Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Sure, and unlike you guys, I'll address the post. As far as it goes, it's true enough. Why didn't you instead choose to respond to what I posted?
Solutions?
- Thread starter Seattle
- Start date
For all I might have wondered about provocateurs, over the years, some have been at it for so long without coming up for air that it's hard to not take them at face value.
I'm happy to respond to you. Not so much to ChatGPT.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
That was me. ChatGPT did the pairing on government links and organized my discussion. It's a tool. It's not meant to be used in the way you are suggesting. I know economics, it's providing economic responses that I agree with and know to be accurate. I provided links as well.
To not respond to that is to not want to have a discussion on the facts, which is obviously the case here with you and Parmalee. There is no response that I could give that would result in an honest discussion.
Yep. I entered "Why Taxing the Rich Won't Solve the Deficit or National Debt" into a ChatGPT tool and got the same bullet points. Even the same style of highlighting the important sections!
But if you really want a reply to a machine post, here is the same list on why it's important to increase taxes on the rich:
- Income Equality: Wealth disparities can lead to social and economic imbalances. Higher taxes on the rich can help redistribute wealth and reduce income inequality.
- Funding Public Services: Increased tax revenue from higher rates on the wealthy can be used to fund essential public services such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure, benefiting society as a whole.
- Economic Stability: Greater taxation on the rich can help stabilize the economy by providing government funding for social programs that support lower-income individuals, which can stimulate demand in the economy.
- Reducing Deficits: Higher taxes can help decrease budget deficits and reduce national debt, contributing to long-term economic health.
- Social Responsibility: Many argue that those who benefit the most from the economic system should contribute more to its upkeep, helping to maintain a fair and functioning society.
- Encouraging Investment in Communities: Tax revenues can be used to invest in community development and programs that promote growth and opportunity in disadvantaged areas.
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
One big problem is with math that ignores the biggest pile on the table (of wealthy people), which is unrealized capital gains. It's what economists call "quiet income," and enables the rich to obtain low cost loans secured by their large gains. If you have progessive taxation that starts using UCG, then bringing down deficits gets easier and the worthy goals listed above more in reach.
I looked at Federal Reserve data showing that for billionaires and centi-millionaires, over half (56%) of their wealth is made up of untaxed gains.
I looked at Federal Reserve data showing that for billionaires and centi-millionaires, over half (56%) of their wealth is made up of untaxed gains.
Here's what I got from DeepSeek:
- Reducing Economic Inequality:
- Wealth Redistribution: Progressive taxation ensures that those with greater financial resources contribute more, helping to narrow the wealth gap. For instance, the top 1% now holds a larger share of global wealth than in decades, and targeted tax policies can mitigate this disparity.
- Historical Precedent: Post-WWII U.S. tax rates on the top earners exceeded 90%, correlating with robust public investment and a growing middle class.
- Funding Public Services:
- Revenue Generation: Additional tax revenue can bolster essential services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. For example, Scandinavian countries use high tax revenues to fund universal social programs, enhancing quality of life.
- Crisis Response: Tax revenues can fund safety nets during economic downturns, as seen in pandemic relief efforts.
- Promoting Fairness:
- Ability-to-Pay Principle: High earners can contribute more without significant lifestyle impact, aligning with equitable tax principles. The U.S. federal tax system remains progressive, though loopholes often undermine this.
- Economic Stability and Growth:
- Consumer Demand: Redistribution increases middle- and lower-class purchasing power, driving demand and economic growth. Studies suggest inequality stifles growth, while equitable systems foster resilience.
- Mitigating Boom-Bust Cycles: Reduced wealth concentration can prevent asset bubbles fueled by speculative investments by the wealthy.
- Social Cohesion:
- Trust in Institutions: Fair tax systems reduce resentment and polarization, fostering societal stability. Countries with lower inequality often report higher happiness indices.
- Combatting Tax Avoidance:
- Closing Loopholes: Pairing higher rates with stricter enforcement ensures compliance. The OECD’s global minimum corporate tax (15%) aims to curb profit-shifting by multinationals.
- Environmental Sustainability:
- Green Investments: Taxing wealth can fund climate initiatives. A "carbon tax on luxury" targets high-emission lifestyles, aligning fiscal policy with ecological goals.
- Intergenerational Equity:
- Preventing Dynastic Wealth: Estate taxes or wealth taxes prevent perpetual wealth accumulation, promoting meritocracy and opportunity for future generations.
- Investment Concerns: While some argue higher taxes deter investment, evidence from high-tax countries shows sustained innovation (e.g., Sweden’s tech sector). Tax credits for R&D can offset risks.
- Laffer Curve: Most economies operate below the revenue-maximizing rate for top earners, suggesting room for increases without revenue loss.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Taxing wealth hasn't worked out anywhere.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
You are just playing games. This isn't about ChatGPT, read my post and tell me what you think is wrong with it. No one is arguing that the wealthy not pay taxes.
Sure. Since you don't want to this to be about ChatGPT, I'll go for the gist of your recent arguments.
The wealthy have most of the power in the US. They are currently incentivized to increase government spending (because much of it goes into their pockets) and reduce their own taxes (because then they keep more of their money.) And historically this is what republicans do, which is why billionaires support them. If you want to reduce the deficit this must change.
So:
Create a wealth tax on billionaires proportional to the deficit. This would be sufficient to completely eliminate the deficit for five years. Of course, after five years this would leave billionaires as mere hundreds-millionaires after five years, so they will not allow this to happen. They will use all their considerable political clout to reduce spending to avoid this outcome.
Last time I suggested this you went with some bullshit ad hominem argument rather than trying to answer it intelligently. Let's see if you can do better this time.
Yeah. I think Eisenhower might have had some interesting observations to make here. (Also, incidentally, his closing words came across better than Biden's--the latter's words on the dangers of oligarchy were correct, they just seemed a bit late-coming.)
ThazzarBaal
Registered Senior Member
The issue I've been facing is in ability to hold down a job and also finding willing employers to work for, so I'm forced to self employ. This gets real tricky. I'm able but it's a limited able. I see quite a few people in similar positions.
Having said that, I am disadvantaged like many others. The divides are growing larger between "us" and "them" - the advantaged. Solutions? I don't know aside from finding your able and pursuing the American dream. Addicts and criminals are everywhere, but efforts are being made to accommodate for a different type of lifestyle. It's a long process and people aren't always willing. Then you have ties to outsourced "commodities" coming in from other territories that necessitate some ongoing capital gain and it gets tricky for a lot people.
At the moment, Trump has initiated tariffs to help keep the money in U S interests, as opposed to going to foreign providers at a cheaper price point. All this adds up to greater U S gains and taxes able to go towards social programs and national defense.
As voters, I agree with your suggestion for more critical thinking and knowing what were supporting and the effects of that support as a nation and per community.
Tariffs add an increases price points and so they also become burdensome, so it's one of those complicated necessities that isn't easy to accept sometimes.
Americans thrive on fear, and practically go out of their way to find or create new things to fear. Yet, and as stupid as this sounds, it only recently really hit me that most people don't actually like being scared shitless all the time. I've lived with "troubled" dogs for three decades--that is, dogs with a strong inclination, to varying degrees and for various reasons, to rip people's faces off. Such dogs need homes and help, and I'm, for whatever reasons, comfortable with that sort of thing. Our one dog has a sort of seizure disorder that renders him--the real him--essentially unconscious and prone to attack anything that moves. (Fortunately, we've got it under control again.) There've been instances wherein I've had to get him to attack me in order to spare another--our other dog or whomever. And these are relatively serious attacks requiring medical treatment in certain instances (not for me, but I'm weird about stuff like that). I've tried to teach my wife the sort of mindset required to enable yourself to do this sort of thing, only to realize, well, you can't. It ain't normal. People can't really "learn" to embrace, and welcome, being maimed.
And yet fear is like an addiction in America: People seem to know it isn't healthy or beneficial, they don't really like it, and yet they seem to seek it out. The wealthy and powerful exploit this, with media groups like Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns most of the local news affiliates in the US, ramping up the fear factor to borderline comical (to outsiders, at least) degrees. It's perverse.
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
You are good at making assertions. Norway might disagree.
Looks like you need some help with basics...
Revenue = money coming into the government
Spending = money going out of the government
BOTH of those are issues that require fixing. Once you begin to understand this concept, you can move ahead with intelligent responses. Currently, you're just shilling for Maga because you don't understand that concept.
But has that ever truly been put to the test in the US, in a super-high context? Ironically, it may have been before the WWII changes that the wealthy were shouldering most of the tax burden, since that era's self-reporting allowed average citizens (far less under the radar) to elude much of it back then.
And off paper slash in the real world, the 1950s hyper-elevated mark for the rich seems to be an illusion or typical result of any political camp's ideological presuppositions interpreting and framing data in a loaded way. Doesn't take into account the various escape routes provided by the government itself, along with a company's and an entertainment star's own ingenuity. And the mega-affluent elite of today can afford a vastly larger army of accountants and expert planners to heavily mitigate a speculative resurrection of another 90% level rate.
Did people really pay 91% tax rates in the 1950s & if not, what was the reality compared to today? (progressive newspaper)
https://city-countyobserver.com/did...-tax-rate-is-based-on-the-statutory-top-marg/
SUMMARY: While the top statutory tax rate in the 1950s was much higher (91%) than today’s rate of 37%, the effective tax rate for the top 1% was lower due to numerous deductions and loopholes. In reality, top earners in the 1950s were paying about 42-45% of their income in taxes, while today, it’s closer to 26-28%. Despite the reduction in rates, the top 1% today contributes a larger share (about 40%) of total federal income taxes compared to around 30-35% in the 1950s.
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How a 91% rate sparked the golden age of tax avoidance in 1950s Hollywood (LA Times - least biased rating)
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoidance-20190129-story.html
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The Progressive Tax Myth (US News World Report - left-center bias rating)
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-10-31/taxes-werent-more-progressive-in-the-1950s
EXCERPTS: This conventional account points to top marginal tax rates that were over 90 percent for the wealthiest Americans in the 1950s, and remained at 70 percent until the sweeping tax reforms of the Reagan era. By comparison, the top marginal rate sits at 39.6 percent today, having only fluctuated from this point slightly in the past 30 years.
[...] In 1943, the IRS also imposed automatic payroll deduction as a way to increase tax compliance. Previously, taxes were self-reported and self-collected. By shifting this task to employers, the IRS dramatically increased tax enforcement upon earners in lower income brackets. Combined with the imposition of new rates on these same brackets, the federal tax base exploded in numbers almost overnight. In 1939, the IRS received just under 7 million tax returns from persons earning less than $5,000 a year. By 1944, that number had ballooned to over 44 million filers.
The World War II tax measures had another effect: The tax base expansion actually shifted the locus of the federal income tax burden away from the wealthiest earners, and onto middle income Americans.
Congress retained many of these wartime tax measures after the conclusion of hostilities in 1945 and converted them into a permanent peacetime tax system. With almost all income earners now eligible to pay taxes, the burden of that system also shifted sharply toward the middle class and remained there until the Reagan tax cuts. Since the early 1980s, the income tax burden has shifted back towards the wealthiest filers even though top statutory rates have been reduced.
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Taxes on the Rich Were Not That Much Higher in the 1950s (Tax Foundation - right-center bias, but high credibility rating)
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
EXCERPTS: There is a common misconception that high-income Americans are not paying much in taxes compared to what they used to. Proponents of this view often point to the 1950s, when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent for most of the decade...
[...] There are a few reasons for the discrepancy between the 91 percent top marginal income tax rate and the 16.9 percent effective income tax rate of the 1950s.
(1) The 91 percent bracket of 1950 only applied to households with income over $200,000 (or about $2 million in today’s dollars). Only a small number of taxpayers would have had enough income to fall into the top bracket – fewer than 10,000 households, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Many households in the top 1 percent in the 1950s probably did not fall into the 91 percent bracket to begin with.
(2) Even among households that did fall into the 91 percent bracket, the majority of their income was not necessarily subject to that top bracket. After all, the 91 percent bracket only applied to income above $200,000, not to every single dollar earned by households.
(3) Finally, it is very likely that the existence of a 91 percent bracket led to significant tax avoidance and lower reported income. There are many studies that show that, as marginal tax rates rise, income reported by taxpayers goes down. As a result, the existence of the 91 percent bracket did not necessarily lead to significantly higher revenue collections from the top 1 percent.
(4) All in all, the idea that high-income Americans in the 1950s paid much more of their income in taxes should be abandoned. The top 1 percent of Americans today do not face an unusually low tax burden, by historical standards.
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
They might not disagree. Do you want a wealth tax for any wealth over $160k?