AGAIN - I am all for a flat tax and/or a consumption tax, and cutting out deductions, and many of the upper and lower benefits/payments. Are we ALL in agreement to do that? Wayne? Wease? TerryRay? Kosar? Smurph? Etc.? If not, why not?
I think the best is super-simplified tax form, with hardly any deductions, that can be filled out and returned on back of a postcard.
Flat-tax isn't politically feasable because so many folks want some progressivity, even a little bit. If you start out with none, I guarantee Congress will find a way to add it, like the postcard thing I mention.
Consumption tax would have to be around 20% to replace IRS, and you add that to 5% local tax you see in lotta places, that means 25%. And a tax like that on every good and service would cause the creation of a huge black market--with all the inefficiencies, unregulation, crime and loss of respect for law that goes with that.
Cie Grant said:
IMO $250K couples should not have to pay the same as $75K couples, but they should not have to suffer any increases either.
From the graph I linked above, it appears that those earning $153-$387 are paying handsomely at the moment.
Concerning couples income, I came across two good editorials in today's WSJ that Don Boudreaux mentioned on his blog:
In regard to the appearance of French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez in President Barack Obama's budget ("The Obama Rosetta Stone," by Daniel Henninger, Wonder Land, March 12): In their use of statistics of the top 1% of income earners, Messrs. Piketty and Saez make the same false assumptions that the Internal Revenue Service does. In 1980 income disparity began to take off in the U.S. leaving the top 1% of income earners with a greater share of the income pie. Like the IRS, these French economists use "household" income as their measure.
But consider that 1980 was about the time when large percentages of college-educated women began to enter the workforce. Many of these professional women would go on to marry other professionals. This in effect created a doubling of "household" income for many families.
At the same time out-of-wedlock birth rates and divorce began to skyrocket creating large percentages of single-parent households. It should be no surprise that a two income household has a much higher income than a single-income household even if all workers make exactly the same income.
Surgeons will always make more than janitors, as anyone who has ever gone "under the knife" will agree with, and their income should not be distorted because they are married to a fellow surgeon.
My working wife and I often find ourselves in this 1% bracket, but if we were to divorce we would never come close. It's ironic that the left decries the income disparity between men and women, but in the instance when women earn equal pay it is used to inflame class warfare.
Steve Walde
Easton, Conn.
President Obama's new era of responsibility budget makes it clear that 5% of the population (the rich) must assume more financial responsibility for the other 95%. Fair enough, but is there some new responsibility that the other 95% also must assume? If not, that seems somewhat irresponsible.
Efforts to countermand the laws of nature to create a completely fair society mean forcing equality of outcomes, an end result that isn't fair, healthy or sustainable. History tells us that this type of class warfare never has a happy ending.
R.D. Shipley
Stamford, Conn.
bryanz said:
All you smart guys that cry about socialism vs capitalism have it wrong... Lets talk about capitalism where people that steal go to jail... EVEN PEOPLE WITH MONEY THAT HAVE LAWYERS WITH MONEY.... just because you don't carry a gun, have your manicures and pedicures more that most of hard working woman do, doesn't mean justice shouldn't be as swift & punitive... The state of our nation is not about capitalism or socialism... THAT'S JUST SMOKE SCREEN FOR FUCKING IDIOTS........ There are ethical questions and criminal questions.... The CAPITALIST ARE STANDING IN LINE AFTER RAPING, THAT'S FUCKING WITHOUT CONSENT OR LUBERCATION WITH THEIR LIMP DICKS IN HAND , LOOKING FOR THEIR BRAND OF SOCIALISM TO BAIL THEIR ASSES OUT ! THATS WHAT THIS IS ABOUT... I DON'T SEE TO MANY CAPITALIST TURNING SOCIALISM DOWM.... I'M A CAPITALIST.... I don't get paid if I don't go to work.. I make it rain... my longest empolyment is working for myself (16yrs)... Sick of bull shit from people that couldn't create a dollar if they had to....
Yup, it's an old saying "The problem with Socialism is Socialism, the problem with Capitalism is capitalists."
