When you hear the phrase, “Let the rich pay their fair share,” it is obvious that you are listening to a Democrat. I’m not trying to start a discussion of Republicans verses Democrats. But you do have to wonder what the words ”fair share” are all about. I can agree with the action, of raising taxes on the rich a little more—but it has no justification as being “their fair share.” This is a selling point addressed to the Hoi Polloi to garner votes in Congress; admittedly, it kind of works.
I’ve pointed out in the past, that whatever the tax rates on the rich were, whether 90 percent or 28 percent, government revenues NEVER increased noticeably. The amount of taxes taken in has been pretty constant. See graph below.
There are two groups of people who get no W-2 forms from employers, the real rich and those in the underground economy (working for cash). The underground economy is thriving.
If you remember newspaper reports on the Katrina Hurricane and read between the lines, the government was overwhelmed when trying to provide relief. The footprint of people paying taxes was minuscule to the population working for cash only. All Katrina did was ruin a way of life that had been fed by government entitlements and relief programs for 3 decades. I imagine someone will write a book about it, sooner or later.
Workers making over 250K are few and far between. This group includes rock stars, sports players, movie stars, and CEO’s to name a few. The one thing that stands out among rich people paying a lot of taxes, is the notion of "What am I getting for the extra money I pay?"---My answer, not much.
In today’s society, being poor and collecting food stamps entitles you to keep your cable and cell phone. Plus being poor gives you more rights. A single mom with 2 kids making 29K a year is entitled to about an additional 30k in benefits. But the single mom with 2 kids, making 60k a year, pays taxes and doesn’t get those free benefits.
Life is hard, but why take money from someone who works hard and give it to someone who gets rewarded for earning less, with better benefits? Has anyone ever accused poor people, or rich people of being stupid? But we come to Obama's mantra “Poor people deserve help to become part of the middle class.” Gee, maybe that's what Socialism is all about.
"Poor people" (notice the quotes) are gaming the system, it is a way of life. I'm all for taxing the rich, and while we're at it, let's tax everyone including the poor. There is no free ride. If you pay nothing in, you get nothing back.
I heard a Congressman say, "These people that pay no Federal tax, pay other taxes." My rebuttal, "So do I!" In California, we are almost to a 10 percent sales tax, and it has happened so slowly, that the absurdity of the rate has escaped notice. So when you hear them say "Tax the rich," reality is, Congress wants more money to spend.
Maybe it is time to draw the line. We don't have a problem with too little tax money, we have a problem with a Congress too busy buying votes for re-election. Of course, I have often suggested that the lead content of the water in Washington D.C. is a tad on the high side. That might explain the insanity in Congress right now. Of course if you look at John Boehner, leader in the House, he doesn't strike me as a water drinker. Whatever he drinks, let's get him another bottle--he's doing a pretty good job.
Copyright 2012 by Jim Brubaker
13 comments:
The illegal immigrants in california cost the state about 13 billion dollars per year.
however, what benefits do they bring? construction worker at $10/hr instead of $35/hr, yes. how about getting your house cleaned for $100 instead of paying $300, yes. How about having your grass mowed and landscaping cleaned up for next to nothing, yes.
point is that many, including you Jim, don't see that the person working at $10/hr cannot live on California if it were not for subsidy. The next time you are eating a burger for a dollar and enjoying it, why don't you pay three times the price so the guy cooking the burger can get off welfare and earn a livable wage.
funny how people only see one side of the story. either pay people a fair wage or pay them slavery wages and they will steal from you. why is this idea so hard to comprehend? can you live on $10/hr? be honest with yourself...
A single parent with pre school children working at WalMart isn't making 30K a year. Wonder what her child care expenses are? WalMart's CEO makes more in one hour than most of his employees make in a year. The government subsidizes WalMart by providing essential goods and services to employees who aren't paid enough to afford them. It's the same for all the big companies who pay minimum wage.
When it comes to wealth inequity, the US is only behind a few countries like Yemen, the Ukraine, and Russia. It's far past time to restore a little balance.
Hi Anon 11:53
I really can't see where you comments are any indication that you even read what I wrote.
I'm talking about taxes and you are talking about low wages.
Just for your information, illegal immigrants do a lot of work that no one wants to do. They are hard working and cost the state nothing.
I cut my own lawn and clean my own home, and nobody pays me zip.
Minimum wage in California is $8 per hour. Everybody starts at the bottom and works themselves into better jobs.
Whats a fair wage if you have no training and flunked out of high school?
I had 8 people living in the apartment across the way from me in Glendale 20 years ago, when they moved out,I asked the land lord if I could move into their place since I only had a one bedroom. She laughed and said that one was a studio (one room).
I have no problem living on $10 an hour, but I would need a roommate.
The only thing I can't figure out, is how I became so ignorant in your eyes, about a topic I wasn't even discussing.
Hi Anon 3:20
I'm not here to solve the worlds problems. You too, are trying to hijack my thread. You are way off topic.
If you have two kids and are divorced and working at Walmart, you have real problems.
Your statement about Walmarts CEO is true.No argument from me. That clothes manufacture that burned to the ground killing 100 workers in Asia, was paying 23 cents an hour making clothes for Walmart.
Walmart is successful only because it can deliver what the public wants. Cheap goods. Raise labor costs, and prices will rise. After Obamacare kicks in, you'll see lots of part time employees. So its going to get worse.
As for the wealth inequity with countries like Yemen, the Ukraine, and Russia, get real, no one is trying to get into their country illegally to work.
If you really want to cry about minimum wages, look to China that builds our cell phones, $260 per month.
Do you think you can afford a cell phone made in the USA?
Taxes and wages are tied together, how you can't see that I don't understand.
Where do our taxes go, other than military spending, give you a hint...entitlements and public welfare programs.
You asked what is the "fair share". Well, if you pay people a living wage, then you don't have to pay them through governmental subsidies, i.e. welfare, medicaid, etc...
And the "rich", are the ones that pay their housekeeper $10/hr and then wonder why her husband collects welfare. When you pay the guy pouring your driveway cement $8/hr and save money, don't be surprised that you have to pay more in taxes to subsidize that guys income through other means.
In my opinion, you are going to have to pay one way or another. Either pay people fair wages and stop taking advantage of them, or pay more in taxes so that the government can help those people live a decent life.
So what that the minimum wage is $8/hr??? anyone with half a brain knows that you can't live on that. During the industrial revolution, sweat shops and underage employment was common, did that make it right. So please don't look to the government to set standards for you, set your own standards and be fair.
Again, if you don't see the tie between taxes and wages, then you don't understand how much of your taxes are used to subsidize other peoples income.
And I pay a lot in taxes every year, I guess you can say I'm one of those 1%ers but I also have a heart and it makes me sick to see how the upper class exploits the lower middle class/poor.
Hi Anon 5:54
I agree there is a tie between wages and taxes, the more you earn, the more you pay.
I don't think for one minute that people are going to settle down and accept $8 an hour for the rest of their life. The places where I started for minimum wage, I got raises and went way beyond minimum wage. If you can't get to work on time and phone in sick a lot, you just might be stuck at minimum wage the rest of your life.
When I was laid off in the 1980's I went out and bought a lawn mower on my credit card and made 40K a year cutting lawns working 9 months a year in Colorado. I spent the other 3 months skiing.
I've poured concrete and hung drywall, you bid the job, you don't work hourly.House cleaners don't work by the hour and you'd be surprised what they make, and its probably all tax free.I've cleaned the outside windows on homes for $50 a clip and made $200 a day and that was 40 years ago.
If you have no training, can't hustle, no education, $8 dollars an hour is an excellent wage to start. Your statement "if you pay people a living wage, then you don't have to pay them through governmental subsidies, i.e. welfare, Medicaid, etc..." misses one point. A businessman who can pay someone in Asia 23 cents an hour for 80 hours a week, has no intension's of using American labor even at 8 dollars an hour. More and more employers are moving overseas.
My quibble over the rich paying their "fair share" was that the statement was political in nature. The rich already pay 90 percent of the taxes. What makes 92 or 95 percent more fair than the 90 percent already in place?
I'm not rich, and I don't go out of my way to pay more taxes than I have to. IMHO the real issue, is government spending. They want everything now, and they are running the country into the ground.
Our taxes pay for the shortfalls created by low wages.
A McDonald's employee would need about a million hours of work -- or more than a century on the clock -- to earn the $8.75 million that McDonald’s paid then- CEO Jim Skinner last year.
Hi Anon 10:20
You kind of have to wonder what CEO Jim Skinner got paid when he was 18 years old.
Plus, he is responsible for producing a product that we consume a lot of.
Step back and examine any big sports player that makes 30 million or more, what do they make that we consume?
Can you eat a basketball shot?
What exactly is a fair wage for someone who sneaks into another country and will not pay the taxes? The idea of fair play has already been taken out of the equation.
As for taxing the poor, this is not the correct time, even if it is justified. There is a lot of anger in this country. People need real hope at this time, not punishment. (They need real leadership as well, but that is another story.)
Hi Anon 12:35
I agree taxing the poor is a bad idea under the current conditions. Sales tax is too much tax for them already.
I think we will see, State governments curbing welfare drastically. Which isn't a good thing for the kids in these families.
I'm not sure how this will play out. But Florida and California might be the states to watch.
In California, we are almost to a 10 percent sales tax,<<<<<<
Greatness costs money. Arnold wanted greatness, but didn't want to pay for it, so left us with a bigger deficit than the underrated Gray Davis (Davis did improve CA's K-12 schools each yr he was gov, plus was the first gov since Jerry's dad to add a new UC campus even though CA pop had more than doubled).
Sales tax? Just a consumption tax - if you want to spend big on taxable things (food, medical and education aren't sales taxed), the tax is bigger...sounds fine with me to balance things. CA ranks in the middle among states, tax-wise. Prop 13 has been a bonanza for land-owning businesses - low tax rate transfers to new buyers.
Use your brain......why do you think more people are in CA than any state?....it's because more people want to be here than in any state. CA has always been boom and bust...but, just keeps coming back to higher heights....and, now with a budget forecast to be in surplus in 2014 and with the largest drop in unemployment in 25 years for CA, is now leading the entire US recovery.
Why did Mark Zuckerberg pick up shop and move FB to CA's Silicon Valley?........homework assignment....figure it out.
Oh, pullleeeze, about the chart....it's from the Heritage organization......hardly an objective or reliable source for tax analysis....they never met a tax they liked.
Currently, I'm doing research into why the GOP once had so many good politicians in it and now there are almost none with the remaining few heading for the exits or bumped by crazies, like one who defeated Dick Lugar in a primary.
So far, it does look like the conservative movement has changed into an outright racket which has transformed the GOP into one, itself...all about money extracted from even wealthy conservative supporters like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Addleson. Just the last election, this racket was making up polls and economic numbers and questioning everything they don't like, like SCIENCE....so, the result is attracting all kinds of crazies....the GOP presidential debates were a joke...a sick joke...with cheers of "Let him die!", etc.
Ron Paul, an honest guy, but a crazy who has been proved all wrong during the Great Recession.....and he's one of the honest guys...the GOP was once a great party....the Dems? Most people haven't figured it out, but Obama, in his understated and cool ways has the chance to not only be quite a good president, but maybe even a great one.......right now he has the GOP scared sh**less over the fiscal cliff where their beloved tax cuts might end and their love of wasteful military spending. And, with Sandy Hook and the fiscal cliff, I bet Obama will get the GOP engaged in some meaningful gun stuff, even some the NRA wants, which will help. Stay tuned, it really is getting interesting...the GOP has met its match and it is the GOP...in sum, I think things will work out OK for everyone except the crooks.
Jim, I know you are intelligent, but so are the Koch brothers, Donald Trump, etc, but it just shows it takes more than IQ to not be fooled.
Even Mitt Romney thought he was on his way to the White House until the actual numbers were in.
Even in San Diego, Carl DeMaio, was another GOP shill.
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