Quote:
Originally Posted by Schneed10
After going all war-talk in this thread, I'm ready to get back to the topic.
Are you guys kidding in saying that $250K per year is not a good cutoff for higher taxes? This thread title may have been chosen poorly. Obama's $250K cutoff is not designed to define who is "rich." To me, you're not rich unless you have assets, excluding your primary residence, totaling $1.0 million or more. "Rich" is a balance sheet definition, not a cash flow definition. In other words, rich is based on what you have, not what you make.
But Obama does not intend to set a cutoff to tax the "rich." He's setting it up to increase revenues from a group that can afford to pay it. I understand the area in which most of us live has a very high cost of living. But if you can't live extremely comfortably in the DC area on $250,000 a year, something is extremely wrong with your budgeting process. That's what Obama's going after, those who can afford to give up 3% of their savings. If people are living paycheck to paycheck on $250K, and can't afford to give up 3% in additional taxes, they need to be smacked upside the friggin head.
To suggest the cutoff needs to be $500K, let alone $750K, makes me question the financial literacy of Americans even more than I already do.
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Enter the voice of reason. I wonder if it has something to do with the American myth of 'up from your bootstraps success'. I doubt many people commenting on the thread pull down $250K+, but maybe they think that they could if only for that one big break. Plus we live in a celebrity obsessed culture where we watch all these 'stars' make millions and we talk about athletes pulling down multi-million dollar signing bonuses. Perhaps all of it makes it seem that the money just flows like mana from heaven (even if we don't ever see it ourselves) and $250K just doesn't seem like that much money.
On a side note, if anyone really despises taxes you might consider moving to South Carolina (where our libertarian heritage, like the Confederate flag, waves in the wind for all to see). It seems to me that I pay ridiculously low state taxes (especially compared to what I used to pay in Virginia) and my property taxes dropped by 50% this past year (from less than $900 to less than $450 for a house assessed at $115,000 - oh yeah, you can still get house for $115,000). Plus, all the politicians do is talk about is cutting our 'onerous tax rates'. Our public schools rank 48th or 49th (so it could be worse!) and I'm sure there isn't any corelation anyway.