes who specialize in government contracts, then piss & moan about having to pay taxes or prevailing wages.

The current capital gains tax laws will expire in 2010.Look for those mean rich people to pull much of their money out of stocks and into municipal bonds and annuities.Would you tax municipal bond interest?If you do,who will provide the revenue for schools,sewers,highways,public utilities,etc?We may all hate the rich,but they did not all get rich by accident.I can imagine where the DOW would be with,for example a 40% tax on dividends and capital gains.Brokerages would probably pay us to buy shares.What about those working people who put a meager amount into their company stocks=the GM workers(not worry about anything but a capital loss there),or AT &T workers.Should they be crucified for trying to do a bit for themselves?

class envy, sickening

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Originally Posted by davinator1212

class envy, sickening

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Ad hominem nonsense. Taxes aren't punishment.

Where I’m from (USA) we don’t have classes. We do have tax brackets and I don’t envy anyone in the highest brackets this year. I’m very happy earning my five figures a year thinking, testing and teaching and I wouldn’t exchange my position with say, Paris Hilton, for anything in the world. Before my current job I was a janitor, a foundry worker, and a fast food worker. I also own some of stock (only in the five figure range). I saw it nearly triple in worth and I saw it plummet to where it’s now its worth about what it was when I acquired it. So I know what it’s like to earn your money doing boring work, hard work, dangerous work and disgusting work. I also know what its like to earn money doing what you love. I’ve also had the experience of cashing in those dividend checks for doing absolutely nothing but taking a risk; nothing to be proud of, nothing to be ashamed of. Whether I was behind the counter at Wendy’s, the grinding wheel at the foundry, the lab bench, the desk or just cashing my dividend check, I had a role in the economy. So no, I’m not envious of anyone’s economic station. I do think it’s obvious that the disproportionately wealthy have a correspondingly disproportionate influence on those to whom we citizens vouchsafe our power, and they take a correspondingly disproportionate advantage of governmental institutions and government subsidized infrastructures. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this; it’s to be expected. In order to have such freedoms, we are a government of checks and balances. Regulation and taxation are just tools to keep things fair and balanced.

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