http://cpe.us.com/...-macroeconomic-solutions/

Well, if you opened this thread, you might have done so reluctantly. Sifting through a bill is not fun. With that in mind, here is a one page 13 point summary of the bill.

weird blend of libertarian and liberal. i agree with about 2/3s of it.

love the no income tax below 50k though, that could fix the problem alone, imo.

doubtful it even passed the sub-committee but still nice to see

A number of points make me skeptical. #1 is the most dangerous, IMHO. It amounts to "get out of debt by printing more money".

I know a lot of people don't like the Fed, but seriously, what is the Fed's overall approval rating compared to the U.S. Congress? You really want our congress to have direct control over the money supply, interest rates, etc? Do you think that would be effective?

No income tax below $50k? What a fluffing joke. Why would you ever want to do that? Don't you want a country where people feel they have a vested interest in seeing it prosper? Why would you want the vast majority of Americans to pay no income tax? That idea alone points out the very distinct possibility that the people who wrote that are fluffing insane.

paying/not paying income tax has no bearing on feeling that one has a vested interest. The presence/absence of government services, infrastructure, life opportunities, and how fairly I feel I"m treated have a much larger influence.

I know this will be flamed but we need to do away with the income tax all together. A national sales tax is the answer. It will throw a much larger net for collecting taxes. People spend money at the rate they earn it an can afford it. The richer you are the more you buy and the more expensive you buy. The drug dealers, illegals and any other group of people that avoid taxes now would not be able to avoid them with a sales tax.

I would be more than willing to pay as much as 20 to 25% hell even 30% sales tax if you will just allow me to bring home my whole pay check.

Make it a graduating sales tax if needed, as the price increases at certain points increase the tax on the item. Doing this will allow the ones that just cant afford it to pay less and those that can to pay more.

That wouldn't work the way you want.

Rich people don't need to spend all their money. Poor people do. You'd effectively be giving poor people a higher tax rate, while rich people who save and don't spend all their money pay a lesser effective tax rate.

And martian, you're completely wrong. How honestly do you think you would assess how fairly you're treated when you pay nothing to get something? Exactly what is your vested interest? More free fluff? If you pay no taxes, why do you deserve anything at all? Unfortunately, this brings on a similar topic: there is a segment of the population which effectively gets free stuff. No taxes, and plenty of benefits.

Its not about spending all your money. The guy who has little will pay less because he will buy the Ford Focus and the guy with more money pays more because he wants the Escalade. You would spend and pay taxes according to what you can afford.

Not only does he want the escalade, he wants the sports car the motorcycle and the boat. He wants a vacation home along with the trips abroad, the finer more expensive clothes. I don't understand how you can say the richer man doesn't spend more than the poorer man. that makes no sense.

Also if you gave the poorer man his whole check he would not be as poor as he was before.

god damn, you make me wanna yell at you, then two seconds later i want to give you a high five. this is so conflicting. i agree with your second point completely, sales tax would not work, though it seems good on paper.

but to the first, would you rather earn 100k and bring home 90k, or earn 50k and bring home 50k?

On the 50k threshold issue, I assume the "first" 50k would be untaxed for everyone regardless of whether they earn more or less than that. Also, the suggested model does have people earning less than 50k paying federal taxes because it also suggested a moderate national sales tax.

Now, on the topic of a national sales tax, it is regressive. Let's say it was set at 15%. Lower income people spend near 100% of their earnings. So their earnings would be taxed at 15%. Higher income people spend a lot less of their earnings - if they spent 50% of their earnings on sales-taxed items, their effective tax rate on their total earnings would be 7.5%.

Make sense?

Wealthy people get to do other things with their money... such as save for retirement, invest, give to charity, bequeath, etc.

The other problem with a national sales tax, which its champions often overlook is the actual REALITY of running that system. It isn't as easy as you would think. Especially if you plan to exempt anything, which most proponents do. The only way for the government to have any record of how much tax citizens are paying is to track every single transaction by individual ID.

I guess the graduating sales tax to a higher rate as you spend more on a product wasn't even considered? 10% on the ford focus to 30% on the escalade.

Why would you have to track what an individual pays. The sales receipts that are created when a purchase is made would be enough.

Taxing income is the most detrimental thing that has ever happened to anyone.

As for exemptions I don't think there should be any for anyone. That is where we give the loopholes for those that can pay more not to pay their fair share.

I am also going to add that if you have a cell phone, ps3, high speed internet service, eat out instead of at home etc etc then you are not poor. I am sick in tired of the people around me living beyond their means then wanna claim they are poor. Quit getting loans for things you cant afford. Quit living to impress your friends and see how much better off you can be.


I saying all this as I sit here unemployed. I have never made more than 45k a year yet some how I managed to save enough money not to go to the government for help or cry and whine that I don't have enough money to live my life. I was a high school drop out at the age of 15. Yet i have imo opinion been very successful by working hard and not spending more than I have made. It can be done I am proof of it.

I see people getting 5k plus tax returns because of earned income credit and a month later they are in the same boat they were before the check in the mail. It truly makes me sick.

I'd say a linear taxrate starting at 30% at 100k and levelling at 90% at 1M, including capital gains, with the first $100k exempt; no sales tax, for both personal and corporate taxrates.

In other words, you think that the vast, vast majority of citizens should pay zero tax at all. In the U.S., what % of the population would that come to, the % population that would pay no tax? Is there a name for this type of tax schedule? Sounds pretty nutty.

Also, that:
>$100k = 30% --> $70k take-home.
$1M = 90% --> $100k take-home.

Explain why people who make so much more should have to take home so much less of their paycheck by percent. You're not even reasonable with your percentages. I'm only dealing with personal rates, as I can only deal with one ludicrous idea at a time, for now.

That sounds pretty sensible but why would the $1M+ earners, who are the powerbrokers in the U.S., allow that to happen? They can just peddle their influence to ensure that instead the opposite happens, maybe roll back some union rules and cut some services, for the sake of "the economy."

A few of Obama's top donors

Sally Susman, another fundraiser in the $500,000-plus category, is executive vice president for policy, external affairs and communications at Pfizer Inc., a job that includes directing the pharmaceutical giant's government relations operations.

Michael Kempner, among those who raised more than $500,000, is president and CEO of MWW Group, a public relations firm with a large lobbying business. Kempner himself is not a registered lobbyist.

and so on. Until money is removed from politics, our current trajectory won't change, and good luck removing money when the Supreme Court has ruled that, according to the constitution, money is speech. In other words, we're fluffed.

mr snow, it would not so much matter how many people would no longer pay taxes, but what the actual dollar figure was in decreased tax revenue. i suspect the % of overall tax revenue that actually represents is rather low, though i have no proof to back that up, just a hunch.

and qz, in the wise words of will ferrell, i like you man, but you're crazy. 90% over 1m? you might as well just live in a pure communist society where everyone makes 1m, right?

You think the economy is bad now tax the man that gives you a job 90% of his income and soon you won't have an income.

Money paid into wages is part of normal operating expenses and not part of taxed revenue. Besides which, 90% would only be on the money earned above that income bracket.

yes, no one would ever hire anyone if there was a 90% tax bracket, as evident by the way no one worked for 1945 - 1963, thank god in 1964 they got smart and dropped the top bracket to 77%, and then 70% from 64-80, then the whole recovery in the 80's still had a 50% rate., infact (91-92) and (25-31, lowering it in 1925, from 46% down to 25% that ended up helping 1929 so well?) were the only years we had a lower top tax rate then the current one.
Only real difference between now and the 90's was we lowered the Capital gains rate in 2000, and that helped the economy create how many jobs since then..?
The political punch lines that the Politicians keep BS'ing voters with really has NO Historical evidence to support there claims when it comes to jobs and taxes, actually in most cases the Coincidental evidence more leans towrd the exact opposite so YES the Correct term is BS; the POLITICIANS as norm LIE and just keep repeating crap that sounds good but don't deliver are their claims only works getting THEM a job.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html

So if 90% of your income was taken from you, you would still risk the 10% on a venture where its possible you could fail and lose the 10% also? I wouldn't it would be stuck in the bank to collect whatever interest I could get out of it.

and i guess the failing of most the banks in america, the great dust bowl, the smoot-hawley tariff (tax) curtail trade with europe, and the stock market crash had nothing to do with the depression. The depression happened in spite of the low tax rate not because of it. There was just to much to overcome that perfect storm to recover. To expect just lower tax rate to do it is expecting to much.

for those that dont know what it was:

The Tariff Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff (P.L. 71-361),[1] was an act, sponsored by United States Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, and signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels.[2]

The overall level tariffs under the Tariff were the second-highest in U.S. history, exceeded by a small margin only by the Tariff of 1828[3] and the ensuing retaliatory tariffs by U.S. trading partners reduced American exports and imports by more than half.

nice post Oceana
90% of your income isn't taken from you...

first off, with our income tax system only the money falling within a tax bracket gets taxed at its rate... so in other words, if you make $1,000,001 only $1 gets taxed at the 90% rate... the rest at the subsequent lower rates.

secondly, to be subject to the 90% rate you'd have to be making enough money to enter that top bracket, ie over $1m or whatever, in which case you've already been successful. so, congrats! your venture you invested in was a success.

third, well, there's the marginal value of the dollar. if you're starving on the street, $1 buys you some food off the 99 cent menu. But if you have $10b in the bank, $1 means basically nothing to you, right? and yet, TY, they keep working, don't they? everyone doesn't retire as soon as they get rich. so don't think a 90% tax rate will stop them from trying to earn even more money either. but that money will be more likely to be spent and put back into the economy if it's owned by someone with less money...

Yes there are other forms of taxes.
It might not be the preferred rate but the claim that lowering income taxes, will help stimulate the economy sounds easy to accept,even sounds so simple as its just plain common sense. However, there is little to no evidence in the past that it actually has done that, and those that protest the current rates, I'm simply pointing out they are Historically at Extremely Low Rates already, when compared to most of the last 100 years.
And when it comes to spending everyone wants to cut from every program except for the ones they receive from. the old don't want medicare touched, the poor dont want medicaid touched etc.

They all need cut and some completely stopped. Of course I get no help from anyone but my wife. And I don't want any of those services cut so I guess your point is valid lol.

weasel and TY you need to both learn how graduated taxes work =/

a linear taxrate of 30% @ 100k to 90% @ 1M with 100k exempt would mean that the following Income | Take-home | Taxes | Effective Taxrate would be like so:

Income		Take Home	Taxes		Effective Taxrate
0		0.00		0		0.0%
30000		30000.00	0		0.0%
50000		50000.00	0		0.0%
80000		80000.00	0		0.0%
100000		100000.00	0		0.0%
130000		120700.00	9300.00		7.2%
200000		166666.67	33333.33	16.7%
300000		226666.67	73333.33	24.4%
500000		326666.67	173333.33	34.7%
800000		426666.67	373333.33	46.7%
1000000		460000.00	540000.00	54.0%
2000000		560000.00	1440000.00	72.0%
10000000	1360000.00	8640000.00	86.4%
42000000	4560000.00	37440000.00	89.1%
100000000	10360000.00	89640000.00	89.6%
1000000000	100360000.00	899640000.00	90.0%

I don't think the guy making 130k is going to be choked about paying 7% taxes; nor is the guy 1M going to be choked about paying 54% taxes; and the guy making 1B/year is probably not going to worry about taking home ONLY $100M

Also, when taxes are calculated, as Oceana pointed out, they are calculated on income, not revenue; if anything, by hiring more people, they *lower* their taxrate (because they don't have as much income then heh...)

i understand the concept of marginal tax rates, but i can just never get behind such a tax rate hike. my political leaning is that we must do the opposite, and couple it with spending cuts on the other side of the balance sheet. 1 million dollars isnt even that much money anymore anyways. i hope to make that much someday, but if i was going to get taxed that high, id prolly try to find a country to work in that i wouldnt get taxed so highly. couple that with the dollar devaluation were seeing, the US would lose every last bit of competitiveness we have remaining.

not to mention its a moot point because it is unrealistic, because the people making the laws are the ones that would be paying more taxes, it would never pass.

Hah; find a country to work in that wouldn't tax you that high? good luck! perhaps mexico? the EU or canada would tax you that high (at $1-2M anyway). Where else *COULD* you make that sort of money? Besides, if somebody leaves the US because they're *ONLY* making $1M @ 54% taxes here, I'd gladly step in to fill your job. There will be no shortage of people willing to work for $1M...

This would expand the amount of wealth being spent, by letting the middle class have more, and increase the taxes being brought in, by taking them from the super wealthy, all while increasing their incomes, as more people would spend money! It would drive the US economy forward.




If I understand your point correctly, you'd rather tax the fluff out of the poor and have the rich have basically no taxes?

I agree you guys need to cut some on the spending side; but there's *really* not much that can be cut without gutting your society completely, short of the military that is; and the military is the one thing the right is unwilling to cut (plus it really does help prop up your position in the world heh).


I do tend to agree that the people making the laws are the ones who would paying a ton; that said, you never know, it *WAS* similar to that in the '60's, so how did *THAT* happen?


As for people & money fleeing the US: it would be simple enough matter to charge taxes on assets and money leaving the united states; and however you look at it, the US is *still* the biggest economy in the world, so people will always want to try to make money here, and if they make the money here, they're subject to the laws. I doubt 320M people would flee the US if such laws were implemented....

lol you are delusional. if i had a job that allowed me to make 1b a year and i was only able to keep 100m because of taxes i would be fluffing pissed. just because 100m seems like alot to you doesnt mean its alot to someone else who worked to put themselves into a position to be that rich.

the taxrate was that high in the 60's; america seemed to be doing pretty well in the 60's to me



The problem basically is, you need money to pay for stuff; the poor really don't have the money to pay for this without creating an underclass of virtual slaves; who does have the money? the rich! but you can't tax them, oh no, that would be EVIL! Better to axe all social spending to help create a BIGGER class of virtual slaves, and let the rich keep as much as possible, so that they can... sit on it...


Really, 100M is a lot, even if somebody worked hard for it; we're talking *income* right now, not assets or revenue; mitt romney style profits; I doubt you could put forward an argument for why any one individual *NEEDS* that much and would feel so hard done by that they have to pay out a chunk of it

At what dollar amount do you guys consider someone poor? Reading all this I am assuming if you make under 100k you are poor?

i think you misinterpretted my beliefs signifigantly. i would like to see the poor paying 0% federal income tax.

TY: The idea of poverty in the US is well established to be around $18,000 per single individual or around $31,000 for a married couple (I could be off by 5%). That being said, 40% of retirees live off of their social security income which averages $12,000-13,000 and it accounts for over half the income of 60% of retirees. With that said, you could say that certainly 40% of retirees are living below the poverty line; likely closer to 50%. We are considering reducing social security wages from rising with inflation by .6% a year which over 30 years will have significantly reduced the payout. Social security serves as a great example here. It is an efficient program and a social safety net or social insurance that has run well for the past 80 years. This is what we are sacrificing by not raising taxes. Simply removing the cap on social security contributions (which is currently at $106,800) would create the necessary surplus to fund social security throughout its 75 year planning horizon.

What qzjul is talking about is hypothetical. The concept is simple and so he outlined it in a basic way using $100,000 in income as an example but the scale could be changed. The major point I gathered from his argument is that high taxes have been a historic norm in the United States and have worked effectively to spread prosperity. Worldwide there are now 7 billion people in the world, 7,000,000,000. 1 billion make over $20,000 USD per year, 2 billion make over $2,000 USD per year, and the bottom 4 billion people make less than $2,000 USD per year. What equity disparity of this scale in a global marketplace signifies is slave labor, capital dominance, and disregard for national sovereignty.

so how does taxing people who make significantly more money then the average person, 90% of their gross income, help people who dont make alot of money?

do the poor people get a cut of the taxes? i dont get how the govt taking 900m of your 1b salary is helping anyone but the govt?

serious question.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3015 Check out Table 1.

^Yes, the bubble was really nice until the crash.
Taxes on the upperclass were very low before the Great Depression, but when the capitalist economy basically collapsed, there was a lot of leftist pressure from commonfolk, unions, and the emerging socialist superpower in the USSR. This begat FDR, who enacted social policies placating these powers, and they were successful programs. That's why the tax rates were still higher in the 60s. But FDR was a reformist, he left the capitalist system in place, and over time, those reforms have been being eroded. So yes, we can go back to the rates we had in the 60s, but it will probably take another Great Depression, and this time, half the populace has been convinced that if we have one, the answer is to give the rich more money, and furthermore, we're living in a capitalist hegemony nowadays, so there isn't the outside pressure there was before.

Wow 31k for a married couple is considered poor. I am just above that by around 10k. I own my own home have 2 newer vehicles and a Harley. I have owned, in the past, a boat and a motorhome. I sold them because I just didn't use them anymore. I have raised 2 kids have at any given time 3 dogs to feed and given money to friends that say they needed it. Some how I just don't feel like I am anywhere near being poor. Maybe its because the only loans I have are for my home and my 2006 car I bought in 08. Everything else I saved for and refused to pay interest. I also do my best to live within my means.

How many of these so called poor people still buy there alcohol, get loans they cant afford, buy pot and other drugs (By the way I don't diss people who want to occasionally use. There should be no law against any drug use imo. That war truly has failed. Mainly because you cant stop it by attacking the supply side you have to lower the demand for it through education. That's just economics at work. I can have all the supply in the world if no one wants it well you get my point), eat out often, have xboxes, ps3's, cell phones, high speed internet and go out to the bars partying. My wife was a bartender for 7 years every Friday there were people that claim to be poor spending their entire paychecks at the bar. At what point are people responsible for themselves?

I am not talking about those that can't take care of themselves. I am all for helping those that can't (I stress can't) do for themselves. But I have watched to many people quit a job because someone asked them to do something that they did not think was in their job description or some other asinine reason, then wonder why no one else wants to hire them or why they can't promote to higher levels.

Also I am not talking about those living in third world countries living on dirt floors. I am talking about those that live in countries that truly have the opportunity to work hard and live within their means but just chose not to do it.

As for social security I do not expect to live off of that minuscule amount. That is why even at my income level I put the maximum amount that is tax deductible in a retirement plan. I was taught along time ago to pay myself first. I am the one doing the work it only makes sense.

So I ask again at what point are people responsible for themselves and their own stupidity?

Never

^^^^ that is a big part of our problems

a guaranteed basic income makes people MORE likely to work
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/329310

aponic / TY: not sure where that $31k number came from.

US Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/...ata/threshld/thresh10.xls

A four-person family unit including 2 children under 18: $22,113

You can get to $31k in a 7-person household where 6 are under 18 kids? or a 6-adult household?

Trumper:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PiratesVsTemp(en).svg

TY: sometimes people lose their jobs unexpectedly; if you lost your job for 2 years, would you be able to cruise NP? Will you be able to put both your kids through university? especially if you lose your job at the same time?

these are parts of the problem; in Canada the university thing isn't a big deal, because our tuition is handled by the govt; our EI is small, but you can (barely) get by.

The problem with the poor is not those who are gainfully employed, especially if you've got an extra 10k/year on the poverty line (which is a TON when you think about it relatively; also atryn says it's lower); the problem is when that stops, and there's no savings, because how *CAN* you save a that level of income.


I'm not saying you're poor if you're below 100k; just that, if you look at the percentage of wealth gained by what portion of the US, more than half of it is by the top (< 20%?); which answers Pains question:



It helps them because a) money for govt has to come from somewhere, and given free trade it's not coming from tariffs, therefore it's coming from taxes b) it can't come from sales tax really, as that's effectively taxing the poor and middle class primarily, and they don't have much of the wealth and can't really afford taxes c) the top (<20%?) make OVER HALF of the income in the US; clearly they don't *need* it all, so they should probably be the ones paying for most things


Observe this graph:

http://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-7060&;y=-2934&z=5

Check the big yellow box in the middle

If you are unemployed for 2 years your standards have been set to high. One particular friend of mine has stated to me when she was unemployed "I will not work for less than $12 dollars an hour." Aand she means it. She would rather sit at home collecting from the government than work for 10 dollars an hour. I have watched her and her husband file for separation so she can lie and get government assistance. All the while they continue to live together. This same women could go back to school with the help from government assistance. I know because she has filed for and gotten student grants by enrolling in community college. Then turns around and spends the money as fast as it comes in and never goes to school to better herself. She has done it a few times in the 20 years i have known her. I have actually heard of way to many "poor" people I know employ this tactic. Should I be obligated to pay for this women and her families existence?

I have never, never been unemployed but by choice. If I wanted a job I always had one. I am unemployed at this moment by choice. I quit my job for reasons that are unimportant and have not looked for 3 months. I will go out in a couple weeks to find one and I bet I will have one within a couple weeks of starting the search.Maybe I am the odd case I don't know but I have always been able to get gainful employment when I wanted it.

My little sister has always worked 2 to 3 jobs because she is a workaholic. Why is it that she can find 2 and 3 jobs at one time but others say they can't get one? I say its because most people think way to highly of themselves and refuse to stoop to whatever line they have set in the sand. I have always told my kids "if the only job you can get is shoveling fluff be the best fluff shoveler you can be someone will notice and you wont have to do it for very long." I know this to be true I have shoveled many a pile in the past.

Precisely!

I was quoting your 60s rationale. Your response was aligning with a point I didn't type out (and probably should have)-statistics in this realm can be bent to accomodate your opinion goals.

trumper: just saying that it clearly won't be the end of the world or armageddon, given you've been there before

The poverty lines I quoted are for the minimum tax bracket and not for government assistance. In essence, that is the line by which you can receive no assistance from any program of any kind. I misrepresented the numbers.