Taxes, and the case of the helpful billionare

Author: Theweakeredge

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#1
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As I've discussed the idea of taxing the rich more, there has been some, well, pushback. That these people are paying more than their fair share, that they provide all of the income for the government, etc, etc. Here's the thing, the fundamental things - whenever a rich person it taxed almost any percentage of taxes, they will have more than enough income to live on, this is not always the case with poor people. 

Let's take a 50% general income tax. 

Furthermore, let's assume that Biden's 15 dollar an hour minimum wage passes - that's 15 dollars times an average workweek of 40 hours, multiplied by four for your gross monthly income. That's approximately $2400, so, to deduct that 50% income tax, you get 1,200 dollars. According to Statistica, in January of 2021 (the last recorded data point), that is an overall cost of $1,124... so - rent - costs nearly your entire gross monthly salary - and that's not even considering if you have kids, or any other bills you have to pay, like internet, car insurance, health insurance, utilities, etc, etc. And this is all presuming that the minimum wage is increased to 15 dollars an hour. 

According to Pew. Research and Business Insider, the median interest of the group considered the "rich" is $187,872 - to be charitable, we'll round down to 185,000 dollars annually. So dividing that number in half, we get 92,500 annually, and 7,708 monthly.. which, is enough to pay what Statistica reports as the average rent for a house of more than 5 people, more than four times over - so- to say that a tax will affect each level of income earner the same is to not understand what fractions can do to different proportions. This is, fundamentally why, the rich ought to be taxed more than the poor. Not to make them also struggle, but to overcome this basic principle of proportionality. 
#2
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@Theweakeredge
President Dwight David Eisenhower, perhaps the last real Republican, had a 90 percent tax rate for the super rich during his administration.
Eisenhower explained it this way: The super rich could avoid the high taxes by investing their money in things that make America stronger. If they wanted to avoid high taxes, he said they could invest in business expansions and higher employee wages. They could give a million or two to tax-exempt non-profits that feed, house and clothe poor people of America, among other things.
They did some of that, but the Eisenhower years generated enough taxes to launch and complete the labyrinth of interstate highways, the largest road project America had ever seen and is needed again.
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@Theweakeredge
they provide all of the income for the government
Well, that's a generous claim; if only it were true. At the rate of government spending, before Biden took office, if the 1%ers were taxed at 100% [their entire annual income, as currently constituted] they would cover gov't spending for 5 or 6 months. Who supplies the rest? Obviously, not the 1%ers, so stop saying they do, now. Add the spending Biden is  imposing, maybe the 1%ers will cover a single quarter, which imposes on the rest of us even more. The actual claim of the above was made by Paul Ryan in 2011, but things have changed a bit since then. Further. Michael Moore rebutted the claim, but Moore's figuring accounted for net worth of 1%ers, and not their annual earning, so his numbers don't jive. Politifact rated Ryan as half-true, because his numbers came from 2011, but his point was accepted that the government cannot count on taxes from the 15ers, alone.  https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/oct/20/paul-ryan/ryan-says-100-percent-tax-millionaires-would-only-/

Personal income tax pays about 50% of the annual budget
Corp tax pays about 7%


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#4
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@fauxlaw
Um... that was just a generalized rebuttal I've heard, not something I claimed. 

I was using it as something to set up my argument, that's pretty much it. The point is that you have to tax poorer people less than taxes due to the way that proportionalities
 work
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Yeah, I was not accusing that the comment was an argument you were trying to defend. Thanks. All cool.
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@Theweakeredge
Yes, but who ever said that minimum wage should be able to support a household. Minimum wage was a concept begun by the Fair Labor Act of 1938, and it stipulated that minimum wage was for unskilled labor for one person, not a family. Since 1938 to today's dollar, the inflation rate addition would still offer less than what min wage is now in most states, and nothing has changed relative to the expected coverage of min wage: one person, not even two, let alone a typical family. When I came of working age, min wage was mostly for kids like me, but I never was hired just at min wage. I had marketable skills, even then. Min wage is such a low-ball goal, I wonder why Dems are so enamoured by it?
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@fauxlaw
I mean... that's cool - I don't agree. Like, obviously the minimum wage wasn't made with the idea of supporting people in mind - but I fundamentally think that enough income to afford basic utilities like shelter, water, food, etc, is a human right - not a privilege. 
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I fundamentally think that enough income to afford basic utilities like shelter, water, food, etc, is a human right - not a privilege. 
What makes it so? These never have been human rights. What's changed, other than the increased urgency of entitlement? Do you want to accept "basic utilities" such as a tent, a water filter [you get your own water and container; I have to pay for mine], your public access to a community garden [you plant your seeds, or starter plants], which you buy [I have to buy mine, and I have a private garden, but none of the product is free], and you can have your rice, but leaver my steak alone [rice emits more methane than cow farts], and I don't know what you consider etcetra, but I'm not inclined to agree.
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#9
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@fauxlaw
Um... because you need those things to live. Yeah - that's a pretty simple thing. 

Also - Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would disagree with you there bud:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

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@fauxlaw
By the way - this has been the case since 1948 - please do at least cursory research before making a claim like that. 
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@Theweakeredge
You don't build up the weak by tearing down the strong. 

Imagine a classroom where some kids get As, some get Bs, and some kids get lower grades.  The professor says, "Passing this class is a human right, but there is only so much grade that can go around.  Therefore, we will take some points away from kids that earned high grades and give them to people that have lower grades.  If one person has a 100, and another person has a 60, they both are working hard, but one does better than the other.  We are going to take 10 points away from the person with 100 and give those points to the person with a 60 so their new grades are 90 and 70.  The person with a 100 didn't need a grade that high, and you need a 65 to pass (similar to how one may need a certain amount of money to survive).  Anyone who objects to this idea that has a high grade is selfish and greedy".  

Should this idea be implemented?  No.  You earn and work for your own grade with ideally nobody working for your grade.  In addition, if people assume that other kids will pay for their grades (like the wealthy paying for your own living expenses), then this decreases the incentive to work, reducing the average grade in the class (since people don't try as hard knowing that they are going to pass no matter what).  With this logic, less people study, the smart people realize that they will never get an A, no matter how hard they try, so everyone is worse off as a result.

We see this with President Lyndon B Johnson's war on poverty.  Before the bill was passed, the poverty rate was falling drastically.  After the bill was implemented, the poverty rate stagnated.

Big government sucks.
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#12
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@TheUnderdog
No - this entire this is a false equivalence - we are not "tearing down the rich" it would be more akin to allowing people with dyslexia or who have trouble reading English in general to have someone to read tests to them - would you consider allowing them that and "robbing" the other children of that privllege tearing them down? No - it happens that in order for those students to be able to demonstrate their academic progress at the same rate as their peers they need more attention.

I am arguing that taxing poor and rich people the same rate is fundamentally flawed, just as testing people with dyslexia and people without it the same is flawed - and the only way for the tax rate to keep up and support the infrastructure is to increase the taxes on the rich - they make more than enough money to succeed - they don't need the translator. 
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@Theweakeredge
 we are not "tearing down the rich"
Your taking their money.  That's basically a small scale of "tearing down the rich".

 it would be more akin to allowing people with dyslexia or who have trouble reading English in general to have someone to read tests to them - would you consider allowing them that and "robbing" the other children of that privllege tearing them down?
I think if someone can't read the tests and the teacher knows, then the teacher probably has enough common sense to read the test to the dyslexic person on test day.  I'm not dyslexic, but I imagine the people who are get used to it.

I am arguing that taxing poor and rich people the same rate is fundamentally flawed, just as testing people with dyslexia and people without it the same is flawed - and the only way for the tax rate to keep up and support the infrastructure is to increase the taxes on the rich
I would argue a similar position to Jessie Ventura on taxes and want to replace the income tax with a sales tax and a capitol gains tax (Jesse Ventura on the Issues).  

they make more than enough money to succeed
Most people make more than enough to succeed, just like most people in school earn higher grades than they need to to pass, yet they don't have to subsidize other people without their consent by reducing their paycheck or their grade (assuming there were only so many points that existed in a school).  Would you tax everyone who earns above $30K/year $1 extra per day and give the money to starving 3rd worlders?  I wouldn't.  If these people wanted to fund Africans, they would do so voluntarily.
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Um... because you need those things to live. Yeah - that's a pretty simple thing. 
Um... who said you have a guarantee to life? Roe v. Wade?

Funny thing about your Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN:

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.
So, why isn't anyone pounding the pavement over that one, calling out abortion, and Roe v. Wade, as a violation?  1948. 1973? Seems a precedent was ignored.
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Because a fetus aren't people - that's pretty easy. Doesn't change the fact that these things are a right.
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@TheUnderdog
No - most people do not- a very large majority of people are living in poverty - furthermore - yes - taxes is taking money, because they don't need that money. And you agreed to my comparison, if you believe that teachers ought to read out the test to dyslexic people, then you agree poor people should have a reduced taxes. 
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@Theweakeredge
According to 1 U.S.C. 8 - Person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” as including born-alive infant:  

"(a)  In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."

So, if not aborted, what, pray tell, is the difference between the unborn, and a live-born, in terms of being a person? Not a bloody thing, biologically, genetically, or by personality, but by the unfortunate verbiage of this statute? Which disagrees, by the way, with the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, which makes it a separate felony to kill the unborn fetus when a pregnant woman is killed. Therefore, since feloneous murder or manslaughter only applies to human persons, the unborm fetus is considered a person.


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@fauxlaw
Consciousness, an ability to process pain (mental and physical) - that's the difference - during gestation fetus aren't "people", not in any manner that matters. I apologize if it upsets your sensibilities, but the fact is there. 
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I apologize if it upsets your sensibilities,
No apology to me necessary. You discount that a fetus can sense pain. Sorry if it offends, but they do, and indications are that it may occur as early as the low-teens in weeks of neural development, but is virtually complete at 23 weeks. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1440624/.  

Survivability of a premature live birth is currently set at about 20 weeks of gestation. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/stillbirth
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@fauxlaw
Abortion after 20 weeks is a cee-section, did you forget? 
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@Theweakeredge
By Roe v. Wade, abortion's effort was to end the life of the fetus in pre-natal condition, except that Roe did not anticipate a later development to be mentioned in a moment. By its definition as you would consult, from Lexico:  "The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy." Well and good, except that the result of abortion is not included in this definition - avoiding the consequence altogether. The online Merriam-Webster offers a virtual match to Lexico's. Whereas, my OED [not the same as Lexico, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions]  defines the term as:  "The expulsion or removal from the womb of a developing embryo or fetus, spec. (Medicine) in the period before it is capable of independent survival, occurring as a result either of natural causes (more fully  spontaneous abortion) or of a deliberate act (more fully  induced abortion); the early or premature termination of pregnancy with loss of the fetus; an instance of this."  

Is there any question about this definition's statement about the intented result of "abortion?" The fetus is DEAD. 

According to https://www.healthline.com/health/c-section the intent ofd a C-section is: "A cesarean delivery is typically performed when complications from pregnancy make traditional vaginal birth difficult, or put the mother or child at risk. Sometimes cesarean deliveries are planned early in the pregnancy, but they're most often performed when complications arise during labor."

Is there any question about this definition's statement about the intended result of "C-section"? The fetus is BORN ALIVE [excepting complications that occasionally occur] however, I am demonstrating intent here, not the results.

And, not to forget [did you?] the aforementioned later development: "late-term abortion," which carries the identical intent of early-term abortion: DEATH.
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#22
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@fauxlaw
You do know that a termination of pregnancy includes a cee-section right? "Or removal" and - there is more than enough technology to support an aborted fetus that is born after 20 weeks. No, you're just wrong. 
#23
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@Theweakeredge
No, I am not wrong. Whereas, 1/3 of all live births, on average, occur each year, adding roughly 1.2M to the population annually, are by C-section, abortions of any kind after 21 weeks occur at just 1.3% per year, about 11K, for all types of late-term abortion procedures, of which there are at least 3 methods, including by C-section. I'd say the abortion-intent of C-section is about 0.9%, at best [assuming all late abortions are C-section, which we know is not the case] compared to the live-birth intent of the C-section procedure, annually. Less than 1% doesn't exactly float the boat of your argument.
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@fauxlaw
Um... I said that all abortions that occur less than 20 weeks aren't ethically a problem, because they aren't people with consciousness, furthermore, yeah - not a lot of abortions happen after 13 weeks much less 20 weeks. 
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@Theweakeredge
One-third (approx) of your allotted 24 hours are unconscious, as well.  If you are severely injured and require induced coma, are you not unconscious, but have not suspended your personhood legally or medically? So, do we parse personhood be degree?
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@fauxlaw
That's.... dumb - no you still have a consciousness and a capability to think - you do know that dreams exist right - the fact that they aren't being used externally does not mean that they don't exist.

It'd be like saying you have no voice while you aren't talking... well, yeah, you do have one-  you just aren't using it. 
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@fauxlaw
You don't seem to understand - personhood is a thing that you either have or don't have - and literally, every single person whose developed past gestation has personhood - because ya know - that's the entire point of gestation - developing. 
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Even dogs, and other animals dream. They are not persons, and dreaming occurs in unconsciousness, just barely below the conscious level, but beyond it, nonetheless. Other animals think, as well, but still are not persons. We just happen to be the animal species blessed with the ability to think at a greater rate and ability than by instinct. Consciousness is not unique to humans, and its disconnected state is not unique to humans. And, there is a distinction between consciousness, and self-awareness, as not all animal species are self-aware, but they all exhibit consciousness and un.  Therefore, consciousness is not a relevant factor in personhood at all.
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@Theweakeredge
that's the entire point of gestation - developing. 
Pregnancy = gestation.

Post-natal condition =/= gestation or pregnancy.

Development occurs during gestation, and beyond it, such as:

- breathing air
- brain development
-skeletal development
-oral consumption of food
- size and weight of the entire organism
- cognitive development
etc.


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#30
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@fauxlaw
And yet - fetuses cant even do that-  my point is that regardless of your consciousness being used or not you still have one  -  and you grabbing onto an inconsequential example- doesn't change that fact.