In a word...no.





http://www.zerohedge.com/article/middle-...-sacrifice

Did someone ever imply they were?

(07-07-2011 02:03 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Did someone ever imply they were?

Only every liberal in the past decade. Another way of putting it is saying the "rich need to pay their fair share."

(07-07-2011 02:03 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Did someone ever imply they were?

Silly.

(07-07-2011 02:20 PM)BlazerFan11 Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 02:03 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Did someone ever imply they were?

Only every liberal in the past decade. Another way of putting it is saying the "rich need to pay their fair share."

Not this one.

That's federal. State taxes are important too.

(07-07-2011 02:40 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  That's federal. State taxes are important too.

It's also not including SS and Medicare taxes. Still, the middle class tax burden is comparatively low. My question is whats the purpose of this thread though? Do you think we should raise taxes on the middle class?

(07-07-2011 10:58 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 02:40 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  That's federal. State taxes are important too.

It's also not including SS and Medicare taxes. Still, the middle class tax burden is comparatively low. My question is whats the purpose of this thread though? Do you think we should raise taxes on the middle class?

No. He thinks the poor should pay more.

(07-08-2011 01:18 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 10:58 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 02:40 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  That's federal. State taxes are important too.

It's also not including SS and Medicare taxes. Still, the middle class tax burden is comparatively low. My question is whats the purpose of this thread though? Do you think we should raise taxes on the middle class?

No. He thinks the poor should pay more.

How do you propose keeping SS and Medicare as is if you dont raise taxes on everyone? Taxing just the top 2% won't get you to the magic number.

(07-08-2011 01:20 AM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-08-2011 01:18 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 10:58 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 02:40 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  That's federal. State taxes are important too.

It's also not including SS and Medicare taxes. Still, the middle class tax burden is comparatively low. My question is whats the purpose of this thread though? Do you think we should raise taxes on the middle class?

No. He thinks the poor should pay more.

How do you propose keeping SS and Medicare as is if you dont raise taxes on everyone? Taxing just the top 2% won't get you to the magic number.

So how much do you propose we raise taxes on the poor? How much revenue do you expect to take in from this increase? Maybe a few hundred million? I suppose we could use that for the federal funding for libraries(which is about $214 million/year) since that is where most of them will be living once the tax is put into place.

49% of this country pays no income tax at all.

Rubio is right, we don't need higher taxes, we need more tax payers. I know Robert doesn't like that since he is one of the 49%.

The poor need help. Whether they deserve it or not is a different question, but somewhat moot, because society as a whole benefits if even its poorest have certain minimums, like roofs over their heads and food to eat and clothes to wear and sufficient medical attention to prevent at least the outbreaks of epidemics.

What Europe does is provide a more comprehensive safety net underneath the poor, and then require everyone--specifically including those poor people to pay for it. Their tax structures are generally much flatter (less progressive) and the higher rates generally kick in much more quickly than ours do. And they rely on regressive consumption taxes to do the heavy lifting. Everybody benefits, and everybody pays. Who generally makes out way better in their system than ours is the upper middle class. Their taxes aren't outrageous (unlike a generation ago) and they still get all the benefits that everybody else does. The seldom mentioned problem with their system is that they've become too much of a nanny state in many regards, and nanny states have an alarming tendency to make the people who live in them miserable. The move toward more conservative governments in many European countries has been attributed by many to the ability of politicians like David Cameron and Angela Merkel to tap into this misery index.

I think we would do well to emulate some things that Europe does--but stop well short of the nanny state. The Boortz-Linder prefund plus French health care gives us a pretty comprehensive safety net, and it can be paid for by flat taxes and consumption taxes at relatively low rates.

A more comprehensive safety net paid for with flatter and lower and broader taxes looks to me like a deal worth making.

(07-07-2011 10:58 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  My question is whats the purpose of this thread though?

To dispel a commonly recited myth.

(07-08-2011 07:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The poor need help. Whether they deserve it or not is a different question, but somewhat moot, because society as a whole benefits if even its poorest have certain minimums, like roofs over their heads and food to eat and clothes to wear and sufficient medical attention to prevent at least the outbreaks of epidemics.

What Europe does is provide a more comprehensive safety net underneath the poor, and then require everyone--specifically including those poor people to pay for it. Their tax structures are generally much flatter (less progressive) and the higher rates generally kick in much more quickly than ours do. And they rely on regressive consumption taxes to do the heavy lifting. Everybody benefits, and everybody pays. Who generally makes out way better in their system than ours is the upper middle class. Their taxes aren't outrageous (unlike a generation ago) and they still get all the benefits that everybody else does. The seldom mentioned problem with their system is that they've become too much of a nanny state in many regards, and nanny states have an alarming tendency to make the people who live in them miserable. The move toward more conservative governments in many European countries has been attributed by many to the ability of politicians like David Cameron and Angela Merkel to tap into this misery index.

I think we would do well to emulate some things that Europe does--but stop well short of the nanny state. The Boortz-Linder prefund plus French health care gives us a pretty comprehensive safety net, and it can be paid for by flat taxes and consumption taxes at relatively low rates.

A more comprehensive safety net paid for with flatter and lower and broader taxes looks to me like a deal worth making.

This. We need to implement a system that is hard to evade. A consumption tax would do that...unless you could pull yourself off the grid and grow your own food. The prebate would be an instant help to the poor and working poor in meeting monthly expenses.

And understand why my taxes are so high.

I pay for the Timberwolves basketball stadium through my property taxes. That is a Minneapolis-only expense (including the subsidy to the team).

I pay for the Twins stadium through my sales taxes (we share that one with the county).

I pay for the Convention Center through my sales taxes too (a city-only expense).

I pay for the Minneapolis Art Institute through my property taxes. (shared with the county)

I subsidize the Walker and the Guthrie through their parking (city-only).

The Minneapolis Chain of Lakes parks gets ten times more visitors than any state park but yet again, I pay for that (a Minneapolis-only cost).

I pay for fixing polluted City land and City pension costs from fifty years ago and old infrastructure that is coming part after a hundred years.

I pay for the concentration of poverty that has happened because surrounding cities refuse to allow housing for these people.

I pay for the homeless because suburbs don't have homeless shelters so they drive their homeless to Minneapolis.

I don't mind paying my fair share but this is ridiculous.

At some point, all the other people who benefit should pay too.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but that second chart really doesn't support your argument, I'm not sure why you included it. It just says more people are leaving the middle class and entering the lower class.

(07-08-2011 09:14 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  And understand why my taxes are so high.

I pay for the Timberwolves basketball stadium through my property taxes. That is a Minneapolis-only expense (including the subsidy to the team).

I pay for the Twins stadium through my sales taxes (we share that one with the county).

I pay for the Convention Center through my sales taxes too (a city-only expense).

I pay for the Minneapolis Art Institute through my property taxes. (shared with the county)

I subsidize the Walker and the Guthrie through their parking (city-only).

The Minneapolis Chain of Lakes parks gets ten times more visitors than any state park but yet again, I pay for that (a Minneapolis-only cost).

I pay for fixing polluted City land and City pension costs from fifty years ago and old infrastructure that is coming part after a hundred years.

I pay for the concentration of poverty that has happened because surrounding cities refuse to allow housing for these people.

I pay for the homeless because suburbs don't have homeless shelters so they drive their homeless to Minneapolis.

I don't mind paying my fair share but this is ridiculous.

At some point, all the other people who benefit should pay too.

The stunning thing about this list is that it shows communities need affordable services completed, and people need jobs.

A simple market based approach solves both of these problems, and it's been a fair system for millennia.

Yet's it's the "progressives" who insist that it isn't "fair". That we need minimum wages so that people can't find jobs while necessary work goes undone. We need "safety nets" that make it more comfortable to be unemployed, while the taxes push businesses to lay off more people. We have community resources that can't be maintained by the community, we need to have unionized workers do these tasks.

This is the perverse illogic of progressives, liberals, leftists, or whatever stupid name they go by.

And somehow people let this happen. I don't expect these fools to change their thoughts, that rarely happens. But I do expect that sensible people stop caving to this nonsense and recognize the truths that have been known for thousands of years: beatings are for the backs of fools, not honor. These people shouldn't be influencing public policy, let alone dictating it.

Get these goofs and goons out of the way and let capable people get things done.

(07-08-2011 01:18 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 10:58 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 02:40 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  That's federal. State taxes are important too.

It's also not including SS and Medicare taxes. Still, the middle class tax burden is comparatively low. My question is whats the purpose of this thread though? Do you think we should raise taxes on the middle class?

No. He thinks the poor should pay more.

As has been stated already......when 49% of the adults pay NO TAX, there is a fundamental problem. I'm not saying that the destitute have to start paying, but I am saying that a significant portion of the 49% need to start paying some amount of taxes. I don't care if it's only $200 per year - they need to pay some taxes. This will assure that when voting time comes for all these programs, they at least have some skin in the game. Someone that pays no taxes will always vote to have taxes increased and they really don't care if the politicians piss the money away.....it doesn't adversely affect them. Kinda like you, Robert.

(07-08-2011 09:28 AM)HuskieFan84 Wrote:  I'm not disagreeing with you, but that second chart really doesn't support your argument, I'm not sure why you included it. It just says more people are leaving the middle class and entering the lower class.

It only does if one assumes that tax rates remained the same. They did not, since the lowest rates received tax cuts, as well as new credits. It doesn't show a growing lower class, unless we've really rediculously redefined lower class.

(07-08-2011 01:57 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(07-08-2011 01:20 AM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-08-2011 01:18 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 10:58 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(07-07-2011 02:40 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  That's federal. State taxes are important too.

It's also not including SS and Medicare taxes. Still, the middle class tax burden is comparatively low. My question is whats the purpose of this thread though? Do you think we should raise taxes on the middle class?

No. He thinks the poor should pay more.

How do you propose keeping SS and Medicare as is if you dont raise taxes on everyone? Taxing just the top 2% won't get you to the magic number.

So how much do you propose we raise taxes on the poor? How much revenue do you expect to take in from this increase? Maybe a few hundred million? I suppose we could use that for the federal funding for libraries(which is about $214 million/year) since that is where most of them will be living once the tax is put into place.

OK, so here is why no one likes you. I asked you an honest, serious question. And you give a bull**** response that brings absolutely nothing to the conversation.

I will now continue my earlier policy of just telling you to shut up any time you butt into a discussion I am having.