brian wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 2:09 pm
degenerasian wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 2:01 pm
Johnnie wrote: ↑Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:38 pm
Here's a good primer by Vox with everything regarding 2020.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy ... ic-primary
As an aside, if Democrats can energize my generation and the generation after mine too get out and vote, they have a solid chance of destroying.
After this Trump experiment and story after story of gross and disgusting wealth inequality, everyone may finally get the point that we need to bond together and flush out the bullshit.
Wealth taxes. AOC's marginal tax suggestion. Universal basic income. Universal health Care. Minimum wage increases. Marijuana legalization. Absolving student debt. Home buyer credits. Firearm background checks. Etc. It needs to all be on the table.
Basic fucking math should be the campaign of the eventual nominee. The 2017 GDP was $19.39 Trillion dollars. Taxed appropriately, we all can do better.
The Republicans choose their side: rich white Christians who hate the other. I mean, seriously. My generation is quick to call bullshit on everyone and meme the shit out of it. Just tap into that and ride the wave. It's right there.
The theory of high taxation always bothers me in this way. The rich company owners just hide their money, lower their income or layoff people. That tax money never gets raised or never ends up in the right hands. The candidate who proposes this will get the 'have you ever created a job?" argument lobbed at them. Also, are we raising rich people just to tax them 75%?
And you forgot hookers.
Dude, this is just dead wrong. Certainly, tax avoidance and other schemes to hide income will increase as a result, but most Scandinavian countries have similar tax rates without high levels of tax avoidance and the United States itself did for most of the 1950s and 1960s. The highest tax rate was I believe 50 percent until Reagan took office.
Any kind of increase in the highest marginal tax rate would have to include some increased funding for the IRS to find and prosecute tax cheats to the fullest extent of the law (which frankly we should be doing already).
Put simply -- if you make $20M a year and you're complaining because that last $10M is being taxed at 70 percent then fuck you. Give up your US citizenship and fuck off to the Cayman Islands if you don't want to contribute.
Agree with Brian, but the top tax bracket was as high as 94% in 1944, and 92% in 1951!!! It drives me nuts hearing Trump and the Right constantly refer to the Dems becoming "radicalized." They use this line on everything, not just taxes, when the Dems propose ideas that were relatively recently held by Republicans. Like Obamacare being largely the GOP response to the Clinton healthcare proposal and Romneycare. AOC and others calling for a top rate of 70% for earnings over $10 Million is actually lower than the highest tax rate for every year between 1936-1981.
I don't know how much additional tax scheming will occur, as I think almost everyone making over $10M/year already makes use of tax shelters and schemes. When the top bracket was over 90%, business owners invested their profits back into their businesses rather than paying the high rates. This actually led t MORE jobs and economic growth, and the business owners turned profits into much larger profits rather than pocketing it and saving or buying luxury items. Republicans have been pushing Trickle Down economics since 1980, and every time the government lowers the tax rate on the super-wealthy, they hoard the windfall or invest in tax shelter Wall Street schemes that create virtual wealth without actually benefiting the greater economy (see Structured Finance scams like mortgage backed securities and CDOs). Look at Trump's recent tax cut, public corps actually cut more jobs than they created and used the tax savings to buy back shares of their own stocks to artificially increase their stock prices, make a fortune in bonuses for the Executives (stock prices are up, they must be doing a great job!), and create wealth for large shareholders, but this has absolutely no benefit for the economy or workers. It actually has a negative effect, as it draws money out of the economy, and creates a false sense of strength in the economy and the individual businesses.
I understand where people are coming from in saying Progressives "hate the rich" and just want to take their money, but this is due to horrible messaging. Sure, it's damned impossible to make most people understand tax theory, and absolutely impossible when they watch FoxNews and only hear the arguments against and a horrible strawman caricature of what the actual theories are. Maybe they should start by discussing the actual taxes paid by people in various income groups. Most Billionaires pay insanely low taxes due to their ability to exploit loopholes and tax-free investments to turn to capital gains that are maxed out at 20% tax rate before deductions and shelters. There is no reason for hedge fund managers and investment bankers to earn almost their entire salary as capital gains and pay 20% income tax. They get paid a tiny fraction of their income as a salary, taxed as if they make $100,000, then bring home a $25 million bonus, or in the case of a hedge fund manager, $400 million bonus. The reason Progressives want to tax the extremely wealthy is not out of hatred or jealousy, it's because they were able to abuse their wealth and power to create laws that protected them. They rigged the fucking system, and somehow the masses are convinced that we need to protect the powerful from the evil radical Socialists that have taken over the Dem party in an effort to destroy America because they want us to be Venezuela.
An honest to God cult of personality - formed around a failed steak salesman.
-Pruitt