Letusreason

You sound like a 1%er to me. Congress will only jawbone the Buffet rule to death . It is nothing more than a political football wright now . As for fixing the deficit problem . Congress will not slit it's own throat and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs . They will only kick the can down the road once again. To truly fix the problem , congress must rein itself in. By this I mean stop all the pork barrel spending and other waste full spending . But they will not do so , because their puppet masters will not allow that to happen . To few people making to much money controlling congress.

bob

In addition.....is it fair that because of filing status, credits and various deductions, 49% of income earners pay zero income tax? No....but that's the way the system is set up. So what does this president do? Instead of proposing solutions that have the potential of resolving problems...he engages in a war of wealth envy. The Buffet rule does nothing to solve the huge fiscal issues created by this administration and others....but it does allow Obama to divert attention from these issues, which is his goal. Why isn't he talking about his record? For two years in a row, he introduces a budget that is so irresponsible, it receives no votes from either party. This President has become the most divisive leader in US history....and needs to be sent packing.

This is another big lie coming from the same people that bailed out the banks or got bailed out. Come on now, don't be fooled again. They DO NOT have our best interest at hand. That's why they stay in power and have all the money.

Time to stop believing these liars. What short memories have you got to buy this BS again????

Misguided people like to point out that we had the greatest growth in our history when the wealthy had the highest tax rates. What they fail to tell us is that was after WW11, Japan was an ash pile, Germany was bombed flat, and Europe had been ravaged by war. We were the only game (manufacturing, produce, etc.) in the whole world! And the wealthy had no other place in the world to go to that could support their business's. We basically had a monopoly on everything, as no other nation in the world could compete with us for anything! Now that the actions, and inactions of those in office have taken full effect on our economy for the worst possible outcome. Those in office have declared war on the heart that pumps the life blood through our economy as a diversion from their own ineptness! Too many employers have already left our shores, and too many are waiting to see what the government does before making a decision on leaving. Yet this administration keeps attacking them, while other countries realize what they contribute and offer them incentives in the form of low tax rates, less regulation, etc. Instead of thinking there goes another rich SOB very time you see a Bentley on the road, think about how many jobs that SOB provides to feed, house, etc. American families! Supporting this war on the wealthy who really already pay more than their fair share of the taxes, is assisting in the suicide of our once great economy!

I agree if Obama wants ti fix the deficit, she should propose something that is more than politics. The millionaires tax is like spitting in the ocean and claiming this raises the sea level. The tax will only give us squat anyway.

Taxes are required to pay interest on the national debt and the Federal Reserve as well.

These fat cats will just pass the extra cost to the consumer.

The government receives more tax dollars to squander..

The government has a spending problem..

Let's see, Obama says this tax would generate 47 billion over 10 years and would go towards balancing the federal budget. If you could have the entire 47 billion up front (not over 10 years) it wouldn't cover one weeks federal operating expenses, all while Obama continues to rack up trillion dollar plus deficits, year after year.

This meaningless tax is simply more of the socialist "tax the rich" ideology. Consider that Obama's position on raising the capital gains is the exact same thing. Even after acknowledging that raising the capital gains tax has always discouraged investment and brought fewer dollars into the treasury, he still would raise the tax as a matter of fairness. This is the usual socialist ideological class warfare dogma which is to tax those that they perceive to be wealthy for no other reason except ideology.

Ironically, the fools that support Obama's "tax the rich" rhetoric and his rush towards socialism are the ones that will suffer the most.

This so-called Buffett rule is just another patch on a tax system that is chocked full of special tax breaks. Here's a thought. GET RID OF all the special breaks, loopholes, subsidies, etc. and have a few fixed tax rates. Then the question of "fair" is off the table.

Your numbers are wrong so your arguement is flawed. As mentioned, 1%ers paying the lowest % is not what the American system is based. What ever happened to the trickle down theory? Too much theory and not even a trickle.

If you want to see the real numbers instead of the lies coming out of DC, look here:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=456

Herman Cain - What are you basing your numbers on when you say the 1%ers are paying a higher effective tax rate? I'm middle class, just did my taxes in turbo tax and had an effective rate of 13.25%.

Letusreason. Agreed 100% And that is the reason we are looking at retiring and moving tothe other side of the world...Alot of people don't want us 1%'ers around. John Galt...coming home...

A Parible>>>

Over lunch two friends discussed the proposal to extend the Bush-era federal government tax cuts.

"I'm opposed to those tax cuts," the college professor declared, "because they benefit the rich. The rich get much more money back than ordinary taxpayers like you and me and that's not fair."

"But the rich pay more in the first place," his businessman friend argued, "so it stands to reason that they'd get more money back." He could tell that his professor friend was unimpressed by this argument, still contending that the "rich" get a free ride in America.

Then the businessman told this parable: Suppose that every evening 10 men go to a restaurant for dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. They paid the bill the way we pay our federal taxes. The first four men would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $17. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $60.

0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 3 + 7 + 12 + 17 + 60 = $100 cost of dinner

The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed happy with the arrangement until the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you're all such good customers," the owner said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Now dinner for the 10 would only cost $80.

The first four are unaffected; they still eat for free. So, how are we to divvy up the $20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share? Divided among the six equally, $20 is $3.33 each, but if we subtract that from each share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner worked out the amounts each should pay by using reductions proportional to what they were paying. Now the first four still paid nothing, the fifth man paid 80 cents, the sixth pitched in $2.40, the seventh paid $5.60, the eighth paid $9.60, and the ninth paid $13.40, leaving the 10th man with a bill of $48 instead of $60.

0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + .80 + 2.40 + 5.60 + 9.60 + 13.40 + 48.00 = $80 reduced cost of dinner

Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I just got a measly 20 cents out of the $20," complained the fifth man, pointing to the 10th, "and he got $12!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the sixth man. "I only got 60 cents. It's unfair that he got 20 times as much as me!"

"That's true," shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $12 back when I got less than $3? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor."

0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + (-.20) + (-.60) + (-1.40) + (-2.40) + (-3.40) + (-12) = (-$20) savings on dinner

Then the nine men surrounded the 10th and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something: they were $48 short!

And that, boys, girls, and college professors, is how America's progressive tax system works. Those who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table any more.

After all, there are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.

Teo, that old dinner table parable is stupid and wrong on so many levels. It doesn't prove jack and makes no discernible point.

Sure, the bill breakdown (of 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 3, 7, etc.) may appropriately reflect how taxes are paid by 10 hypothetical individuals in our society, but you ALSO assume that all 10 men get the same dinner when in reality the highest income earner gets filet mignon, lobster, and champagne while the bottom 4 get saltine crackers and water.

And that, boys, girls, and college professors, is how America's progressive tax system works.

not even close, not laughably close. If you need more revenue, you must get it from those with an ability to pay. Jacking up taxes on those making <$10k per year will bring you nothing (you can't get blood from a stone) whereas millionaires wouldn't even miss a 5% increase in their tax liability.

Why tax millionaires? Because that's where the money is!!

And the top 10% of earners purchase 70% of the Rolls and Bentleys and multi-million dollar homes. What an outstanding observance. People that make more pay more.

We take in approximately 50% of what we spend. Without a combination of spending cuts and tax increases this will just get worse.

We take in approximately 50% of what we spend. Without a combination of spending cuts and tax increases this will just get worse.

Very true. Anyone that argues against using both tools in the toolbox (e.g., tax increases AND spending cuts) is not at all serious about the deficit problem.

Grover..."Anyone that argues..." You just might have some issues with this Democrat:

"Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government." – John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

"It is no contradiction – the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today's economy is to raise consumption by major reduction of individual income tax rates." – John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: "The Economic Report Of The President"

"In today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarges the federal deficit – why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues." – John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: "The Economic Report Of The President"

It's economics 101 people. Problem is, Americans have little if any sense of delayed gratification. All the politicians want to spend now and worry about paying for it later.

OK, I think FAIR is everyone has skin in the game. Everyone would pay a minimum of 3% more, This would be on the first $1.00. The 25% payer would increase to 28%. At the same time the Federal government would roll back spending by 3% and not grow faster than 75% of GDP until we become balanced. After which the excess goes 100% to pay down the massive deficit.

The point you miss is I can vote by moving to one of fifty countries with a lower tax rate. More importantly it is something our family recently has been considering...

Grover what you are missing in Teo's point is that the resturant is the government. The food is the governement services and entitlements. So the bottoom four are actually eating the lobster and the 1% is eating the saltines.

To those of you who would not pay their taxes and move to another country, I say take a f..ng hike. Nobody makes millions a year by themselves. They take advantage of our laws, education system, infrastructure, military protection ect. Now when these same millionaires were required to pay a much higher tax rate in prior decades, some would say our best financial years, our economy flourished. We all pay the same rate up to our level of income. When corporate executives make obscene money while their companies are going down the toilet and they are laying off their employees and cutting their benefits all the while putting on the poor mouth you get what we have had since Reagan, lower wages and benefits for the people doing the bulk of the work. These CEO's do not work 1000 times harder than the secretary.

Now of course incentive is the best way to create wealth. Nobody is suggesting a return to 90% taxes over a million, just a return to rates before the Republican engineered attack on the middle class. This isn't jealousy, but just as the article states, fairness. This recession is just what the Republicans wanted. Crush labor, create unemployment, and yet profits are at an all-time high and taxes are at an all-time low. Some rich people make money the old fashioned way, they steal it from poor people.

HYPOCRISY, the single word that best describes Obama, Obama's administration, and just about every liberal in America..... 100% hypocrites.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-hathaway_n_941099.html

When the poor pay 30%, get zero deductions, and stop taking wealth redistribution handouts, I will gladly pay 30% and take zero deductions. Until then, President Poverty Pimp can take his class warfare "fairness" tour and stick it up his ass!

Russ

You are correct , That is not Luck !!

The real problem is when you get to that income level . That is where all the loop holes and real tax breaks kick in . Those things must come to an end . As the QUEEN of MEAN put it best ONLY THE LITTLE PEOPLE PAY TAXES !!!

bob

russ

Like Romney right? Who had his dad pay for his education, his (1st) home and his dad's influence help him get into his job?

Only the little people pay taxes? HA! The bottom 47% pay NO TAXES.

I'm not a tax expert by any means but I'm guessing that the same tax breaks available for billionaires are available for someone making $250k...it's just that the billionaire can utilize those breaks on a larger scale. And yes little people are paying taxes (fica, sales, etc.)...but it appears most pay no income tax.

I'm sick and tired of this "50% of people pay no income tax at all " mantra.

How many of those 50% are retired seniors on S.S. that would have no tax bill anyway????? When you factor them in you get a realistic % of people that don't pay income tax, and it's way less than 50%.

But the Spin Hannity's of the world never mention the seniors because that doesn't fit into their 50% headline...............

So basically what you are sayiing is that because of the structure of the tax code and how SS benefits are treated, depending on other sources of income, you can receive SS income and not need to pay income taxes. Which sort of makes you part of the crowd that pays no income taxes....right?

Since when is SS retirement income not taxable? I'm retired and just mailed my fed and state returns on it. What am I missing?

Do you have other income besides SS? If not, I would suggest that you do some research or get professional help because the vast majority of SS income should not be included in your AGI.....and therefore not taxed.

Only the little people pay taxes? HA! The bottom 47% pay NO TAXES.

false.

They EARNED it with new ideas, new inventions, new approaches to doing business better in a way that inspired people to purchase their products or services.

The organizer of industry who thinks he has 'made' himself and his business has found a whole social system ready to his hand in skilled workers, machinery, a market, peace and order -- a vast apparatus and a pervasive atmosphere, the joint creation of millions of men and scores of generations. Take away the whole social factor, and we have not Robinson Crusoe with his salvage from the wreck and his acquired knowledge, but the native savage living on roots, berries and vermin.

~LT Hobhouse

Russ 0267:Tell the rest of the story. Once they forget where they came from, the average employees who collectively do the labor to produce these massive corporate profits are not getting pay raises, doing more for less as they contribute their creativity and take on increasing work levels as people are laid off, are increasingly paying more as their share for health care, are laid off or fired when the company decides they must meet the "demands" by investors, and on and on. Human resources were once valued and rewarded for their contributions to the success of the corporations. That is no longer true.

Roscoe2,

Hannity clones are simply dogmatic idiots. For at least the last year, feeble-minded worshipers of Fox News have been fed figures like 47%-48%-or 50% are lazy, shiftless people awaiting handouts--deadbeats, freeloaders, whatever emotionally charged word conservatives can think of to denigrate those who don't pay taxes. I have argued that those non-taxpayers are our retired, our infirm, our crazies, our disabled, and those who make too little money to pay taxes.

On March 23, 2012, "[t]he Center on Budget and Policy Priorities . . . put out a report¹ showing that the 53% of entitlement benefits go to those aged 65 and up. The disabled non-elderly receive 20% while 18% of benefits go to members of working households – namely dependents. 7% is paid out in Medicare, unemployment insurance benefits, Social Security survivor benefits.

"The remaining 2% is doled out in discretionary – aka NON-entitlement – programs.

"This is a slap in the face to Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, who warn that America is becoming a society of “entitlement” and “government dependency.” More than half of the benefits we pay for go to the elderly who worked their buns off in their time, while the rest goes to people who have been proven to have extraordinary need." http://singlemothergrant.net/who-really-eats-up-government-benefits/. The actual study by the Center on Budget Policies is at http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/23/10814860-whos-using-government-benefits-mostly-the-elderly?threadId=3376968&commentId=63737998#c63737998.

Bottom line, Roscoe: those posters who speak of government as the intermediary between productive Americans and shiftless, "unwashed" parasites awaiting their next government check/fix are ignorantly assailing as public parasites their own venerable parents and grandparents, most of whom worked during most of their lives, those too disabled or crazy to work, or the working poor, whose wages or salaries are too low to provide for their families.

Their continued rant against non-taxpaying freeloaders and parasites despite the publication of facts belying their thesis only shows how implacably dogmatic these imbeciles are. This is hardly surprising. In a study performed by a psychologist at Brock University in Canada, the results of which were published on a post that appeared on Newsvine on February 10, 2012, it was found that "Conservatives continually bear out the findings of Brock University in Canada that racists, bigots and conservatives have lower IQs than liberals and progressives. The whole history of conservatism in this country bears witness to the fact that most conservatives are basically ignorant and racist." The researcher also found that, “[S]everal psychological variables predicted political conservatism.” Which variables exactly? In order of predictive power: Death anxiety, system instability, dogmatism/intolerance of ambiguity, closed-mindedness, low tolerance of uncertainty, high needs for order, structure, and closure, low integrative complexity, fear of threat and loss, and low self-esteem. The researchers conclude, a little chillingly, that ‘the core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and a justification of inequality.’”

Those who watch Fox News and listen to the likes of Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, and Huckabee are empty-headed, fearful imbeciles who are played daily to regurgitate one fiction after another. 25-30% of the American people believe global warming is an anti-capitalist hoax although 95% of climate scientists, those not paid off by Big Oil, believe it presents a grave peril to mankind. 25-30% of the American people believe Obama is a foreigner despite the release of his short- and long-form Hawaiian birth certificate, which his haters assert without proof were fabricated. 25-30% of the American public believes that Obama is an atheist/Muslim/the Anti-christ even though Obama has attended Christian churches his entire adult life, as a result of which he is chastised by the same idiots as believing in all the political rants by pastor Jeremiah Wright, a Christian preacher. 25-30% of the American public thought that, when W left office, he had done a great job.

If 25-30% of the American public can be led to believe in one fiction after another designed to engender fear and disdain toward others (the "fat-black-momma-with-10-kids-living-on-AFDC while driving a pink Cadillac-screw-0the freeloaders-argument was used in 1996, when DINO Clinton acquiesced in Gingrich's contract against America by kicking off thousands of welfare recipients off welfare rolls and shifting welfare to the states), as they have been since 1980, then we will continue to suffer from the tyranny of the stupid, the terrified, who gladly sacrifice their own financial interests to support the upper class's right not to be taxed progressively. With Citizens United, which allows corporations and rich people everywhere secretly to contribute to Super Pacs to disinform the public more than ever before, with formerly-US based corporations having already gone global and sending jobs overseas to maximize profits by using the cheapest labor available and trying to kill unions as worker advocates everywhere, this tyranny will probably continue. We're headed down the path of becoming a Third World country, courtesy of the Republican Party's manipulation of our dumbest citizens, those for whom simplistic jingos are more persuasive than scholarly treatises.

flnobody

russ

Like Romney right? Who had his dad pay for his education, his (1st) home and his dad's influence help him get into his job?

So, if I understand your comment, it would be analogous to throwing out the entire barrel of apples, because there's a bad 1 (as you see it) in there. Similarly, your argument in favor "TAX THE RICH", that new original idea of "CHANGE" you can believe in, is that you're willing to punish/tax more out of every single successful business man or women, because 1 out of barrel didn't come by their money the hard way.

Well, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it.

RK

close to 50% of americans pay no income tax at all

How many millionaires pay no income tax?

Most millionaires pay around 3 times the % middle class pay in effective rate. Folks misunderstand effective rate and don't realize not all wealthy have all income from cap gains. Buffet is the exception, not the rule.

fred

Most millionaires

Is that the same as not all? Some don't pay any income tax, right? Come on, you can say it.

This existing method of taxation is too complicated. It should be revised to something simpler. Something like a pay as you spend tax, no refunds, no April 15th. Anyone who spends a dollar will pay .05 cents. Reduce the size of one of the largest employers in the world (IRS)..

If I were running my business at such a loss I would not hire new help nor buy new equipment until I had my finances in order. If I raised my rates my principles would be forced to seek a cheaper good or service to maintain their profits..

This administration should have a reduction in their pay and their spending to ease the burden on the employed tax producers, and balance this deficit..

Creating more tax will solve nothing except to grow more government.. A government that is becoming a "non-friendly to business" empire.

Government creates nothing but debt. By reducing the government, we will reduce the debt..

Yes, yes, the Lame Stream Media is telling any fool who'll listen that the Buffet Rule is about Fairness.

Has nothing to do with redistribution of wealth, being able to balance a budget, pay off the deficit,.... it's purely about FAIRNESS.

Here's Obama's definition of fairness..... http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/16/11228993-ex-gsa-head-apologizes-for-823000-las-vegas-spending-spree?lite

Yes, I can see why they need to collect more of my money, right, right. It's all about Fairness.

If you tax CG as ordinary income you remove the incentive for a potential investor to invest. That is why it is taxed at a lower rate. It's the reward for taking the risk. An incentivized CG rate is a key element of economic growth and revenue generation. Reagan, Clinton and Bush all understood this...they cut CG rates...business expanded and revenues to the government grew.

ug1, what about those of us who have a small portfolio that was created over the past 30-40 years for retirement? Should we pay ordinary income rather than CG?

Yes. All income should be taxed at the same rate. Slightly progressive at the bottom end to keep people out of poverty, otherwise dead flat for ALL sources of income. The reward for investment is the money made on a good investment after tax, nothing more. Investors don't need more incentive. They can certainly hoard their money if they wish, but they won't make any additional income that way. Too bad, so sad.

capital gains should be taxed progressively just like ordinary income. Those with small portfolios merely saving for a meager retirement (ala "w proud") would pay the 15% but hedge fund managers raking in millions would pay an effective higher rate.

How to graduate the capital gains tax would be an interesting debate, but I can see no reason why it should not be.

The incentive for investment is that if you dont do it someone else will. So if a businessman passes on a lucrative idea "because the govt is going to tax the hell out of me" there will be 10x more people lined up to take on such an investment. Why?? TO MAKE MONEY!!

All income should be tax the same. There is no double taxing is capital gains is classified as income because corporations are not people my friend. Lets simplify the tax code going forward, end corporate welfare subsidies, tax incentives should be only per american job created, pay those on unemployment more joining job training education or higher education vs those simply collecting unemployment and doing nothing...

Well said

finn

The bush tax cuts would create jobs was a lie too. Lets do away with them.

Folks are in for a hell of a shock when they see that Bush tax cuts gave big cuts to lower brackets.

fred

Big? The smallest of all the brackets.

I think one of Buffets companies is in court fighting the IRS about a very large tax bill!!

No that isn't what he is saying, and there is a big difference between taxing cap gains as ordinary income and the Buffet Rule.

I own a small manufacturing company, we produce a product, I employ people, and the profits from the company are taxed as ordinary income (at high tax rates). If I were so fortunate to generate $1 million in income I would be taxed at the same Buffet Rule rate as a billionare who passively earns income through owning stocks. My income generates jobs and drives the economy. Earnings through capital gains don't.

ug1

My income generates jobs and drives the economy. Earnings through capital gains don't.

That's not what the gop says.

Ha! Sounds like Nancy Pelosi when she said pensions should be taxed as a luxury tax.

By focusing on "da wealthy" you're totally ignoring the 401k's, mutual funds and other retirement/investment funds of SMALL investors and retirees that have large organizations to lobby for them.

Having been in the manufacturing business for 30+ years before retiring at 55 I think you're fighting an uphill battle. If your revenue is acutally < $1million you may want to consider finding a buyer or learning Asian languages.

To use your own words: too bad, so sad.

Oh yeah, just a piece of friendly advice. I used to be running my business at 7am not blogging at 8:30+.

Steven,

A flat tax will raise taxes for the middle class while lowering them for the wealthy. Is that what you want?

The Bush tax cuts gave the greatest % to lower brackets. Obama has continued the Bush tax cuts and only asked to have the smaller portion that applies to top bracket expire.

bachata,

Actually, there's been surreptitious class warfare going on for the last 30+ years, and it's been waged by the Republican Party. Between 1979 and 2007, the annual income of the top 20% rose by 275% while wages have been flat or are declining after taking into account the higher contributions by workers to worker benefits like health care and retirement. "Today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth . . . while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth. Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans -- over 150 million people. http://currydemocrats.org/in_perspective/american_pie.html.

The top 20% of annual income earners in the United States now take home 85% of all annual income generated. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html. The remaining 80% of us fight over the remaining 15% of the income--the left-over scraps. "Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States . . . (in 2010), the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it. And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1996." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?pagewanted=all. While Teapublicans deride attempts to articulate these facts as sorties of "class warfare," Warren Buffett, the second richest man in America, famously said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." http://currydemocrats.org/in_perspective/american_pie.html. In short, "trickle down" as implemented by Republicans has proven to be "trickle up."

Wake up people--there's a massive transfer of wealth going on to what W used to call his main constituency, "the haves and have mores." Trickle down-tax breaks for job creators, coupled with deregulation and privatization of governmental institutions and functions, although trumpeted by Republicans as the panacea for all our economic travails, is the actual cause of most of those travails. These policies were recommended by Milton Friedman, who Reagan lionized, and in at least 3 instances, they have done the same thing in other countries as they're doing here in the US--destroy the middle class, which creates a Third World country. Friedman's "laissez faire capitalism" or "austere capitalism," which promotes government dismantlement, has led to the reduction of the middle class in post-Glasnost Russia, Lech Walesa's Poland, and, not the least, in Pinochet's Chile after the US-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected, Socialist government of Salvador Allende.

If it isn't stopped soon, the US will become a Third World country too. With Citizens United and the promise of unlimited corporate propaganda, we have little time to arrest this transfer of wealth and avoiding our decline.

M Marowitz: Top 20% taking down 85% of the income is a bit above the Pareto Principle ... to wit 20% of the people create 80% of the value, own 80% of whatever, yada, yada.

So maybe it will revert to the mean (80%) or maybe it needs to be dialed back. But, it's not too far beyond reasonable.

And of course the wealthy are not complaining about the taxes they pay because ttheir income has benefitted handsomely over the past 12 years while middle income wages have stagnated.

The wealthy have more or less kept up with inflation over 12 years. Stock indexes are still a bit lower, and many small business are bankrupt. Most of the wealth gap occurred during the unsustainable tech bubble in the late 1990's

Are you saying the middle class does not work hard?

Are you saying the middle class does not care about education?

Innovators do not become successful unless there is a vibrant middle class. True story.

Bacha, are you saying the middle class recieves no tax deductions and is part of the 49% that pay no income tax? If that is what you are saying then I would say it's time for the middle class to start paying their fair share.

Bacha, are you saying the middle class recieves no tax deductions and is part of the 49% that pay no income tax? If that is what you are saying then I would say it's time for the middle class to start paying their fair share.

By definition, roughly half of the middle class will fall into the "49% who pay no income tax" group.

And what does that tell you about falling/stagnating wages versus inflation when about half of the middle class can't even afford to pay income taxes anymore. Yet you seek to get blood from a stone...

Nobody would buy a board game unless there were "rules of fair play" but people also play the board game because there will be winners and losers. People are smarter than you are giving them credit.

What are talking about backata69? What rules are being violated if Buffet pays his taxes according to code?

The Soviets tried to make everything fair for everyone too.

I keep reading what you say and you are one of the biggest liberal idiots ever. I don't even need to comment on this thread but thought you should know how stupid you sound with every update you make.

Jody - Well said! There are those that always think they should be entitled to what others have.

True story! Hell, TAKE, don't TAX the wealth of Fortune Magazine's wealthiest 400. That would be $1.5 trillion. Federal deficit? $150 trillion. I think the real problem is still there don't you?. While Washington is focusing on "fairness" the interest meter on that debt keeps ticking.

And while we're taxing capital gains at ordinary income to get the wealthy remember we're also taxing the 401k's, mutual funds and other retirement/investment accounts of small investors. All in the name of "fairness"?

So, I only hope that if we do, that we also make classes in "asian languages" tax deductible (couldn't resist that). While we're arguing about "fairness" the Chinese and Japanese are funding their businesses. If you think the bailouts of banks and auto companies were something--stay tuned.

w proud: I'm generally on your side, ... but IRAs, 401ks, etc are not taxed for capital gains. If it's not a Roth IRA, ANY money withdrawn is taxed as ordinary income, at whatever your tax rate is at the time.

People have difficulty separating Buffett from Berkshire/Hathaway. The issue is that B/H is contesting some deductions/taxes (been there, done that). It is business as usual with the IRS. Really not germaine to the Buffett Rule which was Buffett saying "he" thought "he" (and other wealthy folks) should PERSONALLY pay more.

The amount of money this would generate is only peanuts , The low and middle class will have no impact at all since this would cover such a tiny fraction of the deficit.