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OK so this is a thread about the class system that we have here and an interesting fact that I would like to discuss. Back in the 1920s or so taxes for an individual were 91%, so the rich were taxed that much. Guess what? They were still rich. What did we do with their money? We built Hoover Dam, paved highways. We even went to the *edited*ing moon. After all that rich people were still rich and living the high life. That tax stayed in effect until about 1964 when it was reduced to around 76%, and it went down from there, now the rich are taxed less than the middle and poor class and they get more benefits and hand outs. So my question is why is it such a big deal to make our wealthy our money holders, give more to this country so we can do *edited* again? I mean if the rich were spending money, that would be one thing. Here is the thing though, they aren’t spending money, they are hoarding it, seeing what number they can get on Forbes 500, it’s a *edited*ing contest!
Discuss.
This article I found was chock full of some very interesting information, please read it objectively.
http://www.albionmonitor.com/9804a/taxreformcorp.html
And keep in mind that it was written in 1998, as far as I can tell.
dude don’t you know the rich are not only economically more superior than all of us, but they are also smarter, wiser, prettier, better genes, more fit, overall a higher human being. Rich people need all that money because they earned it (lol) and most were bestowed by God to be uber rich. We should look to them for advice, and in fact pay them more money for their good graces. Hell, since they are so successful they have to know what is right for our country. And we all know the trickle down theory works wonders
/sarcasm
10 bucks masterP’s response will be something like: “the rich already get taxed more than any other class you commies/socialists!!”
I sense that if I just wait until MasterP gets here, I’ll see a very entertaining flame war. It’s just a matter of time…
I don’t want it to be a flame war, but I know that inevitably it will be. That is just how things go with MP.
My intention was to hold up a sign and say hey look, that worked, let’s do that again. I know that my words mean nothing on this little forum, so honestly I am just curious to see what anyone with a counter-argument will say.
i don’t consider our heated discussions flame wars. Me and masterp very rarely ever condescend one another directly, now we may poke fun at each other’s opposing view points, but that’s just the name of the game. I actually look forward to what masterp, and whoever else has to say, because different perspectives are very refreshing in my mind, regardless if i agree or not.
that said, i’m prepared for all out war!!!!!! bring it conservatives, i have joints rolled up and ready to shoot at you
scrapping the entire post cause im a *edited*ing retard. NOT ONLY DID I MESS UP ONE NUMBER, all my calculations were based off thousands not millions. the difference between the two is like 0.4%
point fails, i fail, shamefully i leave this thread for good.
FDR still sucked a fatty.
Ideologically, I do feel that the rich should contribute to the well being of the nation. It’s not a requisite but helping the unfortunate when you have vast amounts of wealth is a desirable virtue that needs to be cultivated. The government should not mandate that these people HAVE to give up their wealth to benefit society, but I do feel that it is the right choice to be made, and they should be (and many are) doing so.
149,965 is the average?? hell that’s a nice wad of cash money right there.
you sure you don’t mean 14,965 dollars?
also rockafeller was the richest man alive. oprah is rich, but there are a lot more richer.
Bill Gates is a great example though of an uber rich man with pretty good virtues. He’s a donating beast.
NuRayZ said:
149,965 is the average?? hell that’s a nice wad of cash money right there.
you sure you don’t mean 14,965 dollars?
49,956 is the average for the middle class
dumb *edited* me added a 1 to the 100000 place
fixing numbers in post
I see what you are saying here, however I still don’t see the issue with taxing the rich heavier, the thing is sure a lot of people give and that is great, but where the money needs to be is with the nation to get it out of debt. I think a top tax of 70% like that article said would be relatively fair as opposed to what it is right now, which is 35%, are you *edited*ing kidding me?
385,000,000 * .35 = 134,750,000. Now that is a lot of money. Now she still has 250,250,000. Still a quarter of a Billion dollars. Ummm, no wonder she buys people cars on her show…. Oh wait she doesn’t pay for that, the network does.
My main point is, yes some people are trying to be charitable, but not everyone is, we still have the insanely rich and the insanely greedy. Unfortunately there needs to be a happy medium.
385,000,000 * .70 = 269,500,000 = 115,500,000. Hmmm still seems insanely wealthy to me. And the nation just gained 100 million more dollars on ONE person. How many middle class people do you have to tax at what percentage to get that amount?
I dunno, the answer seems obvious to me. I think to me it is more about equalizing out the structure of our class system a bit and neutralizing the nation’s debt. If we raised the taxes on the wealthy to my proposed percentage, I think that would be easily attainable, and guess what, the rich would still be rich, but the poor and middle class would not have to carry this country on their shoulders.
To me, this is the US :
The girl with down syndrome is the rich, the pidgins are the middle class and the ground and *edited* on it are the poor.
Now that is a harsh image…
Like I said, no one who proposes higher taxes on the rich actually know their economic history. Since you obviously don’t know, it’s time for a history lesson.
Since you bring it up, let’s discuss the 1920s…
The federal income tax was created in 1913 with a tax rate of 7%, by the end of WW1 it was 77% for people making $1 million/year or more. To put that in perspective for you, that would be people making $150 million per year today, not even close to where you’re whining about. Treasury Secretary Mellon, then the 3rd highest income taxpayer in the US behind Ford and Rockefeller, said “The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business.” He proposed sweeping and drastic federal income tax reductions which got strong support from President Coolidge, who argued that “the wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful.”
Wikipedia said:
The Mellon plan
Mellon came into office with a goal of reducing the huge federal debt from World War I. To do this, he needed to increase the federal revenue and cut spending. He believed that if the tax rates were too high, then the people would try to avoid paying them. He observed that as tax rates had increased during the first part of the 20th century, investors moved to avoid the highest rates—by choosing tax-free municipal bonds, for instance. As Mellon wrote in 1924:
“The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business.”
If the rates were set more reasonably, taxpayers would have less incentive to avoid paying. His controversial theory was that by lowering the tax rates across the board, he could increase the overall tax revenue.
Andrew Mellon’s plan had four main points:
1.Cut the top income tax rate from 73 to 24 percent
2.Cut taxes on low incomes from 4 to 1/2 percent
3.Reduce the Federal Estate tax
4.Efficiency in government
Mellon believed that the income tax should remain progressive, but with lower rates than those enacted during World War I. He thought that the top income earners would only willingly pay their taxes if rates were 25% or lower. Mellon proposed tax rate cuts, which Congress enacted in the Revenue Acts of 1921, 1924, and 1926. The top marginal tax rate was cut from 73% to 58% in 1922, 50% in 1923, 46% in 1924, 25% in 1925, and 24% in 1929. Rates in lower brackets were also cut substantially, relieving burdens on the middle-class, working-class, and poor households.
By 1926 65% of the income tax revenue came from incomes $300,000 and higher, when five years prior, less than 20% did. During this same period, the overall tax burden on those that earned less than $10,000 dropped from $155 million to $32.5 million.
Mellon’s policy reduced the public debt (largely inherited from World War I obligations) from almost $26 billion in 1921 to about $16 billion in 1930, but then the Depression caused it to rise again. By 1935, Franklin Roosevelt had gone back to high tax rates and wiped out Andrew Mellon’s initiatives. The top tax rate went to 80% by 1935 and the federal government increased excise taxes in an attempt to make up for the lost revenue.
Just so we’re clear on that last part, economists now believe, by a large majority, that FDR’s economic decisions doubled the length of the Great Depression. Part of that was the tax code changes he implemented. Actually most of it was but I also give credit to the fact that FDR was a colossal dumbass.
I’m going to stop right here and let you flounder around on the history you thought you knew. I’m perfectly fine with going back to the 1929 tax code, it reduced the burden on the poor, encouraged the rich to be more productive to society, and lowered the national debt. Problem is, it did those by doing the exact opposite of what you propose.
MasterP said:
By the way, I’ll bet anyone $20 that it doesn’t feel good to give.
inb4 MasterP says “quote: give me $20 dollars”
MasterP said:
By the way, I’ll bet anyone $20 that it doesn’t feel good to give.
Do I need to say anything else?
Also your “history” is quite skewed. Yes as a conservative you would have me believe that the taxing of the rich hurts the economy. This is true when the rich are actually spending money and creating jobs. When the rich do not spend money and are not creating jobs we need a higher tax on the rich to fuel the economy. Instead sending everything to China and other foreign countries to “cutback” on their “debt”.
Industrialist Andrew Mellon led the charge to lower the tax rates on the wealthy in the 1920s. He claimed that doing so would increase overall tax revenues and stimulate the economy. The top rate was eventually cut from 73 percent in 1921 to 25 percent in 1926. Mellon alone saved $800,000 a year in taxes as a result.
Unfortunately, Mellon’s tax cut was a disastrous idea for most Americans. Income was distributed upward, into too few hands. The money was used for speculation in the stock market rather than the creation of jobs. The ultimate result was the Great Depression.
Tax rates were raised to help pay for World War II and they stayed high in the postwar years. From the end of the war until 1962, the top rate was 91 percent. Those tax rates, unthinkably high today, coincided with the longest period of prosperity in U.S. history, the creation of a middle class and substantial public investment in education and infrastructure.
l2history MP….
There are a lot of facts in history about taxes and things, you say to look at the numbers so look at the numbers. The fact is if the rich are taxed higher the economy does better. Now what I will agree with Mr. Mellon about is that having higher tax does encourage the rich to dodge these taxes and look for loopholes. Steve Jobs for example is getting paid $1 a year by Apple for being CEO since his return in ’97. Where he makes his money is in dividends, he holds the biggest share of Disney stocks there is, about 138 million of them and hasn’t sold any. He pulls in about 48 million per year from that, and since this is technically a “Corporate” type of income he only gets taxed about 15%.
My proposal is to find a happy medium, clearly right now it isn’t good enough because the nation is still in debt and we still have people that are obnoxiously wealthy. It’s like we are sitting on a *edited*ing gold mine, but we are all like, “Mmmm, you know what let’s not go into that.”
Bitey said:
Also your “history” is quite skewed. Yes as a conservative you would have me believe that the taxing of the rich hurts the economy. This is true when the rich are actually spending money and creating jobs. When the rich do not spend money and are not creating jobs we need a higher tax on the rich to fuel the economy. Instead sending everything to China and other foreign countries to “cutback” on their “debt”.
Jobs are going overseas because our corporate tax rates are the highest on the planet. Literally. It makes no sense to do business in America when you can do it in China who has less than a 5% corporate tax rate. Couple near zero tax costs with the low-cost labor and what you get is a no brainer in the production world. I wouldn’t build a factory in America, and I’m about as pro-America as you can get.
Bitey said:
Industrialist Andrew Mellon led the charge to lower the tax rates on the wealthy in the 1920s. He claimed that doing so would increase overall tax revenues and stimulate the economy. The top rate was eventually cut from 73 percent in 1921 to 25 percent in 1926. Mellon alone saved $800,000 a year in taxes as a result.Somehow I knew you’d claim that because he was rich that his sole motivator was to decrease his own taxes. Maybe it had something to do with him being a financial prodigy, turning failing businesses into profitable businesses and owning a bank before he was 30. No, his financial advice can’t be because he actually knew how the market worked or how business owners felt, it was solely because he was a greedy banker that wanted more money. He used his greedy banker hoarded money to fund the creation of businesses in oil, steel, shipbuilding, construction, metal refining, coal, and industrial waste. He also used his hoarded greedy gold to back several people later inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Yeah it had nothing to do with ANYONE else. You realize how big of a jackass that argument makes you look, right?
Bitey said:
Unfortunately, Mellon’s tax cut was a disastrous idea for most Americans. Income was distributed upward, into too few hands. The money was used for speculation in the stock market rather than the creation of jobs. The ultimate result was the Great Depression.So let me get this straight. Cutting the tax on the poor down to .5% actually DECREASED the money they had? That makes absolutely no sense at all. Please, enlighten us to where that money went.
Interesting that you’d mention the stock market as the reason for the Great Depression because in April of 1930 the market had returned to where it was in early 1929. So all things being equal, the only people who actually lost money in the stock market crash were those who panicked and sold for pennies on the dollar. What really happened was people spent everything they had when they market started doing good and panicked and sold out for very little when it corrected. It wasn’t business losses in the market that caused the initial problems with the 1929 recession, it was loss of consumer confidence that caused the people to stop spending and investing their money and instead hoard it, like what you bash greedy bankers and businesses for doing. The lack of market investments caused the early 1930 gains to slide in later years and lack of spending caused many businesses to close. The Federal Reserve made many extremely poor decisions on the outset of the recession that caused it to turn into a depression and our international trade was severaly hurt when Great Britain went back to the gold standard with unrealistic pre-WW1 parities to the market value, essentially setting the trade value of $5 per £1. At the worst part of the current recession, the pound sterling never went above $2 per £1. International trade was completed killed after some dumbass thought they could get more revenue and passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act which led other countries to create retaliatory tarifs.
It was not the “rich” that caused the Great Depression. If anything it was the poor people having more money and acting like rich people that caused it. There’s nothing wrong with the poor or “middle class” acting like the rich but they *edited* well better have the backing to support it or an exit strategy ready.
Bitey said:
Tax rates were raised to help pay for World War II and they stayed high in the postwar years.Tax rates were not raised to pay for WW2, they were raised in an attempt to increase federal revenue during the depression. Notice in my last post it mentioned that by 1935 the tax rate was at 80% again.
Bitey said:
From the end of the war until 1962, the top rate was 91 percent. Those tax rates, unthinkably high today, coincided with the longest period of prosperity in U.S. history, the creation of a middle class and substantial public investment in education and infrastructure.Longest period of prosperity? Yeah ok. Here’s some reality for you, there’s been a middle class since at least the end of the Civil War, probably as soon as the War of 1812, if not sooner than that. There’s always been people who weren’t poor but at the same time weren’t considered “rich” or “ruling class”. To say that back then you were either a slave or a slave owner is dubious at best because we all know there were many who fell between those distinctions.
The substantial investment in education came as a result of the baby boom and the infrastructure increase was caused by the massive increase in available, and cheap, manual labor after WW2. Rather than see unemployment rise 10-15% they put them to work. I mean you CAN brag about them but it’s not really a valid brag because even the most conservative presidents would have done the same.
Bitey said:
There are a lot of facts in history about taxes and things, you say to look at the numbers so look at the numbers. The fact is if the rich are taxed higher the economy does better.So our economy was terrible leading up to the Great Depression then. That contradicts 99% of historians but I’m sure you know best…
So taxes on the rich have been steadily increasing the last few years, notice how the stock market is magically not getting any better? Everyone at work was really excited when the market hit 11,000 a while back and I’m like “yeah it was 14,000 when Bush was in office” and the office got silent. When the song was “taxcuts for the wealthy” the market was doing great but when it changed to “tax hikes for everyone making over $250,000 $200,000 $150,000 $225,000 ?” well, the market has been tanking ever since. I mean I love the low market, I’m investing like crazy, but it’d be nice if you’d let up on the rich taxes so the market can go up again.
Bitey said:
Now what I will agree with Mr. Mellon about is that having higher tax does encourage the rich to dodge these taxes and look for loopholes. Steve Jobs for example is getting paid $1 a year by Apple for being CEO since his return in ’97. Where he makes his money is in dividends, he holds the biggest share of Disney stocks there is, about 138 million of them and hasn’t sold any. He pulls in about 48 million per year from that, and since this is technically a “Corporate” type of income he only gets taxed about 15%.Thanks for agreeing with me that if taxes were lower more rich people would pay them.
Bitey said:
My proposal is to find a happy medium, clearly right now it isn’t good enough because the nation is still in debt and we still have people that are obnoxiously wealthy. It’s like we are sitting on a *edited*ing gold mine, but we are all like, “Mmmm, you know what let’s not go into that.”Well see here’s the problem. Obama has not once, but twice, increased the debt ceiling for the federal government. When he took office, Obama instantly tripled the yearly deficit left by Bush and in his first 2 years will have spent 11% more than Bush did in his 8 years. Lowering the debt or creating a fair tax system isn’t going to happen under this guy so you can pretty much kiss goodbye any idealism you’re holding on to for at least another 2 years or until after the next revolution if Obamacare isn’t abolished.
yeah that’s all nice masterp, but lets take a look at the context of what was spent.
Obama:
A $65 billion-a-year health plan
$15 billion in green energy spending
$85 billion in tax cuts and credits
A $25 billion-a-year increase in foreign aid
$18 billion a year in education spending
$3.5 billion for a national service plan
60 billion for 10 years for infrastructure
Bush:
150 billion dollar surplus disappears
750+ billion dollar war on iraq (for?)
it’s called substance. at least we have something to show for the spending other than death and destruction.
So wait, you itemize Obama’s tax cuts and ignore Bush’s? That alone proves your analysis to be 100% biased. You also conveniently left out Obama’s payouts to unions and special interests as well as the 2 car companies he bought with taxpayer money. I’m sure you meant to include those…
Liberal 101:
Lesson 1 – When you can’t win a debate, bash Bush.
Lesson 2 – When in doubt, bash Bush.
Lesson 3 – When there’s blame to be had, blame Bush.
Lesson 4 – Never let an opportunity to bash Bush go to waste.
It’s pretty sad that out of everything that’s been posted and everything you could have bashed, you chose to bash Bush, someone that is not a focal issue in this thread.
If you want to compare deficits, let’s do so graphically. It’s pretty obvious where Obama starts…
Just curious though, when are we going to start seeing some economic improvement? Obama said that without the stimulus, the unemployment rate would increase to, what was it? 7 percent? Well he got his stimulus and we went to 10 percent unemployment anyway. I’m sure this is all Bush’s fault but where did all that money go? The American people are starting to feel like Terry Benedict in Ocean’s 11: “What happened to all that money?”
By the way, Obama’s war spending is getting up there too, you know. He could have simply pulled us out of the Middle East and that alone would have balanced the budget. You can bash Bush all you want about the wars but if your guy isn’t stopping them he’s every bit as much to blame.
This whole war thing is a nice aside but how about we stay on topic. Bitey wanted a discussion about the economy and class system, not the Middle East.
NuRayZ said:
yeah that’s all nice masterp, but lets take a look at the context of what was spent.
Obama:
A $65 billion-a-year health plan
$15 billion in green energy spending
$85 billion in tax cuts and credits
A $25 billion-a-year increase in foreign aid
$18 billion a year in education spending
$3.5 billion for a national service plan
60 billion for 10 years for infrastructure
Bush:
150 billion dollar surplus disappears
750+ billion dollar war on iraq (for?)
it’s called substance. at least we have something to show for the spending other than death and destruction.
*edited*ING WIN
MasterP said:
Well see here’s the problem. Obama has not once, but twice, increased the debt ceiling for the federal government. he took office, Obama instantly tripled the yearly deficit left by Bush and in his first 2 years will have spent 11% more than Bush did in his 8 years. Lowering the debt or creating a fair tax system isn’t going to happen under this guy so you can pretty much kiss goodbye any idealism you’re holding on to for at least another 2 years or until after the next revolution if Obamacare isn’t abolished.When
i chose bush because you brought up bush, obama, and spending genius. I was only responding. A.D.D. much?
and your lame response is “bush cut taxes too.”
again it’s not all about money masterp, what did we have to show for those 8 glorious years of tax cuts, war, and spending?
*edited* bush.
but back on topic:
*edited* rich people.
ok how about this. If the rich dont like giving there money. fact. Instead of taking it we just make more money and only give it to the poor until every single person has the same amount?
I’m just gonna stop commenting completely until MasterP realizes that I am not an Obama supporter, I am for the American people and getting us out of this *edited*ty economy that we are in right now. It’s pointless for me to argue if all you are going to do is bash me because you think I support Obama, I am neither a socialist nor a conservative. I like the ideas from both parties. What I can’t stand for right now is the inability for conservatives to see that the obnoxiously wealth are killing our economy. Do you not realize that defending them makes you look like a complete jack *edited*? Let’s defend the guy who sits on a throne instead of the guy who makes an honest day to day living, YEAH THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE, GOD I BET THE GUY ON THE THRONE IS PERFECT AND HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG HE DESERVES ALL OF THAT MONEY!
I didn’t say Mellon’s sole reason for doing the tax cuts was to lower what he paid, I am sure he had many other alternate reasons, I was just pointing out how much he saved in doing so, I am sure that was a pretty big reason for him doing it too though. “Oh hey look I can save about $800,000 dollars just by giving all the wealthy a tax cut, we deserve it we have been spending money in this country for a while.” And so they have, again I cannot deny some of his other reasons, they do make sense.
So here is the honest to God truth, when the economy is down, we need to tax the *edited* out of the rich. When it is up and we are in peace times, national debt is down, give them a tax cut. I think that is a fair solution for everyone.
Also please provide links MasterP cause I honestly think you made up about 70% of your entire post.
conservatives do. And socialists say conservative is bad. This is why I am neither nor. Both sides have good ideas, we need to start meshing things.
thats the thing bitey if you aren’t with them you are against them. That’s the conservative mentality. their way or the *edited*ing highway. the know it all party man.
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