Taxing the rich - what is the cutoff?

[saden1]

RIGGO/NYC, quit while you're behind. Debate team? This isn't high school!

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by RIGGO/NYC

Dude if you want to ban me go ahead. Unlike some people on this forum, I actually have a life and would lose no sleep over not being able to post, since as you can see from my history I do not post often anyway. Anyway, yeah I might get a little overboard when it comes to political discussions, as I am a political science major and certain subjects are particullarly sensitive to me. Especially when people are speaking about something that is not a debatable subject. There is no justification for this war whatsoever. When I see soldiers on TV without legs (blown off for nothing, but oil) and children that will never know their fathers, it is the people who try to justify this war that I most despise. I wonder if they would give their legs or they're own lives while their wives were pregnant with their baby, so that their child would have never known them. Yeah, but god forbid we cut and run and America looks bad, that is whats really important, America has to show how powerful it is. Maybe America should show it has the ability to admit when it is wrong. Really ask yourself, is this war worth one American life. Answer: NO! Nevertheless, the person whose post I was responding to clearly did not do their research on the Iraq war. There is no debate to be had on the subject. If you support the war, then you clearly have a low IQ and just simply have not weighed the postives versus the negatives. Politicians employ a rhetoric in a time of war that is similar to the appoach they take with the "war on drugs." They try to strike fear in to individuals to gain their support for their approach and those nieve enough to buy this nonsense are just not intellectually worthy of my rebuttle. Therefore, I'd rather just have a little fun with their under-educated minds and insult them. Call it childish, but I act childish when speaking to adults with the intellect of a 7 year-old. No, I do not get my info from the NY Times (the best paper in the world), but I get it from BBC and my classes at school. Go to Europe and see what the citizens in many of the western/central EU countries think of the United States current course in foreign affairs, instead of sitting around your local Irish Pub in D.C. Nooooooo PLEASE DO NOT BANNN MEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY LIFE WOULD BE OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO REDSKINS!!! (Something we do agree on)
P.S. If any of you knuckle heads really want a debate, then I will gladly accept the challenge. I'll gather the other students on my debate team and we can take this discussion to a public blog. I would love to just humiliate anyone who supports this war.

Seriously - if you think college gives you the world view you need to speak definitively on a subject, you have a lot of learning left to do. One of the first things you'll learn in the real world is that there are very few "undebatable" subjects (here is one). You make yourself sound like my 4 year old when you make posts like the above.

And, for the record, I agree with your opinion of the war.

[SC Skins Fan]

Originally Posted by saden1

RIGGO/NYC, quit while you're behind. Debate team? This isn't high school!

I think if you were in high school that line would result in some form of beating. "If you take my lunch money again I will return with my debate team breathren and we will vanquish you with our superior intellect!"

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by saden1

RIGGO/NYC, quit while you're behind. Debate team? This isn't high school!

The moron is gone. Makes me ashamed to think he and I are fellow Redskins fans and fellow Americans. He must be a real winner during his debates. I imagine his "rebuttles" go something like "Nuh uh...I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

Good riddance

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

The moron is gone. Makes me ashamed to think he and I are fellow Redskins fans and fellow Americans. He must be a real winner during his debates. I imagine his "rebuttles" go something like "Nuh uh...I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

Good riddance

He ruined my thread, Smooty - he ruined it! I'm never talking to him again. We should totally fork his lawn.

[724Skinsfan]

Back to the subject at hand, I'm going with 750k as an appropriate cutoff. Then adjust every year with inflation rates. There's no formula involved with this value, just good old gut instinct. Sometimes you got to go with the gut.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by 724Skinsfan

Back to the subject at hand, I'm going with 750k as an appropriate cutoff. Then adjust every year with inflation rates. There's no formula involved with this value, just good old gut instinct. Sometimes you got to go with the gut.

I'll see your 750K and up it by 250K. I say let's make it a cool million just to be on the safe side.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by SC Skins Fan

I don't claim to understand the in's and out's of tax policy, but the 'tax revenue increases with decreased rates of taxation' is apparently a questionable assertion.

It's debateable for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it is difficult to separate causation from correlation. But, even if cuts in the capital gains rate do not result in substantial increases in tax revenue, I have yet to see anything which indicates that cuts in the cap gains rate results in the loss of substantial amount of tax revenue.

[firstdown]

Well here is a peice about two of the largest tax cuts durn JFK (yes JFK cut taxes for the rich) and Regan tax cuts.Tax Cuts vs. Government Revenue [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Well here is a peice about two of the largest tax cuts durn JFK (yes JFK cut taxes for the rich) and Regan tax cuts.Tax Cuts vs. Government Revenue [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

I like how he says this:

It should be stressed, however, that the economy of the 1990s has grown moderately, in spite of tax increases, not because of them.

Yet he provides absolutely no support for the statement.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

I like how he says this:

Yet he provides absolutely no support for the statement.

Economic theory has generally ruled that statement to be true through trial and error, but it is a poor writing technique to just assume your reader is fluent in economic theory and move on.

It's not hard to defend a statement like that; a little effort would be nice.

[724Skinsfan]

Originally Posted by saden1

I'll see your 750K and up it by 250K. I say let's make it a cool million just to be on the safe side.

I actually considered 1 mil but I think the elation of making it to the 7 figure mark would be offset by being taxed more. I'd hate to make a suggestion that leads to such disappointment. Hmm, what the hay, let's make it 1.25 million but increase the taxable % to offset all of the potential money we will have lost from the 250k to 1.25M crowd.

[steveo395]

Originally Posted by saden1

I couldn't agree more. If we had a flat tax everything would be great. If you make 10K you should get another job or second job and then you might be able to afford that $4.50 gallon of gas and that $4 gallon of milk and won't have to rely on a tax scheme that fleeces the rich.

I don't want to turn this into another thread about oil, but this is exactly why we need to drill for oil here. If we were energy independent, gas would be cheap again and the recession would be over.

[That Guy]

oil speculation is driving up prices more than lack of supply right now... everyone diving in for fast cash (700% profit in 7 years, wow). other commodities are seeing the same type of investment hoarding too.

as for riggo - you don't like seeing soldiers hurt, but guess what? try talking to some of them. they knew the deal and wanted to join anyways. using the "someone might get hurt" argument in a war debate would be pretty laughable. have fun with your terribly warped and close minded world view.

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Economic theory has generally ruled that statement to be true through trial and error, but it is a poor writing technique to just assume your reader is fluent in economic theory and move on.

It's not hard to defend a statement like that; a little effort would be nice.

I'm not sure what you mean by "trial and error". I found a few links discussing it, but it's mostly places like the Heritage Foundation, from whom I expect no less (see these comments):
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm1835.cfm

Factcheck.org says it was a combination of reducing the deficit, oil, and the internet boom:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactchec...the_1990s.html

This was a pretty balanced review of the 1990s economy (although it could be raving lunacy for all I know):
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TotW/clinton.html

I did find one study that suggested the deeper the tax cuts in the 1990s the deeper budget problems and economic stress during the downturn:
http://www.cbpp.org/1-12-05sfp-pr.htm

The important takeaway according to the study was that tax cuts have to be affordable (which means cutting programs). That would support the opposite conclusion of tax cuts increasing revenue.