Patriotic Millionaires

[cravenchx]

Quote:
So, I get my nice home, a couple cars, 2.5 children, nice nest egg. I'm gonna quit
working and let you take care of me.

 

[chickened]

You tax the middle class like Clinton did... simple economics... there are more of them. Trickle down does work, the rich create jobs and put the unemployed to work. The evil corporations buy raw material which employs those in that line of work and so. Spending money on retail goods for pleasure or because I want a particular device is not the foundation of an economy and the perks are usually the first thing to go when the economy slows. Natural resource based industries are the back bone of any great economy and we have ran most out of this country with our environmental policies. How many steel mills left in Pennsylvania?
Quote:

 

[chickmashnoon]

ravenchx

After you get to that point, you won't need anyone to take care of you. Yeah, you may not have a yacht or a gilded chicken coop, but really? does that create hapiness? And I don't know about you, but I like to work and make a difference in my community and meet a wide variety of people. I try to work for the sake of pride in my work and not just for the money. So, even if the socialist take over I'd still work. The dangers are with the people who have dangerous jobs or jobs that wear on the body. Yeah, great to be brilliant and paid for your mind, but they haven't figured out how to replace backs yet. Yes, tax the overflow and give small farmers and physical workers the health insurance of the congressmen.

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[.....economic proposal that "every dollar taxed is a dollar lost from the private sector."......]]]]]

It's certainly lost from my local community. If I didn't have to give so much of my income in taxes, I could shop more in the local stores. It would be nice to be able to actually be able to spend a few dollars on myself every now and again.

The federal government sent billions of dollars to European banks in the bank bailout. That money was lost to the US economy and the private sector. The federal government spends billions upon billions in foreign aid that doesn't do anything to help the citizens of those foreign countries. That is money that is lost to the US economy.

The federal government does not manage money well. They waste an awful lot of it.

The wealthy in this country pay about 65% of their income in taxes (with some variation) when you add together federal taxes, state taxes, city and county taxes, gasoline taxes, sales taxes, liquor taxes, cigarette taxes, room tax, SS tax, unemployment insurance and SS tax for their employees..... and on and on. Really. 65% of one's income is enough.

Then, on top of that, the wealthiest give millions to charities. Those millions stay in the US economy and a lot of those millions stay in the location where they were given.

It is generosity when you give your own money. It is not generosity when you give someone else's money. If someone wants to pay more taxes, they are welcome to. It is not patriotic to go to Congress and ask them to raise everyone's taxes. That falls under the heading of giving away someone else's money. There's nothing generous or patriotic about it.

 

[goldtopper]

As stressed earlier, every dollar you give to .gov, they will spend. Not only will they spend it, but they'll "create" a job that your dollar pays toward the wage, and that job will not go away. Ever.
Every tax dollar that's given to the .gov comes directly out of your local economy. When someone tells you to "buy local" and to hell with big box stores, they should also be telling you to vote no on new taxes, levies and union-controlled state jobs. They won't though, because it's not their money they like to spend- it's yours.

 

[mom'sfolly]

If you think the wealthy fund charities at a higher rate than the middle and the poor, you need to look at actual numbers, and where the money goes.

The wealthy overwhelmingly give to the arts and education. They do not fund other charities. Of any group they give the smallest portion of their income to charity. The poor give the highest. The middle class and poor are also more likely to fund charities that directly help people or serve the average person in their community. They give to food pantries, their churches, boy and girl scouts, Goodwill, and other local charities. Even in actual real numbers, not rates of giving, the poor give more money to charity than the wealthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22FOB-wwln-t.html

http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/Research/Quick facts about charitable giving from the.pdf

http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/research/giving focused on meeting needs of the poor july 2007.pdf

And as for every tax dollar going out of my community, most of them come back. They come back in the form of road building, education funding, medicare funding, defense contracts, payment to soldiers and other government employees, national park funding, Homeland Security, etc. Money paid in taxes does not magically disappear from the economy, never to return.

 

[Q9]

Love the straw-man argument someone set up regarding "trickle-down" economics. Even if millionaires buy from other millionaires, it still goes towards economic growth and job creation. Who do you think makes the products? Workers. Who pays workers? Employers. What happens when employers get money? They spend it on one of two things: investment (whether in workers, machinery, R&D, or what-have you) or on products which are bought from other employers who are also providing jobs.

It's logic, people. When a rich guy buys something, that money goes to economic growth. When the government buys something, it typically results in paying people and/or businesses for NOT producing, or it results in blowing stuff up or paying people to kill other people. Roads (especially in cities), police, and general infrastructure maintainence are legitimate government interests - that's not what most of the money goes to. Governments are an astounding engine of wealth destruction, whereas private enterprise almost invariably results in wealth creation. The government is literally incapable of generating wealth - ALL it can do is re-arrange it. It is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Does there need to be SOME taxation? Well, duh, for such things as national defense - which, BTW, in my book does not include blowing up Afghans who haven't done anything to us. Defense is a perfectly acceptable reason for limited wealth destruction. However, to claim that the government can benefit more people by "soaking the rich" than the rich can by spending or saving it is mind-bogglingly absurd. Even if they are only interested in themselves, the rich still benefit the rest of us through job creation and wealth generation.

 

[chickened]

Look at the money churches redistribute. Many wealthy donors give plenty to churches anonymously which never makes your statistics. One of the wealthiest organizations in Mexico is the Catholic Church.

mom'sfolly :

If you think the wealthy fund charities at a higher rate than the middle and the poor, you need to look at actual numbers, and where the money goes.

The wealthy overwhelmingly give to the arts and education. They do not fund other charities. Of any group they give the smallest portion of their income to charity. The poor give the highest. The middle class and poor are also more likely to fund charities that directly help people or serve the average person in their community. They give to food pantries, their churches, boy and girl scouts, Goodwill, and other local charities. Even in actual real numbers, not rates of giving, the poor give more money to charity than the wealthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22FOB-wwln-t.html

http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/Research/Quick facts about charitable giving from the.pdf

http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/research/giving focused on meeting needs of the poor july 2007.pdf

And as for every tax dollar going out of my community, most of them come back. They come back in the form of road building, education funding, medicare funding, defense contracts, payment to soldiers and other government employees, national park funding, Homeland Security, etc. Money paid in taxes does not magically disappear from the economy, never to return.​

 

[mom'sfolly]

Here's the numbers: less than 9% of the dollars given to churches come from those who make over $1million; almost 60% of the dollars given to churches come from those who make less than $100,000. Those numbers are about flipped if you talk about giving to health related organizations.

This is from the third link I cited. At least some of those numbers are from the churches themselves.

 

[chickened]

I suppose that studies that report what someone gives is what help fuel the push to tax the rich. Which in relality will not ever happen IMO. Not all giving is done by the rich in a charitable form, they provide jobs for people not otherwise available... because of thier own reasons. I just do not get the logic of taxing the rich to restore the ecomomy or let someone else benefit from thier wealth without doing the work and taking the risks. It has never worked in our history on this planet.