Bernie Sanders .... Tax rate 90%

[GodHatesBengals]

(06-02-2015, 11:47 AM)michaelsean Wrote: It doesn't matter to the guy.  If someone has a gross income of sat $1 million, and he is paying say $250,000 in federal taxes alone, and you tell him he's not paying his fair share he will tune you out.  He's going to look at you who may not pay that in ten years, and say, 'Who are you to tell me I'm not paying my share?"

And we will all grovel and say, "OH NO, DEAR RICH MAN! PLEASE DO NOT TUNE ME OUT, AS MY EXISTENCE REVOLVES AROUND YOUR ACCEPTANCE JUST AS YOU HAVE ALWAYS IMAGINED!"

(...... Psssst.... The majority of the country really isn't concerned whether really rich people like them or not; they've made their contempt of the lower classes plenty clear...)

[Benton]

(06-02-2015, 03:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Yes, the taskforce was ill-equpped, ill-trained, and over-ran because of "cutting defense". The easiest thing for most to say is "cut defense". We are closing and realigning bases all the time

I thought the easiest thing for people to say was "across the board x% cut." 



That approach has lead to immigration problems, higher crime, homelessness and other problems. But we continue to spend more on "defense." 

We don't need as many bases as we have. We don't need bases in ally countries. We don't need nearly 50 military facilities in South Korea or the same number or more in Germany and Japan each. We have the technological capabilities to get troops anywhere in the world in half a day or less. We have intelligence assets that let us know a week before that half a day occurs.

We need to cut military spending.

[GodHatesBengals]

(06-02-2015, 03:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Yes, the taskforce was ill-equpped, ill-trained, and over-ran because of "cutting defense". The easiest thing for most to say is "cut defense". We are closing and realigning bases all the time

God forbid we close any bases. We need to have a massive military presence in every single nation on earth to remind people how boss we are!

[xxlt]

(06-02-2015, 01:04 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I never said anything against a progressive tax.  

Good. Now note that in the 1950's our culture was much more "conservative," mucn more "traditional," and much more homogenous. In that "Leave it to Beaver" meets "Pleasantville" world nobody was screaming that 90% was "immoral." Because it wasn't. And it wouldn't be today either. It wouldn't even be excessive, but it also would not be essential. It is however, quite clear that the highest rates are ridiculoulsy low at this time.

[*michaelsean*]

(06-02-2015, 03:46 PM)GodHatesBengals Wrote: And we will all grovel and say, "OH NO, DEAR RICH MAN! PLEASE DO NOT TUNE ME OUT, AS MY EXISTENCE REVOLVES AROUND YOUR ACCEPTANCE JUST AS YOU HAVE ALWAYS IMAGINED!"

(...... Psssst.... The majority of the country really isn't concerned whether really rich people like them or not; they've made their contempt of the lower classes plenty clear...)

Like has nothing to do with it.  It has to do with getting people on board with a plan.

[GodHatesBengals]

(06-02-2015, 04:10 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Like has nothing to do with it.  It has to do with getting people on board with a plan.

Oh, I thought you had to be talking about like, since I assumed you were intelligent enough to realize that the majority doesn't much need to get an extremely small minority "on board with a plan" in a democracy. My mistake.

[GMDino]

This has me chasing ghosts about the military budget cuts in before 1950.

I kind of assumed military spending dropped after WWII.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/past_spending



That seems natural.  

A little more reading and it leads to believe that the Task Force Smith incident was more lack of preparedness for a battle than a lack of funding.

Even when DDE said he wanted to get military spending under control spending went up.

(same link)

Quote:Then in World War II the United States achieved an unprecedented mobilization of resources, and defense spending rose to 41 percent of GDP in 1945. But after the war it never returned to previous levels. From a low of 7.2 percent of GDP in 1948 it doubled to 15 percent at the height of the Korean War in 1953, and was maintained at about 10 percent during the peak of the Cold War through the height of the Vietnam War. Against this the defense buildup during the Reagan era, from 5.5 percent of GDP in 1979 to 6.9 percent of GDP in 1986 was modest, and the Bush buildup from 3.5 percent in 1999 to 5.7 percent in 2010 to fight the first battles against Islamist extremism equally restrained. The plans of the Obama administration show a reduction in spending back to 4.5 percent of GDP by 2015 and 3.8 percent GDP by 2020.

http://www.theglobalist.com/yes-we-can-how-eisenhower-wrestled-down-the-u-s-warfare-state/

Quote:It was Dwight D. Eisenhower who brought U.S. defense spending back under control. Ike, the former supreme commander of the costliest military campaign in history, was a military war hero, but also a man who hated war. And he revered balanced budgets.

Accordingly, Eisenhower – the 34th President of the United States and in power for much of the 1950s — did not hesitate to wield the budgetary knife. When he did so, the blade came down squarely on the Pentagon.
The essence of Eisenhower’s immense fiscal achievement, an actual shrinkage of the federal budget in real terms during his eight-year term, is that he tamed the warfare state.

Eisenhower’s campaign for fiscal discipline started with the bloated war budget he inherited from Harry Truman, his predecessor.
To prepare the ground for what was to come, Eisenhower traveled to Korea immediately after his election in November 1952. His trip set in motion a negotiating process that made an armistice on the Korean peninsula a foregone conclusion.

Given the expected cutback of war expense, the new White House team led by incoming Treasury Secretary (and a deficit, not defense, hawk) George Humphrey was shocked by Truman’s planned defense budget for the upcoming fiscal year. It was still 6% higher than the current year’s.


With Eisenhower’s blessing, the budget request inherited from Truman was slashed by nearly 30%, with more cuts targeted for future years.

Although defense spending never did shrink all the way to Ike’s target, the wind-down of Truman’s war budget was swift and drastic. When measured in constant 2005 dollars of purchasing power, the defense budget was reduced from a peak of $515 billion in fiscal 1953 to $370 billion by fiscal 1956. It remained at that level through the end of Eisenhower’s second term.
Moreover, even though Democrats charged that Eisenhower and Humphrey were “allowing their Neanderthal fiscal views to endanger the national security,” the actual record proves the administration’s drastic rollback of Pentagon spending was not based merely on penny-pinching.

Instead, it flowed from a reasoned retrenchment of the nation’s national security strategy called the “New Look.”
The new policy doctrine of the Eisenhower Administration called for a sharp reduction in land and naval forces. That move was coupled with a significantly increased reliance for nuclear deterrence on the air force bomber fleet and the rapid development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

[GMDino]

(06-02-2015, 04:10 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Like has nothing to do with it.  It has to do with getting people on board with a plan.

Exactly.  The same people who are paying politicians to write the laws and rules to protect their lower rates.

[*michaelsean*]

(06-02-2015, 04:04 PM)xxlt Wrote: Good. Now note that in the 1950's our culture was much more "conservative," mucn more "traditional," and much more homogenous. In that "Leave it to Beaver" meets "Pleasantville" world nobody was screaming that 90% was "immoral." Because it wasn't. And it wouldn't be today either. It wouldn't even be excessive, but it also would not be essential. It is however, quite clear that the highest rates are ridiculoulsy low at this time.

Ridiculously low based on what? Compared to what? 

[*michaelsean*]

(06-02-2015, 04:14 PM)GodHatesBengals Wrote: Oh, I thought you had to be talking about like, since I assumed you were intelligent enough to realize that the majority doesn't much need to get an extremely small minority "on board with a plan" in a democracy. My mistake.

You might want to take that up with Dino.  Post#88 to be precise.  

[GMDino]

(06-02-2015, 04:19 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Ridiculously low based on what? Compared to what? 

Every year from around 1932-1982

[*michaelsean*]

(06-02-2015, 04:22 PM)GMDino Wrote: Every year from around 1932-1982

So high compared to the other 80%   of our history?

[Belsnickel]

(06-02-2015, 04:23 PM)michaelsean Wrote: So high compared to the other 80%   of our history?

There has been a personal income tax for 103 years. The rates today are lower (or the same) than all but 16 of those years.

[Belsnickel]

Saw this recently, thought it'd be interesting to some here:

[*michaelsean*]

(06-02-2015, 04:33 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: There has been a personal income tax for 103 years. The rates today are lower (or the same) than all but 16 of those years.

But we've been a country for 250 years.

[GMDino]

(06-02-2015, 04:23 PM)michaelsean Wrote: So high compared to the other 80%   of our history?

No...low.

[GMDino]

(06-02-2015, 04:42 PM)michaelsean Wrote: But we've been a country for 250 years.

Quote:The nation had few taxes in its early history. From 1791 to 1802, the United States government was supported by internal taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds, and slaves. The high cost of the War of 1812 brought about the nation's first sales taxes on gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches. In 1817, however, Congress did away with all internal taxes, relying on tariffs on imported goods to provide sufficient funds for running the government.


In 1862, in order to support the Civil War effort, Congress enacted the nation's first income tax law. It was a forerunner of our modern income tax in that it was based on the principles of graduated, or progressive, taxation and of withholding income at the source. During the Civil War, a person earning from $600 to $10,000 per year paid tax at the rate of 3%. Those with incomes of more than $10,000 paid taxes at a higher rate. Additional sales and excise taxes were added, and an “inheritance” tax also made its debut. In 1866, internal revenue collections reached their highest point in the nation's 90-year history—more than $310 million, an amount not reached again until 1911.

The Act of 1862 established the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The Commissioner was given the power to assess, levy, and collect taxes, and the right to enforce the tax laws through seizure of property and income and through prosecution. The powers and authority remain very much the same today.
In 1868, Congress again focused its taxation efforts on tobacco and distilled spirits and eliminated the income tax in 1872. It had a short-lived revival in 1894 and 1895. In the latter year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states in conformity with the Constitution.

In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations. In fiscal year 1918, annual internal revenue collections for the first time passed the billion-dollar mark, rising to $5.4 billion by 1920. With the advent of World War II, employment increased, as did tax collections—to $7.3 billion. The withholding tax on wages was introduced in 1943 and was instrumental in increasing the number of taxpayers to 60 million and tax collections to $43 billion by 1945.
In 1981, Congress enacted the largest tax cut in U.S. history, approximately $750 billion over six years. The tax reduction, however, was partially offset by two tax acts, in 1982 and 1984, that attempted to raise approximately $265 billion.

On Oct. 22, 1986, President Reagan signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, one of the most far-reaching reforms of the United States tax system since the adoption of the income tax. The top tax rate on individual income was lowered from 50% to 28%, the lowest it had been since 1916. Tax preferences were eliminated to make up most of the revenue. In an attempt to remain revenue neutral, the act called for a $120 billion increase in business taxation and a corresponding decrease in individual taxation over a five-year period.

Following what seemed to be a yearly tradition of new tax acts that began in 1986, the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1990 was signed into law on Nov. 5, 1990. As with the '87, '88, and '89 acts, the 1990 act, while providing a number of substantive provisions, was small in comparison with the 1986 act. The emphasis of the 1990 act was increased taxes on the wealthy.

On Aug. 10, 1993, President Clinton signed the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law. The act's purpose was to reduce by approximately $496 billion the federal deficit that would otherwise accumulate in fiscal years 1994 through 1998. In 1997, Clinton signed another tax act. The act, which cut taxes by $152 billion, included a cut in capital-gains tax for individuals, a $500 per child tax credit, and tax incentives for education.
President George W. Bush signed a series of tax cuts into law. The largest was the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. It was estimated to save taxpayers $1.3 trillion over ten years, making it the third largest tax cut since World War II. The Bush tax cut created a new lowest rate, 10% for the first several thousand dollars earned. It also established a slow schedule of incremental tax cuts that would eventually double the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000, adjust brackets so that middle-income couples owed the same tax as comparable singles, cut the top four tax rates (28% to 25%; 31% to 28%; 36% to 33%; and 39.6% to 35%).

The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003 accelerated the tax rate cuts that had been enacted in 2001, and temporarily reduced the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15%. In 2004, the U.S. was forced to eliminate a corporate tax provision that had been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Along with that tax hike, Congress passed a cornucopia of tax breaks, which for individuals included an option to deduct the payment of whichever state taxes were higher, sales or income taxes.

Two tax bills signed in 2005 and 2006 extended through 2010 the favorable rates on capital gains and dividends that had been enacted in 2003, raised the exemption levels for the Alternative Minimum Tax, and enacted new tax incentives designed to persuade individuals to save more for retirement.

Read more: History of the Income Tax in the United States http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html#ixzz3bw4xin9O

[*michaelsean*]

(06-02-2015, 04:37 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Saw this recently, thought it'd be interesting to some here:

I find this one kind of interesting.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205

[6andcounting]

(06-02-2015, 02:25 PM)GMDino Wrote: The amount I am paying...which is less than they guy who is "investing" his money and not working.

And its not just yours.  It goes to a big fund for everyone.  It builds bombs and feeds children.  It fix roads and catches terrorists.

We can debate what % should go to what...but we are all contributing.  Some more than others.

And I'm paying a higher rate because I work for a living vs already having money and "investing" it.

My point is that that "fair share" is never defined. Someone else's fair share is always higher than where it is now. of course, when it comes to one's own fair share no one is paying more than the minimum amount that keeps them out of jail.

[GMDino]

(06-02-2015, 04:55 PM)6andcounting Wrote: My point is that that "fair share" is never defined. Someone else's fair share is always higher than where it is now. of course, when it comes to one's own fair share no one is paying more than the minimum amount that keeps them out of jail.

If I'm good with my tax rate...and the people writing the laws feel that is a fair rate for the work I do...why would it not be a fair rate for "investors"?

Want to raise mine a bit along with bringing everyone else up to where I am?  Go for it.

In the end we would ALL be better off as a nation.