I'd say you are more libertarian possibly. I don't see you on the left.
Here's the things I consider on the left:
medicare for all free college a living wage ending the wars (yemen, syria, afghanistan, and the rest) ending the drug war reduce/remove influence of money on politics Corporate tax reform (GOP tax scam shifted more of the tax burden on middle class, that needs to be undone)
The Democratic party is pretty centrist. There are a few that support things like this and more to come and the centrist Republican-lite Democrats aren't very inspiring.
I'd say you are more libertarian possibly. I don't see you on the left.
Here's the things I consider on the left:
medicare for all free college a living wage ending the wars (yemen, syria, afghanistan, and the rest) ending the drug war reduce/remove influence of money on politics Corporate tax reform (GOP tax scam shifted more of the tax burden on middle class, that needs to be undone)
The Democratic party is pretty centrist. There are a few that support things like this and more to come and the centrist Republican-lite Democrats aren't very inspiring.
Points I agree with you (at least somewhat):
Ending the drug war - to a degree, not every drug for everybody but backing off a bit, sure...
Free job training - not necessarily college because that's not everybody's cup of tea
Healthcare subsidies for all - stop calling it 'insurance'
Ending unnecessary wars - won't agree with no wars under any conditions
Reduce money in politics - dispose of attacks on the rich and using that as an excuse to garner votes and yeah, ok - to me the rich are just as much of a minority as any ethnic group so I don't really blame them for using whatever tactics they can to keep things from going completely against them
Living wage - maybe, not sure it's a great idea keeping entry level jobs away from the youth but I have an open mind
I do not mind hearing about different view points, even if far right or left. I just don't agree when people place blame on one person in power or on one political party or ethnic group. The world has been a shithole for a while now, everyone in power has had a chance to change it. Nobody has... yet.
@jjstraka34 I was in Moorhead a couple weeks ago to visit family but my dad did all the driving. I would love to have met you at a bar in Moorhead or Fargo but wasn't able to this time...
Probably wasn't the best time for me anyway, my car is broken down and I'm not even sure it is worth fixing.
Having single payer healthcare isn't such a radical idea. Many industrialized countries have it. I can't imagine walking into an ER without insurance for a broken arm and leaving without a bill for at least $30k.
It must be nice to not have to worry about medical bankruptcy.
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And we need the opposite of this. The middle class already has a high enough tax burden. The rich need to pay their share instead of shifting the tax burden further to the middle class. As if the tax scam wasn't bad enough.
@jjstraka34 I was in Moorhead a couple weeks ago to visit family but my dad did all the driving. I would love to have met you at a bar in Moorhead or Fargo but wasn't able to this time...
Probably wasn't the best time for me anyway, my car is broken down and I'm not even sure it is worth fixing.
It's true, MfA/single-payer isn't a radical idea. But apart from whether or not it's radical, it's completely insufficient. Don't get me wrong, I love the discussion - it's certainly taking things in the right direction, and Rome wasn't built in a day. But the problem with single-payer is the "payer" part.
Okay, so instead of individual people being ridden bareback by those in the business of making a buck off human suffering, it's Uncle Sam who gets taken to the woodshed. One big, collective, drop your drawers and bend over, and this time for the entire nation. The government writes the check and hands it to these people. The government writes the check and hands it to these people. The government writes the check and hands it to these people. Yes, I wrote that three times.
Is this really the best ya got, so-called "left"?
What we NEED is a government liquidation of all healthcare - as long as there is rule of law these inhumane pain-profiteers will still get a check - but only one (though broken up into smaller checks over a period of time). If we're going to be giving these people checks then I say we rent to own. Yes. I am talking about a massive government buyout of all healthcare. Then We the People run the healthcare. Like the Post Office - except far better than the Post Office because there will be no competitors to sabotage. Any private practices outright banned as crimes against humanity. Doctors and nurses will have the US Seal on their paychecks. Surgeon Generals - elected instead of appointed. And now they actually earn their paychecks.
Now THAT is what we should be talking about. What we're talking about instead is a sad, sad compromise - which we still probably won't get. I say we shoot big to begin with... then the right-wingers will think single-payer is a godsend in comparison, and won't be able to cast their vote fast enough - anything to take the conversation off of that. It's called pushing the overton window. Might want to try that sometime - take a page from the leftists of yesteryear.
Here in Finland we have a "socialist" government healthcare system but I still have 2 private healthcare insurances. They need not be mutually exclusive.
This guy will probably be the next president of Brazil.
I don't agree 100% with him, but he is the UNIQUE guy who is against affirmative action to protect the majority from minority, against our strict gun control, privileges for minorities, etc. Brazil is so lefitist that even social democrats are considered "right" by the establishment.
About familiar planning, he proposed that despite being against most Catholic conservatives because Brazil have a great problem. People who are incapable of having child are having big families while the rich have 1-2 sons. The left "by body my choice"(i don't have an opinion about it) wanna liberate abortion but don't talk about vasectomy who isn't in that "grey area", even if you assume that abortion is murderer(not saying that is or not), there aren't arguments against vasectomy. And who will elect this guy? The left. The left is promoting him.
medicare for all free college a living wage * ending the wars (yemen, syria, afghanistan, and the rest) * ending the drug war * reduce/remove influence of money on politics Corporate tax reform (GOP tax scam shifted more of the tax burden on middle class, that needs to be undone)
The items with asterisks next to them are actually libertarian in nature, not leftist.
University doesn't need to be free--community colleges, most of which offer four-year programs now, are very low in cost to the out-of-control tuition the "name brand" schools charge. Most employers don't care where you graduated, only that you have the piece of paper.
Define "their share", using exact numbers or percentages. For over 10 years I have been asking people to define what "their share" or "their fair share" actually *means*, numerically, but no one has ever done so. Even when I asked it in the previous thread no one defined it. It's okay, though, because I know why they don't--they are afraid that the number they cite will be too low and they won't be able to change it later.
The true purpose of taxation is not to pay for government programs, in any event--people who think that are living in the 19th Century. The true purpose of taxation is to restrict the money supply as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation.
Unlike @semiticgod I *never* remove off-topic or rule-breaking comments in the politics forum where I am the mod. If someone says something they ought not have said I leave it for everyone to see, thus making the offenders own their words. This isn't my forum, though, and I am not the one in charge here.
I don't agree 100% with him, but he is the UNIQUE guy who is against affirmative action to protect the majority from minority,
You've mentioned this a couple of times before, and I just realized that you're talking about the demographics in the country as a whole. Just out of curiosity, what's the demographic breakdown in the institutions that are using affirmative action?
Since we're talking about the Brazilian presidency, I was looking at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Brazil#Office-holders Given those pictures and the ones of "Mr. Blue-eyes" you posted above, I'm wondering if whites are really as oppressed as you're making out.
Frankly it would be amazing if the savings available were not far greater than that. This table shows spending per capita on health in OECD countries plotted against life expectancy (I tried to embed it, but it doesn't seem to want to play).
You can see just how expensive the US looks. It should be no trouble at all to reduce costs by a third and still improve the overall standard of healthcare (not difficult if those without access were given it).
I don't agree 100% with him, but he is the UNIQUE guy who is against affirmative action to protect the majority from minority,
You've mentioned this a couple of times before, and I just realized that you're talking about the demographics in the country as a whole. Just out of curiosity, what's the demographic breakdown in the institutions that are using affirmative action?
Since we're talking about the Brazilian presidency, I was looking at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Brazil#Office-holders Given those pictures and the ones of "Mr. Blue-eyes" you posted above, I'm wondering if whites are really as oppressed as you're making out.
45% of the country identify as "white", but the real number of whites are probably around 20%(not sure). If you look by state, 80% of the Bahia's population identify as Black, while around 80% of Santa Catarina(whitest state) identify as white. The real number of whites, i don't know, some genetic studies put the average southern brazilian as 87% white and others put as 74% ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Latin_Americans#Brazil )
The problem is not racial. Chile is mostly of mixed race and is the most developed country in Latin America, richer in GDP per capta than some EU countries, Bermuda(British territory) is mostly African and is richer in GDP per capta than USA. The problem is that if you can't barely feed yourself, you can't feed yourself and a child. Doesn't matter if you are white, mixed, black, asian or whatever .
The ideal is a "color blind" government. If someone refuses to hire based on race, there are already laws to punish it(if discrimination should be allowed or not is another discussion and how this laws only applies to whites too). Affirmative actions should't be implemented. Mainly in a most mixed race country. Someone can be considered "white" in Rio de Janeiro and "pardo" or even "black" in Santa Catarina.
And public universities use the same amount of "cotas", doesn't matter if you are in the "whitest" city or in the "africanest" city, so is ridiculous easy for people who use affirmative action users to past in certain cities.
medicare for all free college a living wage * ending the wars (yemen, syria, afghanistan, and the rest) * ending the drug war * reduce/remove influence of money on politics Corporate tax reform (GOP tax scam shifted more of the tax burden on middle class, that needs to be undone)
The items with asterisks next to them are actually libertarian in nature, not leftist.
University doesn't need to be free--community colleges, most of which offer four-year programs now, are very low in cost to the out-of-control tuition the "name brand" schools charge. Most employers don't care where you graduated, only that you have the piece of paper.
Define "their share", using exact numbers or percentages. For over 10 years I have been asking people to define what "their share" or "their fair share" actually *means*, numerically, but no one has ever done so. Even when I asked it in the previous thread no one defined it. It's okay, though, because I know why they don't--they are afraid that the number they cite will be too low and they won't be able to change it later.
That's not up for one person to decide. There should be a reasonable debate about what is fair for everyone. If your argument is that it's arbitrary, in a sense it is. But so is any number, even the current one.
Define "their share", using exact numbers or percentages. For over 10 years I have been asking people to define what "their share" or "their fair share" actually *means*, numerically, but no one has ever done so. Even when I asked it in the previous thread no one defined it.
I've been meaning to get around to that, and since I wasn't busy, I decided to do it today.
Basically, I looked at the existing tax brackets (I used this as a reference, so let me know if there's a problem with that source) and tried to construct a new set of tax brackets that would extend further. My goal was to make it fairly close to revenue-neutral when it came to the bottom majority--that is, not counting people making millions a year.
Apparently, everyone falling anywhere near the median income, which is just under $50,000 last I heard, currently pays the same rate, a little over 20% (it varies from year to year). Again, let me know if I'm getting details wrong here. Also, there are only seven brackets according to the above source, and they don't scale at all past $500,000 a year. It looks like everyone even close to middle class gets lumped together and taxed at a rather high rate. I understand why the sub-$30,000 bracket gets taxed so much less, but it seems odd that the middle class would be taxed as such a large lump.
So, I tried to rig the numbers so that folks in the middle class would pay a little less than they do now, but I think I might have overdone it. It's my understanding that over 90% of revenue comes from the top 50%, and while the 1% is a huge fraction of that, I'm concerned that the lowered taxes on people making in the neighborhood of 80 grand a year--professional white-collar folks, I think, with relatively rare skill sets--might decrease tax revenue a lot more than I intended.
After $150,000, which I figured would include a lot of managers and other people in leadership positions midway up an organization, I made the taxes scale more quickly. I don't know the exact effects on total revenue, but it looks like the top 1%, defined here as folks making over $400,000 a year, would pay over 9 percentage points higher, depending on just how much over 400K they make. Since the 1% is responsible for about 20% of tax revenue according to this source, that would amount to over a 5% increase in tax revenue. That's just the effect of the change on the 1%; the other tax increases and decreases on certain levels of income could sway things one way or another, depending on how many people earn how much money.
I've listed the base salary, the percent tax on that salary, the total taxes paid, and the total income remaining after tax. I separated it into individual and household incomes.
If the source I based this on was not accurate, I wouldn't support these numbers necessarily. If there are more complicated tax brackets I don't know about, I'd modify the above numbers to better match the real system. I wanted to keep things fairly close to the existing tax system; I didn't want any massive changes to the large majority of the population.
Note that the numbers for salaries start unusually low and end unusually high. I doubt many people are living on 5 grand a year, and I'm not sure anyone is over 600 million a year (I've read somewhere that the top 400 highest-income people are around 300 or 400 million on average). I set the "household" tax brackets to be 40% higher at first, then gradually decrease that percentage as income goes up, which more or less matches the pattern of the original tax brackets.
Given the choice, I would not actually use tax brackets. I would prefer to use a formula that roughly corresponded to these tax brackets, which would avoid the problem of somebody making less money if they earned just enough money to jump into the next tax bracket.
I would also implement a capital gains tax to capture income made on stock trading and investments. There are a lot of rich people who make money on interest and trading rather than a salary, and therefore pay little or no income tax. A stockbroker can have higher earnings than a doctor while paying a smaller percentage, or even nothing, in income taxes. The capital gains tax would be at least as progressive as the income tax.
That's not up for one person to decide. There should be a reasonable debate about what is fair for everyone. If your argument is that it's arbitrary, in a sense it is. But so is any number, even the current one.
I didn't say it was up to one person to decide. Instead, every time I hear someone say "the rich should pay their fair share" I always follow up with "define 'fair'"...yet they never do. I don't disagree with the assessment that the current system is arbitrary.
I've been meaning to get around to that, and since I wasn't busy, I decided to do it today.
Basically, I looked at the existing tax brackets (I used this as a reference, so let me know if there's a problem with that source) and tried to construct a new set of tax brackets that would extend further. My goal was to make it fairly close to revenue-neutral when it came to the bottom majority--that is, not counting people making millions a year.
FINALLY! Someone willing to expend the effort in an attempt to correct imbalances in the system by crunching numbers for themselves like I did years ago on another forum.
The Bankrate site is using valid numbers. Unless you are a tax preparation professional (who may or may not also be a CPA or tax lawyer), it can be difficult to find the actual formulas the IRS uses when compiling the tax tables but even if you have the Form 1040 instructions you can (with a little effort) reverse-engineer the brackets. The reason so much of the tax burden is saddled on the low-, middle-, and upper-middle economic classes is because there are so many of them--the volume of people can outweigh the amount of money made even by the 1% of the 1% (the difference between an average person and the 1% is as great as the distance between the 1% and the "1% of the 1%" group).
I think taxing capital gains at a higher rate and/or being able to capture more financial transactions will do more to equalize the system than trying to reinvent the wheel via the tax brackets. Although I do make money on my investments (and would thus be susceptible to increases in the capital gains rates) I do not know without looking what the current rates and limits are--that gives me something to look in to this evening.
I agree with your idea about a sliding scale rather than brackets because of the "bracket jump" problem. I will see if I can find compiled/complete tax return filing data for 2016 or 2017 if is has been published yet. I had that data once, but by now those numbers are out-of-date.
While I am not allowed to make blanket statements about vast swaths of voters, I think I am allowed to cite poll results. And this poll (conducted within the last week) shows that, among Republican voters, at least 40% of them think it is either APPROPRIATE for Russia to help Republicans win in 2018 (11%) and or think it isn't that big of a deal if they do (29%). Which, of course, adds up to 40% of Republican voters. Now, that isn't quite half, but it is sure as hell damn CLOSE to being half. So I ask, doesn't this really take partisan warfare to a completely new level?? A large chunk of the party nationwide being perfectly OK with foreign involvement in the electoral process if they come out the victors?? ESPECIALLY considering this is a party that has espoused love of country and patriotism as one of it's core values for decades??
How can this not be viewed as a problem?? This is really nothing more than advocating for a system in which there are no rules at all, or, more to the point, that there may BE rules, but it doesn't matter if they aren't followed, and that the ends justify the means in all circumstances.
That is what happens when one side views the other side as so monstrously wrong that they feel that defeating that other side is appropriate, even if "by any means necessary" has to be invoked. I refer you back to the war between the Vorlons and the Shadows. This is the future of our politics, which is why I don't support either major party.
Speaking of which, Facebook has found some fake accounts recently operating on divisive American political issues like the abolition of ICE thing. Apparently some of the methods resemble those used by Internet Research Agency, indicating that the Russian government is, as predicted, trying to meddle in the 2018 elections, but since this has only just come up, we don't have confirmation as of yet.
While I am not allowed to make blanket statements about vast swaths of voters, I think I am allowed to cite poll results. And this poll (conducted within the last week) shows that, among Republican voters, at least 40% of them think it is either APPROPRIATE for Russia to help Republicans win in 2018 (11%) and or think it isn't that big of a deal if they do (29%). Which, of course, adds up to 40% of Republican voters. Now, that isn't quite half, but it is sure as hell damn CLOSE to being half. So I ask, doesn't this really take partisan warfare to a completely new level?? A large chunk of the party nationwide being perfectly OK with foreign involvement in the electoral process if they come out the victors?? ESPECIALLY considering this is a party that has espoused love of country and patriotism as one of it's core values for decades??
How can this not be viewed as a problem?? This is really nothing more than advocating for a system in which there are no rules at all, or, more to the point, that there may BE rules, but it doesn't matter if they aren't followed, and that the ends justify the means in all circumstances.
I don't like how the question was worded because what does a "big deal" mean?
The term in ambiguous and a big deal to someone who leans right maybe different than someone who leans left. IMO, it should have been left out as it changes the numbers to 84% says it not appropriate, with 5% declining to answer. But that doesn't have the same click-baity title.
While I am not allowed to make blanket statements about vast swaths of voters, I think I am allowed to cite poll results. And this poll (conducted within the last week) shows that, among Republican voters, at least 40% of them think it is either APPROPRIATE for Russia to help Republicans win in 2018 (11%) and or think it isn't that big of a deal if they do (29%). Which, of course, adds up to 40% of Republican voters. Now, that isn't quite half, but it is sure as hell damn CLOSE to being half. So I ask, doesn't this really take partisan warfare to a completely new level?? A large chunk of the party nationwide being perfectly OK with foreign involvement in the electoral process if they come out the victors?? ESPECIALLY considering this is a party that has espoused love of country and patriotism as one of it's core values for decades??
How can this not be viewed as a problem?? This is really nothing more than advocating for a system in which there are no rules at all, or, more to the point, that there may BE rules, but it doesn't matter if they aren't followed, and that the ends justify the means in all circumstances.
Whether there's a problem with the survey methodology or not, I think the results are due to something more than extreme partisanship. According to the summary you linked to, 37% of voters approving of Trump wouldn't be worried about the Russians helping the Republicans keep control of Congress in November. However, 29% of voters approving of Trump wouldn't be worried if the Russians helped the Democrats take control.
Personally I would go for a far flatter system than the one you suggest. To some degree my views may be shaped by having lived through a period in the UK where the highest marginal rate of income tax was 98%! That's now almost universally accepted as having been a bad mistake - both in political and economic terms. Such high tax rates clearly reduce the amount of tax paid because: 1) People invest much more money in finding ways to legally avoid tax rather than using it productively. 2) There's a significant incentive to illegally evade tax. 3) It drives some people abroad with the loss not just of their direct taxes, but the wider economic impact they would have made (through spending, running businesses etc).
There have been studies done of the levels of taxes people are psychologically willing to pay. The trouble is that not only does this vary a lot between individuals, but the impact of cultural factors on this is very significant. The level of tax most people will happily pay in the US would, for instance, be rather lower than somewhere like Scandinavia where a high-tax, high level of services system is the cultural norm. As a rule of thumb, however, I would suggest that the highest marginal rate of tax should be no more than 50%.
At present I suspect that most people in the US don't have a good understanding of the tax system. That results in negative feelings towards the IRS and the wider government as money is taken from people without them knowing why. It also provides a huge amount of work for lawyers and accountants for something that has no benefit to the wider economy. To improve on that I would suggest radically simplifying the tax system - essentially getting rid of all deductions and special cases. Where there is a good reason for some of those, they could be replaced by direct government support rather than complicating the tax system to try and drive behavior. As an example of that I think the US has some provisions allowing you to set off investments in films against taxable income (the UK certainly does). If you think that there is a need to encourage film making then offer grants rather than tax-breaks to do this - apart from simplifying the tax system that would also have the benefit of more transparency about the way the government was intervening in the economy.
In order to make the system more efficient I would have a relatively high zero-tax band at the bottom of the scale - at least $20,000. After that you could just have a single band, e.g. everyone taxed at 40%, or a few of them - say 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%. I would probably say it was fairer (as well as simpler) to just have a single band. Whenever I hear people justifying higher rates for higher incomes by saying that people earning more should pay more I tend to find myself wanting to shout at them that they do pay more with a single band - you don't need progressive banding to ensure that .
However, if you do have multiple bands then the tax due should only relate to that band. Thus if you earn $1 more than the 20% band it's only that $1 that gets taxed at 30%, not all your income (thus avoiding the problem of high marginal rates of tax).
I agree with @semiticgod that capital gains taxes should be integrated with income taxes to avoid opportunities to reduce the tax burden by taking benefits in a different form.
I would also like to see a wider reduction in the types of taxes. In the UK for instance the government introduced a tax on the transfer of houses a few years ago. That was purely done as a means of raising revenue and has been very successful in doing that. However, that tax is not good for the economy. Not only does it distort the housing market, but it requires a totally separate system of monitoring and collection which represents wasted money compared to increasing another form of taxation.
You could in principle end up with very few taxes, e.g. - income/capital tax on earnings (I would argue national insurance should be properly integrated into this) - VAT / sales tax on expenditure - capital transfer / inheritance tax on wealth
However, there are also taxes whose point is as much or more to influence behavior as to raise revenue, e.g. tax on tobacco. They don't really fit in with my general philosophy on tax, but I'd be reluctant to get rid of them (in fact I'd probably like to extend them, e.g. to cover drug use more generally rather than using criminal sanctions - but that's another story). I would probably just suggest using different terminology for taxes aimed at influencing behavior, e.g. calling those tariffs and having them administered by a different government department. The tax revenues raised would also be earmarked for specific purposes rather than disappear into general revenues. Thus for instance tax on drugs would help fund prevention and treatment programs, airport taxes would fund renewable energy initiatives etc.
Given the choice, I would not actually use tax brackets. I would prefer to use a formula that roughly corresponded to these tax brackets, which would avoid the problem of somebody making less money if they earned just enough money to jump into the next tax bracket.
The quoted bit is a fallacy, however. The progressive tax code means one only pays the specified tax on the amount of income in that bracket.
A single person with a taxable income of $82,501 only pays $0.24 on the additional dollar that pushed them into the higher bracket. Here’s how it really works based on the 2018 tax tables.
First, a single person with a taxable income of $82500. The first $9525 is taxed at 10% (952.50). The next ($38700-$9525) $29175 is taxed at 12% ($3501). The last ($82500-$38700) $43800 is taxed at 22% ($9636). Total tax liability for this person is $14089.50 giving them a take home of $68410.50.
Now a person that had a taxable income of $82501. The first $9525 is taxed at 10% (952.50). The next ($38700-$9525) $29175 is taxed at 12% ($3501). The next ($82500-$38700) $43800 is taxed at 22% ($9636). The last dollar is taxed at 24% (0.24). Total tax liability for this person is $14089.74 giving them a take home of $68411.26 which is still $0.76 more than a person that stayed in the lower bracket.
Apologies if you understood this and were just simplifying your tables. It’s a pet peeve and I’m not even an accountant :-)
@bleusteel: Interesting! I'd still favor a formula to make sure the curve was as smooth as possible, but it's good to know that the brackets are designed that way.
In regards to the question from mathsorceror, I'm looking at a more big picture than in the weeds, which is what you want, in the weeds numbers.
But here's some of what I mean. (And I'm on mobile so not going to get stats easily atm.) In general, the middle class are paying too much in taxes.
We have CEOs making tens of thousands of times a workers salary. The six Walmart heirs have more money than 40% of the nation. The CEO of Walmart makes $11,000/hour. Jeff Bezos is the world's richest man. Yet, these guys don't have money to pay their workers more than minimum wage, bull sheet. It's all well and good to earn money but something is seriously messed up and needs adjusted when we have this going on.
And, because of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court (Conservative majority decision) the rich have an even greater stranglehold on our government because they can pour unlimited cash at Republicans who take in millions in bribes and give these rich corporations billions and trillions in tax breaks and subsidies.
Congress doesn't represent us, it represents their donors cutting them checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Grandmas contribution of a check for $50 doesn't mean squat. They don't care about that, they need something they go see their donors - its all about fundraising.
What we need is the rich and corporations to pay their fair share instead of owning the government and bribing politicians to give them tax breaks. All these tax breaks and loopholes effectively shift the tax burden to the middle class.
There's historical numbers, which i don't have handy, in the past corporations and the rich paid more and things were better. Now they can afford boats which contains smaller boats and their sixth and seventh mansions. They need to pay their fair share, whatever that number is, we are way off of it now. Things like the GOP tax scam are making things worse (and ballooning the deficit and who do you think will be stuck with the bill? Hint it won't be the rich because they own the politicians.)
While I am not allowed to make blanket statements about vast swaths of voters, I think I am allowed to cite poll results. And this poll (conducted within the last week) shows that, among Republican voters, at least 40% of them think it is either APPROPRIATE for Russia to help Republicans win in 2018 (11%) and or think it isn't that big of a deal if they do (29%). Which, of course, adds up to 40% of Republican voters. Now, that isn't quite half, but it is sure as hell damn CLOSE to being half. So I ask, doesn't this really take partisan warfare to a completely new level?? A large chunk of the party nationwide being perfectly OK with foreign involvement in the electoral process if they come out the victors?? ESPECIALLY considering this is a party that has espoused love of country and patriotism as one of it's core values for decades??
How can this not be viewed as a problem?? This is really nothing more than advocating for a system in which there are no rules at all, or, more to the point, that there may BE rules, but it doesn't matter if they aren't followed, and that the ends justify the means in all circumstances.
This country is falling apart at the seams. Right now. Before our very eyes. It's not just Republicans - they are just the ones in power now so, yes, right now it is Republicans. But the truth is that we are a country of snowflakes. We all want to win at any cost. We are loyal to our side. Screw the other. The end justifies the means. It used to be only the most radical of liberals or far right loonies were like that, but here lately the cetre right-wing caught on and are doing it, too. And now everything is polarized on one extreme side of the other and the center is shrinking before our eyes. Law and order and morals go by the wayside and soon we will be a country where nothing is sacred - only victory over the "other". This is the beginning of the end of America. Enjoy it.
Trump is only a harbinger. Soon, a real bastard - a monster - is going to rise up - and it will be in our lifetimes, though I hope that I am dead when it comes. He will promise mass unity because there is too much to profit from it and too much to lose from promising anything else. It will be a mass movement and with mass action, young and old. Right and left. SJW and reactionary. It is this that will be the final death knell for the United States. Mark my words. It always happens. It always has happened.
Trump is only a harbinger. Soon, a real bastard - a monster - is going to rise up - and it will be in our lifetimes, though I hope that I am dead when it comes. He will promise mass unity because there is too much to profit from it and too much to lose from promising anything else. It will be a mass movement and with mass action, young and old. Right and left. SJW and reactionary. It is this that will be the final death knell for the United States. Mark my words. It always happens. It always has happened.
Sounds like 'The Omen' to me. We should check all of our representatives for weird birthmarks to nip this in the bud!
Comments
Here's the things I consider on the left:
medicare for all
free college
a living wage
ending the wars (yemen, syria, afghanistan, and the rest)
ending the drug war
reduce/remove influence of money on politics
Corporate tax reform (GOP tax scam shifted more of the tax burden on middle class, that needs to be undone)
The Democratic party is pretty centrist. There are a few that support things like this and more to come and the centrist Republican-lite Democrats aren't very inspiring.
Ending the drug war - to a degree, not every drug for everybody but backing off a bit, sure...
Free job training - not necessarily college because that's not everybody's cup of tea
Healthcare subsidies for all - stop calling it 'insurance'
Ending unnecessary wars - won't agree with no wars under any conditions
Reduce money in politics - dispose of attacks on the rich and using that as an excuse to garner votes and yeah, ok - to me the rich are just as much of a minority as any ethnic group so I don't really blame them for using whatever tactics they can to keep things from going completely against them
Living wage - maybe, not sure it's a great idea keeping entry level jobs away from the youth but I have an open mind
That study going around on Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All plan comes with a big catch — the US would actually be saving money overall on healthcare
https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-cost-save-money-2018-7
Having single payer healthcare isn't such a radical idea. Many industrialized countries have it. I can't imagine walking into an ER without insurance for a broken arm and leaving without a bill for at least $30k.
It must be nice to not have to worry about medical bankruptcy.
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And we need the opposite of this. The middle class already has a high enough tax burden. The rich need to pay their share instead of shifting the tax burden further to the middle class. As if the tax scam wasn't bad enough.
Trump administration reportedly considering $100B tax cut to the rich without approval from Congress
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-trump-tax-cut-wealthy-20180730-story.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-31/hikers-attacked-on-bibbulmun-track-near-perth/10055188
Okay, so instead of individual people being ridden bareback by those in the business of making a buck off human suffering, it's Uncle Sam who gets taken to the woodshed. One big, collective, drop your drawers and bend over, and this time for the entire nation. The government writes the check and hands it to these people. The government writes the check and hands it to these people. The government writes the check and hands it to these people. Yes, I wrote that three times.
Is this really the best ya got, so-called "left"?
What we NEED is a government liquidation of all healthcare - as long as there is rule of law these inhumane pain-profiteers will still get a check - but only one (though broken up into smaller checks over a period of time). If we're going to be giving these people checks then I say we rent to own. Yes. I am talking about a massive government buyout of all healthcare. Then We the People run the healthcare. Like the Post Office - except far better than the Post Office because there will be no competitors to sabotage. Any private practices outright banned as crimes against humanity. Doctors and nurses will have the US Seal on their paychecks. Surgeon Generals - elected instead of appointed. And now they actually earn their paychecks.
Now THAT is what we should be talking about. What we're talking about instead is a sad, sad compromise - which we still probably won't get. I say we shoot big to begin with... then the right-wingers will think single-payer is a godsend in comparison, and won't be able to cast their vote fast enough - anything to take the conversation off of that. It's called pushing the overton window. Might want to try that sometime - take a page from the leftists of yesteryear.
I don't agree 100% with him, but he is the UNIQUE guy who is against affirmative action to protect the majority from minority, against our strict gun control, privileges for minorities, etc. Brazil is so lefitist that even social democrats are considered "right" by the establishment.
About familiar planning, he proposed that despite being against most Catholic conservatives because Brazil have a great problem. People who are incapable of having child are having big families while the rich have 1-2 sons. The left "by body my choice"(i don't have an opinion about it) wanna liberate abortion but don't talk about vasectomy who isn't in that "grey area", even if you assume that abortion is murderer(not saying that is or not), there aren't arguments against vasectomy. And who will elect this guy? The left. The left is promoting him.
University doesn't need to be free--community colleges, most of which offer four-year programs now, are very low in cost to the out-of-control tuition the "name brand" schools charge. Most employers don't care where you graduated, only that you have the piece of paper. Define "their share", using exact numbers or percentages. For over 10 years I have been asking people to define what "their share" or "their fair share" actually *means*, numerically, but no one has ever done so. Even when I asked it in the previous thread no one defined it. It's okay, though, because I know why they don't--they are afraid that the number they cite will be too low and they won't be able to change it later.
The true purpose of taxation is not to pay for government programs, in any event--people who think that are living in the 19th Century. The true purpose of taxation is to restrict the money supply as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation.
Unlike @semiticgod I *never* remove off-topic or rule-breaking comments in the politics forum where I am the mod. If someone says something they ought not have said I leave it for everyone to see, thus making the offenders own their words. This isn't my forum, though, and I am not the one in charge here.
Since we're talking about the Brazilian presidency, I was looking at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Brazil#Office-holders
Given those pictures and the ones of "Mr. Blue-eyes" you posted above, I'm wondering if whites are really as oppressed as you're making out.
You can see just how expensive the US looks. It should be no trouble at all to reduce costs by a third and still improve the overall standard of healthcare (not difficult if those without access were given it).
45% of the country identify as "white", but the real number of whites are probably around 20%(not sure). If you look by state, 80% of the Bahia's population identify as Black, while around 80% of Santa Catarina(whitest state) identify as white. The real number of whites, i don't know, some genetic studies put the average southern brazilian as 87% white and others put as 74% ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Latin_Americans#Brazil )
The problem is not racial. Chile is mostly of mixed race and is the most developed country in Latin America, richer in GDP per capta than some EU countries, Bermuda(British territory) is mostly African and is richer in GDP per capta than USA. The problem is that if you can't barely feed yourself, you can't feed yourself and a child. Doesn't matter if you are white, mixed, black, asian or whatever .
The ideal is a "color blind" government. If someone refuses to hire based on race, there are already laws to punish it(if discrimination should be allowed or not is another discussion and how this laws only applies to whites too). Affirmative actions should't be implemented. Mainly in a most mixed race country. Someone can be considered "white" in Rio de Janeiro and "pardo" or even "black" in Santa Catarina.
And public universities use the same amount of "cotas", doesn't matter if you are in the "whitest" city or in the "africanest" city, so is ridiculous easy for people who use affirmative action users to past in certain cities.
I've been meaning to get around to that, and since I wasn't busy, I decided to do it today.
Basically, I looked at the existing tax brackets (I used this as a reference, so let me know if there's a problem with that source) and tried to construct a new set of tax brackets that would extend further. My goal was to make it fairly close to revenue-neutral when it came to the bottom majority--that is, not counting people making millions a year.
Apparently, everyone falling anywhere near the median income, which is just under $50,000 last I heard, currently pays the same rate, a little over 20% (it varies from year to year). Again, let me know if I'm getting details wrong here. Also, there are only seven brackets according to the above source, and they don't scale at all past $500,000 a year. It looks like everyone even close to middle class gets lumped together and taxed at a rather high rate. I understand why the sub-$30,000 bracket gets taxed so much less, but it seems odd that the middle class would be taxed as such a large lump.
So, I tried to rig the numbers so that folks in the middle class would pay a little less than they do now, but I think I might have overdone it. It's my understanding that over 90% of revenue comes from the top 50%, and while the 1% is a huge fraction of that, I'm concerned that the lowered taxes on people making in the neighborhood of 80 grand a year--professional white-collar folks, I think, with relatively rare skill sets--might decrease tax revenue a lot more than I intended.
After $150,000, which I figured would include a lot of managers and other people in leadership positions midway up an organization, I made the taxes scale more quickly. I don't know the exact effects on total revenue, but it looks like the top 1%, defined here as folks making over $400,000 a year, would pay over 9 percentage points higher, depending on just how much over 400K they make. Since the 1% is responsible for about 20% of tax revenue according to this source, that would amount to over a 5% increase in tax revenue. That's just the effect of the change on the 1%; the other tax increases and decreases on certain levels of income could sway things one way or another, depending on how many people earn how much money.
I've listed the base salary, the percent tax on that salary, the total taxes paid, and the total income remaining after tax. I separated it into individual and household incomes.
If the source I based this on was not accurate, I wouldn't support these numbers necessarily. If there are more complicated tax brackets I don't know about, I'd modify the above numbers to better match the real system. I wanted to keep things fairly close to the existing tax system; I didn't want any massive changes to the large majority of the population.
Note that the numbers for salaries start unusually low and end unusually high. I doubt many people are living on 5 grand a year, and I'm not sure anyone is over 600 million a year (I've read somewhere that the top 400 highest-income people are around 300 or 400 million on average). I set the "household" tax brackets to be 40% higher at first, then gradually decrease that percentage as income goes up, which more or less matches the pattern of the original tax brackets.
Given the choice, I would not actually use tax brackets. I would prefer to use a formula that roughly corresponded to these tax brackets, which would avoid the problem of somebody making less money if they earned just enough money to jump into the next tax bracket.
I would also implement a capital gains tax to capture income made on stock trading and investments. There are a lot of rich people who make money on interest and trading rather than a salary, and therefore pay little or no income tax. A stockbroker can have higher earnings than a doctor while paying a smaller percentage, or even nothing, in income taxes. The capital gains tax would be at least as progressive as the income tax.
What do you guys think?
The Bankrate site is using valid numbers. Unless you are a tax preparation professional (who may or may not also be a CPA or tax lawyer), it can be difficult to find the actual formulas the IRS uses when compiling the tax tables but even if you have the Form 1040 instructions you can (with a little effort) reverse-engineer the brackets. The reason so much of the tax burden is saddled on the low-, middle-, and upper-middle economic classes is because there are so many of them--the volume of people can outweigh the amount of money made even by the 1% of the 1% (the difference between an average person and the 1% is as great as the distance between the 1% and the "1% of the 1%" group).
I think taxing capital gains at a higher rate and/or being able to capture more financial transactions will do more to equalize the system than trying to reinvent the wheel via the tax brackets. Although I do make money on my investments (and would thus be susceptible to increases in the capital gains rates) I do not know without looking what the current rates and limits are--that gives me something to look in to this evening.
I agree with your idea about a sliding scale rather than brackets because of the "bracket jump" problem. I will see if I can find compiled/complete tax return filing data for 2016 or 2017 if is has been published yet. I had that data once, but by now those numbers are out-of-date.
https://www.veronmaksajat.fi/luvut/Laskelmat/Palkansaajan-veroprosentit/
Blue = percent tax
Green = percent tax at margin
Horizontal axis is € per year
You can see it bulges at the middle class range here as well
The data is also available in table form
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-russia-influence-us-elections-202847050.html
How can this not be viewed as a problem?? This is really nothing more than advocating for a system in which there are no rules at all, or, more to the point, that there may BE rules, but it doesn't matter if they aren't followed, and that the ends justify the means in all circumstances.
The term in ambiguous and a big deal to someone who leans right maybe different than someone who leans left. IMO, it should have been left out as it changes the numbers to 84% says it not appropriate, with 5% declining to answer. But that doesn't have the same click-baity title.
1) People invest much more money in finding ways to legally avoid tax rather than using it productively.
2) There's a significant incentive to illegally evade tax.
3) It drives some people abroad with the loss not just of their direct taxes, but the wider economic impact they would have made (through spending, running businesses etc).
There have been studies done of the levels of taxes people are psychologically willing to pay. The trouble is that not only does this vary a lot between individuals, but the impact of cultural factors on this is very significant. The level of tax most people will happily pay in the US would, for instance, be rather lower than somewhere like Scandinavia where a high-tax, high level of services system is the cultural norm. As a rule of thumb, however, I would suggest that the highest marginal rate of tax should be no more than 50%.
At present I suspect that most people in the US don't have a good understanding of the tax system. That results in negative feelings towards the IRS and the wider government as money is taken from people without them knowing why. It also provides a huge amount of work for lawyers and accountants for something that has no benefit to the wider economy. To improve on that I would suggest radically simplifying the tax system - essentially getting rid of all deductions and special cases. Where there is a good reason for some of those, they could be replaced by direct government support rather than complicating the tax system to try and drive behavior. As an example of that I think the US has some provisions allowing you to set off investments in films against taxable income (the UK certainly does). If you think that there is a need to encourage film making then offer grants rather than tax-breaks to do this - apart from simplifying the tax system that would also have the benefit of more transparency about the way the government was intervening in the economy.
In order to make the system more efficient I would have a relatively high zero-tax band at the bottom of the scale - at least $20,000. After that you could just have a single band, e.g. everyone taxed at 40%, or a few of them - say 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%. I would probably say it was fairer (as well as simpler) to just have a single band. Whenever I hear people justifying higher rates for higher incomes by saying that people earning more should pay more I tend to find myself wanting to shout at them that they do pay more with a single band - you don't need progressive banding to ensure that
However, if you do have multiple bands then the tax due should only relate to that band. Thus if you earn $1 more than the 20% band it's only that $1 that gets taxed at 30%, not all your income (thus avoiding the problem of high marginal rates of tax).
I agree with @semiticgod that capital gains taxes should be integrated with income taxes to avoid opportunities to reduce the tax burden by taking benefits in a different form.
I would also like to see a wider reduction in the types of taxes. In the UK for instance the government introduced a tax on the transfer of houses a few years ago. That was purely done as a means of raising revenue and has been very successful in doing that. However, that tax is not good for the economy. Not only does it distort the housing market, but it requires a totally separate system of monitoring and collection which represents wasted money compared to increasing another form of taxation.
You could in principle end up with very few taxes, e.g.
- income/capital tax on earnings (I would argue national insurance should be properly integrated into this)
- VAT / sales tax on expenditure
- capital transfer / inheritance tax on wealth
However, there are also taxes whose point is as much or more to influence behavior as to raise revenue, e.g. tax on tobacco. They don't really fit in with my general philosophy on tax, but I'd be reluctant to get rid of them (in fact I'd probably like to extend them, e.g. to cover drug use more generally rather than using criminal sanctions - but that's another story). I would probably just suggest using different terminology for taxes aimed at influencing behavior, e.g. calling those tariffs and having them administered by a different government department. The tax revenues raised would also be earmarked for specific purposes rather than disappear into general revenues. Thus for instance tax on drugs would help fund prevention and treatment programs, airport taxes would fund renewable energy initiatives etc.
The quoted bit is a fallacy, however. The progressive tax code means one only pays the specified tax on the amount of income in that bracket.
A single person with a taxable income of $82,501 only pays $0.24 on the additional dollar that pushed them into the higher bracket. Here’s how it really works based on the 2018 tax tables.
First, a single person with a taxable income of $82500.
The first $9525 is taxed at 10% (952.50).
The next ($38700-$9525) $29175 is taxed at 12% ($3501).
The last ($82500-$38700) $43800 is taxed at 22% ($9636).
Total tax liability for this person is $14089.50 giving them a take home of $68410.50.
Now a person that had a taxable income of $82501.
The first $9525 is taxed at 10% (952.50).
The next ($38700-$9525) $29175 is taxed at 12% ($3501).
The next ($82500-$38700) $43800 is taxed at 22% ($9636).
The last dollar is taxed at 24% (0.24).
Total tax liability for this person is $14089.74 giving them a take home of $68411.26 which is still $0.76 more than a person that stayed in the lower bracket.
Apologies if you understood this and were just simplifying your tables. It’s a pet peeve and I’m not even an accountant :-)
But here's some of what I mean. (And I'm on mobile so not going to get stats easily atm.) In general, the middle class are paying too much in taxes.
We have CEOs making tens of thousands of times a workers salary. The six Walmart heirs have more money than 40% of the nation. The CEO of Walmart makes $11,000/hour. Jeff Bezos is the world's richest man. Yet, these guys don't have money to pay their workers more than minimum wage, bull sheet. It's all well and good to earn money but something is seriously messed up and needs adjusted when we have this going on.
And, because of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court (Conservative majority decision) the rich have an even greater stranglehold on our government because they can pour unlimited cash at Republicans who take in millions in bribes and give these rich corporations billions and trillions in tax breaks and subsidies.
Congress doesn't represent us, it represents their donors cutting them checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Grandmas contribution of a check for $50 doesn't mean squat. They don't care about that, they need something they go see their donors - its all about fundraising.
What we need is the rich and corporations to pay their fair share instead of owning the government and bribing politicians to give them tax breaks. All these tax breaks and loopholes effectively shift the tax burden to the middle class.
There's historical numbers, which i don't have handy, in the past corporations and the rich paid more and things were better. Now they can afford boats which contains smaller boats and their sixth and seventh mansions. They need to pay their fair share, whatever that number is, we are way off of it now. Things like the GOP tax scam are making things worse (and ballooning the deficit and who do you think will be stuck with the bill? Hint it won't be the rich because they own the politicians.)