‘We're Going to Make the Rich Pay,’ Joe Manchin Tells Protesters From His Yacht

[GMDino]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvgxe/were-going-to-make-the-rich-pay-joe-manchin-tells-protesters-from-his-yacht

Quote:Activists kayaked to Senator Joe Manchin's $700,000 yacht to ask why he wouldn't support the infrastructure bill.
[/url]EO
[url=https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/edward-ongweso-jr]By Edward Ongweso Jr
October 1, 2021, 2:15pm

For the past week, activists have been kayaking to Senator Joe Manchin's yacht to question why he's refusing to support the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill to fund Biden’s legislative agenda. Thursday was the first day Manchin seems to have come out and talked with the protesters, although he didn’t say much of substance.

Standing on the back of his yacht called Almost Heaven (though some argue it’s a houseboat as opposed to a luxury vessel), Manchin assured those assembled he heard their concerns and understood them.

“We're working hard, we really are,” Manchin said, looking down at the protesters who paddled up to the yacht. “We want to get a good bill that's a balanced bill, that's well done. And I know it won't be enough for some, it will be too much for others." 

West Virginians are kayaking to Joe Manchin's yacht and demanding he explain why he's stopping the reconciliation bill from advancingpic.twitter.com/Q09OC1aEHo

— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) October 1, 2021

When one protester shouted “we need to tax the rich,” Manchin quickly assented from the back of the $700,000 yacht that he lives on when Congress is in session. "I agree with that, I definitely agree. That's the one number thing we should be doing: fixing the tax code so everybody pays their fair share." 

"We're all on the same page, gang. We really are," Manchin added. When another activist again said “tax the rich” Manchin agreed with a more annoyed tone from the back of the yacht: "We’re taxing the rich, I agree. We're going to make the rich and famous pay!" 

Manchin’s office did not immediately respond to Motherboard’s request for comment.

As things stand, there's no evidence Manchin will do anything differently: he's committed to a $1.5 trillion number that abandons an attempt at expanding social programs in this country but will likely leave intact the fossil fuel industry, from which he collects $500,000 in dividends each year. In Manchin’s own words, he was “very, very disturbed” in particular by elements of the $3.5 trillion plan that target the fossil fuel industry

[Goalpost]

We need a bridge badly here in Cincinnati and it's being held hostage. Money for this type project was approved bipartisan by the Senate. The attack on Manchin is really just a side show because money for bridges, etc are now being linked. He would approve bridges but his party has said, not unless.....so the next best strategy is to smear him.

[GMDino]

(10-02-2021, 10:07 AM)Goalpost Wrote: We need a bridge badly here in Cincinnati and it's being held hostage.  Money for this type project was approved bipartisan by the Senate. The attack on Manchin is really just a side show because money for bridges, etc are now being linked.  He would approve bridges but his party has said, not unless.....so the next best strategy is to smear him.

hard to call it a smear when it's a true story about him out on his yacht.

Manchin knows he has some power and he will wield it. It would be nice if he had legitimate reasons though.

[*michaelsean*]

“We need to tax the rich” is such a stupid statement. Even Bill Maher is like “shut up”.

[GMDino]

(10-03-2021, 12:38 PM)michaelsean Wrote: “We need to tax the rich” is such a stupid statement. Even Bill Maher is like “shut up”.

Well Maher is rich so...



All seriousness aside we used to tax the rich and all was well.  Then the rich found away to keep making money without working.  All while saying we can't raise worker's pay because...reasons.

[*michaelsean*]

(10-03-2021, 12:43 PM)GMDino Wrote: Well Maher is rich so...



All seriousness aside we used to tax the rich and all was well.  Then the rich found away to keep making money without working.  All while saying we can't raise worker's pay because...reasons.

Then say we want to tax the rich more. I may still disagree, but I won’t think you’re (universal) a moron.

[CarolinaBengalFanGuy]

(10-03-2021, 12:43 PM)GMDino Wrote: Well Maher is rich so...



All seriousness aside we used to tax the rich and all was well.  Then the rich found away to keep making money without working.  All while saying we can't raise worker's pay because...reasons.

Mind you this is a quick search out of curiosity and I don’t like career politicians or the thought of a politician that can afford a yacht on their government salary, but apparently he has millions worth of shares in his pre political business dealings and I think still gets a ton of money from that? I don’t know. I’m sure he makes plenty on the side of political maneuvers like I imagine they all do.

If he has a yacht from previous successful business before his work in government I don’t care, but it’s still bad optics.

[Goalpost]

(10-03-2021, 12:43 PM)GMDino Wrote: All seriousness aside we used to tax the rich and all was well.  Then the rich found away to keep making money without working.  All while saying we can't raise worker's pay because...reasons.

I think the top 1 percent pay 40 percent of total taxes, and the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of of total taxes.  

[GMDino]

(10-04-2021, 02:06 AM)Goalpost Wrote: I think the top 1 percent pay 40 percent of total taxes, and the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of of total taxes.  

if collected 110% of taxes we would be doing ok! 

j/k...sorry if I offended.

But that's when hey pay anything at all.  Hiding offshore accounts, hiding behind loopholes they created and got passed through congress, etc keeps them from paying less that they even should. 

And it's all legal.

But legal doesn't always equal right.

[Au165]

It's actually funny the panama papers and the new pandora papers show that the wealthiest aren't paying their fair share pretty much anywhere in the world they are hiding their money and hoarding it.

[Goalpost]

(10-04-2021, 12:23 PM)Au165 Wrote: It's actually funny the panama papers and the new pandora papers show that the wealthiest aren't paying their fair share pretty much anywhere in the world they are hiding their money and hoarding it.

61percent-of-americans-paid-no-federal-income-taxes-in-2020-tax-policy-center-says.html, 

I'm all for loopholes being closed.  But I also find this stat ironic.

[Au165]

(10-04-2021, 12:35 PM)Goalpost Wrote: 61percent-of-americans-paid-no-federal-income-taxes-in-2020-tax-policy-center-says.html, 

I'm all for loopholes being closed.  But I also find this stat ironic.

Did you read why? 

[Dill]

(10-02-2021, 10:07 AM)Goalpost Wrote: We need a bridge badly here in Cincinnati and it's being held hostage.  Money for this type project was approved bipartisan by the Senate. The attack on Manchin is really just a side show because money for bridges, etc are now being linked.  He would approve bridges but his party has said, not unless.....so the next best strategy is to smear him.

But it's ok for his party to say "not unless" if it is their belief they have mandate to fix more than bridges, right? 

Mancion is tanking his party leader's agenda--the promise which got him elected.

[*michaelsean*]

(10-04-2021, 10:44 AM)GMDino Wrote: if collected 110% of taxes we would be doing ok! 

j/k...sorry if I offended.

But that's when hey pay anything at all.  Hiding offshore accounts, hiding behind loopholes they created and got passed through congress, etc keeps them from paying less that they even should. 

And it's all legal.

But legal doesn't always equal right.

And yet they somehow pay a tremendous percentage of the income tax and a much higher percentage than their percentage of total income.

[CJD]

I don't know what to call it, but a rich politician assuring people that he'll definitely tax the rich from the cabin of his yacht is just....peak America haha.

[GMDino]

(10-04-2021, 03:30 PM)michaelsean Wrote: And yet they somehow pay a tremendous percentage of the income tax and a much higher percentage than their percentage of total income.

I'm gonna just leave this here.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1-dont-pay-40-of-the-taxes.html

Quote:One of the sad constants of American political debate is that, anytime the tax rate on the rich is to be either raised or lowered, Republicans will repeat a certain statistic. To wit, “The Stat” is that the highest-earning one percent of taxpayers pay 40 percent of all income taxes. Conservatives consider this fact a dispositive justification either against any proposal to increase taxes on the rich, or in favor of any plan to reduce it. Over just the past day, I have seen it circulating — here, here, here, everywhere.



It is a figure that has been repeated a million times on Fox News diatribes and in College Republican lectures sponsored by aging billionaires. It is one of the handful of debate-enders, like “Ronald Reagan defeated communism” or “gun controls don’t stop crime,” that any good Republican apparatchik has at his fingertips.


The Stat is literally true. But it is deeply misleading — so misleading, in fact, that it routinely fools even the people who are citing it into thinking it indicates something other than what it actually means.

The first problem with The Stat is that it makes no reference to the proportion of income the rich earn. The juxtaposition between one percent and 40 percent is meant to convey the idea that a small number of people are carrying a gigantic and disproportionate burden, but the figure lacks any context when it omits how much money they earn in the first place.

Indeed, it turns the fact that rich people account for a massive share of the income pool into a reason to see them as mistreated. One common move for polemicists brandishing this figure is to note that the share of taxes paid by the rich is “up sharply” over the past couple decades — which it is, on account of rich people claiming a larger share of the national income. The logic implied by The Stat is that the bigger the proportion of income earned by the richest one percent, the more imperative it is to reduce their tax rates, so that they don’t pay too high a share of the tax burden.

Second, and worse still, The Stat ignores the fact that income taxes are just one component of the federal tax system, and federal taxes are just one component of the total tax system. The federal tax system is far more progressive than state and local taxes, which rely heavily on regressive burdens like sales taxes. (It’s harder to impose progressives taxes at the state or local level, since rich people moving to a different town or state is relatively easy, while leaving the country is more burdensome.)

What’s more, even within the federal tax system, income taxes are just one, relatively progressive, component. For most workers, the biggest tax they pay isn’t income tax but payroll tax, the line marked “FICA” on your pay stub, which finances Social Security and most of Medicare. That tax is regressive and primarily applies to the first $142,800 of wages.*

The trick of describing only the share of income taxes paid by the richest one percent is to make people think it means all taxes. Even professional movement conservatives make this mistake. Here’s Jay Nordlinger:

All my life, I've heard, "Tax the rich!" Some people even put it on dresses. According to the latest data, the top 1 percent of earners in America pay 40.1 percent of federal taxes; the bottom 90 percent pay 28.6 percent. Come on. If you want more revenue -- look to the "middle."

— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) September 14, 2021

 

Another right-wing column published the other day makes the same error, first using the “income tax” qualifier, then slipping out of it to assert, falsely, “the top 1% paid more in taxes in 2018 than the bottom 90%” — an extremely common error by conservatives.

Republican politicians, including George W. Bush, have made the same error. The Stat is technically limited to income taxes for a reason — it’s describing a narrow category of taxation that is especially progressive. But it only works because it makes the listener believe it describes all taxes. The trick works so well it fools the people repeating the stat.

The actual truth about the American tax system is that it is slightly progressive. The richest one percent earn about 21 percent of the income and pay 24 percent of the taxes:



Nordlinger helpfully summarizes the conservative notion that the rich are taxed to the limit and cannot pay any more. Of course, we have plenty of recent experience with taxing rich people at higher levels. Restoring the Clinton-era top tax rate of 39.6 percent obviously did not stop the rapid growth seen under Clinton. The Trump tax cuts for business owners and heirs to large fortunes were supposed to encourage more business investment but clearly failed to do so. There are gaping loopholes in the tax code for the wealthy that allow massive fortunes to escape any taxation at all.

A great deal of evidence supports the notion that the tax system could increase the burden on the very rich with little or no economic drag. That idea also happens to be extremely popular. Because it is popular, conservatives feel special urgency to insist it cannot be done. But it can.

[*michaelsean*]

(10-04-2021, 05:41 PM)GMDino Wrote: I'm gonna just leave this here.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1-dont-pay-40-of-the-taxes.html

That was a convoluted way to say I’m right. When we are talking about federal income tax, then that’s what we are talking about. If you are yelling at Joe Manchun about state and local taxes you’re kind of wasting your time. If this guy is misled I don’t know what to say.



https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/

[*michaelsean*]

(10-04-2021, 04:49 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I don't know what to call it, but a rich politician assuring people that he'll definitely tax the rich from the cabin of his yacht is just....peak America haha.

He’s not exactly alone. I mean he may be the first to say it from a yacht, but there’s a lot of rich people clamoring to tax the rich.

[BengalRed]

(10-04-2021, 07:00 PM)michaelsean Wrote: He’s not exactly alone. I mean he may be the first to say it from a yacht, but there’s a lot of rich people clamoring to tax the rich.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/john-kerry-net-worth-193752219.html

John Kerry Net Worth: $250 Million

[GMDino]

(10-04-2021, 06:59 PM)michaelsean Wrote: That was a convoluted way to say I’m right. When we are talking about federal income tax, then that’s what we are talking about. If you are yelling at Joe Manchun about state and local taxes you’re kind of wasting your time.  If this guy is misled I don’t know what to say.



https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/

I'm saying it's not 40%. And I'm not sure the "tax foundation" is as non-partisan as they say they are...lol.