tk421;916718 wrote:Uncle Warren is a ****ing hypocrite, because he knows that his salary is like what, $100,000? Uncle Warren makes all his money on capital gains, just like most extremely rich people. Him calling for higher taxes on the rich is pure liberal posturing, that's it. He gets to look good in the media while knowing 100% that his taxes aren't going to go up a single percentage point.

Precisely. I'd give more weight to Buffet's words if he made like a $14M donation to the federal govt each year. Nothing is stopping him from paying more taxes. It would seem he doesn't think paying more than other millionaires is fair...

The problem is, it's very hard to target the millionaires without disproportionately hitting the middle/upper middle class. As mentioned, the majority of income for the rich comes from capital gains (which, incidentally, are theoretically taxed at an average of 37% - 15% capital gains tax plus the 22% average or so levied on corporations). Now certainly we could raise the capital gains tax to 20%. Much beyond that and you do risk choking off investment, which is bad for the economy. It would make the US markets less attractive/competitive as an investment because investors pay attention to after-tax returns, and that capital could easily find it's way to markets in other countries (and even for US citizens, that money could sit offshore for years never needing to be repatriated when it would be taxed). You could PERHAPS bump the capital gains rate to 25%, but that seems a bit excessive and, as mentioned, would really hurt the middle class disproportionately more.

That is why you can't truly soak the rich without doing undue harm to the economy. Either the govt starts spending less or we will have to institute a consumption tax. I see no other realistic solution - you can't come close to closing the budget gap by soaking the rich and corporations. You start seriously floating the idea of a consumption tax and I'll bet America becomes largely "anti-liberal" and "anti-big govt". Everyone loves a handout so long as they don't have to pay for it, but they will scream bloody murder over paying 5-10% tax to the federal govt for their cell phone, big screen tvs, and cable.

fish82;917150 wrote:Buffett has been completely and thoroughly debunked on this issue...to the point where he's starting to sound like some senile old man. Couple that with the segment of you people continuing to hump his leg causes me to smh.

It's easy for him to say soak the rich in his twilight years with billions he can't spend. Yet, even now, he clearly engages in practices designed to minimize his tax liability (as does every single company he owns). I also guarantee he's never run his businesses with the mentality that you solve spending/profitability problems by simply writing blank checks.

Not surprisingly, the Dems on the so-called Super 12 want tax hikes as their alleged method of deficit reduction:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/01/us-usa-debt-supercommittee-idUSTRE78T5QE20111001

The problem with this bullshit is that every single fugging time the gubmint "increases revenues" (IE: raises taxes) it finds a way to SPEND the additional dollars.

When the idiots in DC (particularly the Dems) CUT SPENDING FIRST, then I'm more than willing to listen to their pleas for the need to increase taxes.

What is so friggin difficult to understand here? I swear to you, I just don't get it. :rolleyes:

What a surprise huh?

jmog;919376 wrote:What a surprise huh?

What, That he just don't get it? :rolleyes:

believer;919320 wrote: The problem with this bull**** is that every single fugging time the gubmint "increases revenues" (IE: raises taxes) it finds a way to SPEND the additional dollars.

Not to mention they almost never raise the revenues they project. Too many loopholes and perfectly legitimate and legal tax strategies to manage their liability. Warren Buffet will applaud raising the taxes on the rich, while simultaneously putting his accountants to work to pay the minimum amount of taxes he can."Hey, Barry, I helped you out...How about not raising taxes on money managers?"

tk421;916718 wrote:Uncle Warren is a ****ing hypocrite, because he knows that his salary is like what, $100,000? Uncle Warren makes all his money on capital gains, just like most extremely rich people.

That makes him a hypocrite? How so? He is doing exactly what the tax laws allow him to do. And he states that that is bad policy. And then he cites numbers to back up his claim. The reality is....the numbers and statistics that he posted describes a truly sad commentary on the wealth divide in a country that is in economic turmoil.

Him calling for higher taxes on the rich is pure liberal posturing, that's it.

Why is it that you have to use the phrase "liberal posturing"? How about analyzing the issue at hand and then making a nonpartisan, thought provoking, response based on the issue? Or is it all about "conservatism"...and never about substance or reality? The fact is....the top .3% pay a substantial less tax percentage than the middle class. You don't have a problem with that? I do.

He gets to look good in the media while knowing 100% that his taxes aren't going to go up a single percentage point.

No, maybe he just doesn't like the crony capitalism that exists on Capital Hill. Maybe conservatism or liberalism has nothing to do with it. Injustice is what is issue here. Nothing more than that.

The media likes to point to that stupid story about how his secretary pays more in taxes while ignoring the fact that he doesn't get a super huge salary like most CEOs and get's his money in capital gains, which is taxed way less than anyone making decent money at his firm. He's full of ****, end of story.

Why is he full of shit? Are you disputing the facts he presented? If his facts are incorrect, then source it. Otherwise, it is you that is full of shit.

Warren Buffet wanted to ACTUALLY have the super rich pay more taxes, he would be calling for a capital gains tax rate of 30% or more. Anyone want to bet when this will ever happen? And as Believer pointed out, the tax return forms have a section to send extra money to the IRS if you so desire, no one is stopping him from paying his "fair" share.

OK....That explains it. You never did read the article. Because if you had, you would have read that he is in favor of raising capital gains.

So to you...and all the rest of the "conservatives" here....are you all in unison claiming that the top .3% have the right to pay 20% less tax (percentage wise) than the middle class? Are you OK that the gap is widening, and that the middle class is falling way behind? And if you're OK with that, why are you OK with that?

fish82;917150 wrote:Buffett has been completely and thoroughly debunked on this issue...to the point where he's starting to sound like some senile old man. Couple that with the segment of you people continuing to hump his leg causes me to smh.

Who has debunked Buffett? Nobody has. Noone. Nada. Nihil. Zilcho. Fish, you want to drag one of his debate points to the front here and prove him wrong? Tick...tock...tick..... tock.

Footwedge;922075 wrote:Who has debunked Buffett? Nobody has. Noone. Nada. Nihil. Zilcho. Fish, you want to drag one of his debate points to the front here and prove him wrong? Tick...tock...tick..... tock.

It's been pointed out ad nauseum that his "secretary example" is at best, a poor example of apples/oranges and at worst, a flat out lie. He's comparing his tax solely on capital gains and including payroll taxes in his secretary's "35%" number. If there's a single person making 40k in the country paying 35% income tax, I'll kiss your ass and give you an hour to draw a crowd.

The average tax rate for the top 1% in the US is 23.3%. for someone in the 40K range it's between 5-7%

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Next?

Footwedge;922064 wrote: So to you...and all the rest of the "conservatives" here....are you all in unison claiming that the top .3% have the right to pay 20% less tax (percentage wise) than the middle class? Are you OK that the gap is widening, and that the middle class is falling way behind? And if you're OK with that, why are you OK with that?

Because they don't pay 20% less tax, as the numbers above clearly state. If you want to argue the income gap, that's a separate issue. The tax percentages speak for themselves, and both you and your boy Warren are quite incorrect.

Footwedge;922075 wrote:Who has debunked Buffett? Nobody has. Noone. Nada. Nihil. Zilcho. Fish, you want to drag one of his debate points to the front here and prove him wrong? Tick...tock...tick..... tock.

No one except for the IRS and CBO's actual statistics on what actual percentages of income each tax bracket ends up paying after all deductions, etc.

Don't let facts get in the way of your opinion though...read up a page or so, you will see that is has been debunked by the freaking IRS.

Footwedge;922075 wrote:Who has debunked Buffett? Nobody has. Noone. Nada. Nihil. Zilcho. Fish, you want to drag one of his debate points to the front here and prove him wrong? Tick...tock...tick..... tock.

Anyone with English skills and internet access. There is no way Buffett pays less in earned income than his secretary. I've paid taxes for 11 years, it is difficult to get around the whole taxation thing. If my secretary has even a modest mortgage I'm guessing her tax liability is under 10% if not zero.

At any rate the polish is off the Oracle of Omaha, he's lost as much in the last few years as anyone. He needs to retire with grace.

Manhattan Buckeye;922142 wrote:At any rate the polish is off the Oracle of Omaha, he's lost as much in the last few years as anyone. He needs to retire with grace.

Or be fired by the American people for the sham his is.

Interesting article on just who and how much taxes are paid. The upper income class draws much of their income from capital gains which is taxed at a lower rate than income from wages. The middle class pay a larger share on income taxes then the rich.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/tax-reality-check/?hpid=z3

Abe Vigoda;922527 wrote:Interesting article on just who and how much taxes are paid. The upper income class draws much of their income from capital gains which is taxed at a lower rate than income from wages. The middle class pay a larger share on income taxes then the rich.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/tax-reality-check/?hpid=z3[/QUOTE

Yes, but the top 10 percent end up paying more than 70 percent of all income taxes -- while the bottom 50 percent don't pay at all.

The tax structure needs a good enema.

Abe Vigoda;922527 wrote:Interesting article on just who and how much taxes are paid. The upper income class draws much of their income from capital gains which is taxed at a lower rate than income from wages. The middle class pay a larger share on income taxes then the rich.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/tax-reality-check/?hpid=z3

So, it shows the actual facts as higher income paying higher taxes, and then uses cartoons and generalities to try to disprove the facts/statistics? That's plain retarded.

fish82;922097 wrote:It's been pointed out ad nauseum that his "secretary example" is at best, a poor example of apples/oranges and at worst, a flat out lie. He's comparing his tax solely on capital gains and including payroll taxes in his secretary's "35%" number. If there's a single person making 40k in the country paying 35% income tax, I'll kiss your ass and give you an hour to draw a crowd.

The average tax rate for the top 1% in the US is 23.3%. for someone in the 40K range it's between 5-7%

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Next?

Well if you follow traditional conservative economic norms and believe that the tax code ought not distort an actor's decision between earning their income from their labor or from capital, you ought to believe that the capital gains rate should be the same rate as the ordinary income rate. This is what was done in the tax reform act of 1986 when ordinary income and investment income were both taxed at 28% in line with traditional tax neutrality norms.

You like to point out that Warren Buffet's income is taxed at the capital gains rates of 15% but what is lost in the discussion is that the fact that capital gains rates are lower than ordinary income rates lacks real justification based upon tax neutrality norms. This was the position of conservatives forever. The point they argue is now that it is to make the code have more consumption tax treatment but of course there are much more efficient ways to do so.

Additionally, the conservatives like to say that taxation is wrong because "the government is taking away the value of your labor;" that it is a confiscation of your rightful property right. The taxation of investment income is not a tax on income earned from your own labor. In fact, by definition, investment income is income earned from the productivity of others.

Thus, if Warren Buffet's secretary makes say between 40 and 50k, part of her productive labor is uncompensated as it generates income for him as investment income which is then taxed at a lower rate than the person who's labor is taxed provided she doesn't take advantage of the consumption tax treatment in the code (see chart below). But to make things simpler...suppose he pays her 250k a year and he makes 250k in a stock sale....why should he pay a rate of 15% on that investment income while she pays 35% on her labor income?

The argument is that making the rates neutral would hurt investment but the evidence doesn't really suggest that's true. http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/taxing-capital-gains-at-ordinary-rates-evidence-says-do-it-so-does-buffet/

So it seems weird both as a matter of history (tax reform act of 1986) and as a matter of moral consistency that there is little outrage about the deviation between the rates on investment income and labor income considering that the government taxes income that comes from the sweat of your brow at a higher rate while also giving taxing people who earn money off the sweat of your brow at a lower rate.

The fact that his income comes from investments doesn't make much difference if you desire a tax code to align with the neutrality norms conservatives traditionally claimed to favor.


But as to your point about kissing asses if people making $40k pay 35% in income taxes. You cite the average effective rate as a whole...but you don't point out how there's large percentages of different income brackets paying different rates.

Take a look at this chart by the Tax Policy Center detailing effective tax rates.



Now here's how to read this chart...

10% of people earning 40-50k a year pay 21.7% of their income in payroll + federal income taxes. On the other hand another 10% of people making 40-50k a year pay effectively 0 in payroll + federal income taxes.

10% of people earning more than $1,000,000 a year pay 31.1% of their income in payroll and income taxes but 10% also pay only 4.2% of their income in federal income + payroll taxes

Furthermore, 25%, 1 out of every 4 people who earns $1 mil a year pays less then 12.6% of their income in federal income + payroll taxes.

Thus, if you're a Police Officer who rents an apartment and doesn't have student loans, puts your money in a basic savings account instead of a 401(k), etc. etc. and you bust a coke orgy at a mansion, 25 out of the 100 millionaires their pay a lower effective rate than you.


Warren Buffet and Obama aren't saying that this is widespread. All that Warren Buffet is arguing is that NOBODY EARNING 40-50K PER YEAR SHOULD HAVE A HIGHER EFFECTIVE RATE THAN HIM. He didn't say that most people did or even a lot of people. That cop is not taking advantage of the consumption tax treatment available in the code so maybe you could argue it's his fault but Buffet and Obama say it shouldn't matter.

But what we can garner is that over 40% of people earning 40-50k per year have a higher effective tax rate, combining payroll and income taxes, than Warren Buffet does. And when you take into account the declining marginal utility of dollars as incomes rise...well, the very wealthy are feeling very little pain from taxation compared to those 40% of people earning $40-50k per year paying 21% of their income in taxes.

The rich as a whole pay more than the middle and lower as a whole...but all Warren Buffet claimed is that He paid less than his secretary and that there are some who do and that that should not be permissible in his view of a just society....Obama agrees and proposed his "alternative minimum tax" for millionaires to try and insure that no one paid a lower effective rate than even a single person earning 40-50k.


***As an aside...if you take away the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction and Eliminate the Cap Gains Rate and Qualified Dividend Rate to 0....As the Republicans and Paul Ryan and every House Republican from Ohio want to do....This distribution will be even worse because it effectively eliminates consumption tax treatment for the middle class while creating a pure consumption tax for the very, very rich. Of course, they additionally want to eliminate the estate tax and there you go.....

Footwedge;922075 wrote:Who has debunked Buffett? Nobody has. Noone. Nada. Nihil. Zilcho. Fish, you want to drag one of his debate points to the front here and prove him wrong? Tick...tock...tick..... tock.

I continue to wait for the man to publish his tax return and that of his secretary.

More BS from Boatshoes.

Listen shoes, you can stretch out statistics as far as you want, no matter how you do the tax code, as long as there exists tax credits and tax deductions you will be able to find at least 1 millionaire and 1 middle class guy where the millionaire is paying a lower percentage of their income than the middle class guy.

Geez, when you start throwing in statistical distribution charts and looking at quartiles, standard deviations, etc of course there will be a small percentage of millionaires (notice small) paying a lower % in taxes than a small percentage of middle class people.

Its called the difference between being smart and not being smart with your money. Plus, your charts do not take into account family sizes and adjusted income, just gross. The top quartiles of each income level are going to be single people with no mortages and the lower quartiles will be married couples with a few kids and a mortgage. Its not hard to figure out, its common sense.

It still doesn't change the fact that on average, Obama is wrong. Your data actually proves that Obama is wrong.

I do like the fact that in nearly every percentile, as you go up in income, the effective tax rate goes up...but yet what the libs want us to believe is that this is not true.

BoatShoes;922863 wrote:Well if you follow traditional conservative economic norms and believe that the tax code ought not distort an actor's decision between earning their income from their labor or from capital, you ought to believe that the capital gains rate should be the same rate as the ordinary income rate. This is what was done in the tax reform act of 1986 when ordinary income and investment income were both taxed at 28% in line with traditional tax neutrality norms.

You like to point out that Warren Buffet's income is taxed at the capital gains rates of 15% but what is lost in the discussion is that the fact that capital gains rates are lower than ordinary income rates lacks real justification based upon tax neutrality norms. This was the position of conservatives forever. The point they argue is now that it is to make the code have more consumption tax treatment but of course there are much more efficient ways to do so.

Additionally, the conservatives like to say that taxation is wrong because "the government is taking away the value of your labor;" that it is a confiscation of your rightful property right. The taxation of investment income is not a tax on income earned from your own labor. In fact, by definition, investment income is income earned from the productivity of others.

Thus, if Warren Buffet's secretary makes say between 40 and 50k, part of her productive labor is uncompensated as it generates income for him as investment income which is then taxed at a lower rate than the person who's labor is taxed provided she doesn't take advantage of the consumption tax treatment in the code (see chart below). But to make things simpler...suppose he pays her 250k a year and he makes 250k in a stock sale....why should he pay a rate of 15% on that investment income while she pays 35% on her labor income?

The argument is that making the rates neutral would hurt investment but the evidence doesn't really suggest that's true. http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/taxing-capital-gains-at-ordinary-rates-evidence-says-do-it-so-does-buffet/

So it seems weird both as a matter of history (tax reform act of 1986) and as a matter of moral consistency that there is little outrage about the deviation between the rates on investment income and labor income considering that the government taxes income that comes from the sweat of your brow at a higher rate while also giving taxing people who earn money off the sweat of your brow at a lower rate.

The fact that his income comes from investments doesn't make much difference if you desire a tax code to align with the neutrality norms conservatives traditionally claimed to favor.


But as to your point about kissing asses if people making $40k pay 35% in income taxes. You cite the average effective rate as a whole...but you don't point out how there's large percentages of different income brackets paying different rates.

Take a look at this chart by the Tax Policy Center detailing effective tax rates.



Now here's how to read this chart...

10% of people earning 40-50k a year pay 21.7% of their income in payroll + federal income taxes. On the other hand another 10% of people making 40-50k a year pay effectively 0 in payroll + federal income taxes.

10% of people earning more than $1,000,000 a year pay 31.1% of their income in payroll and income taxes but 10% also pay only 4.2% of their income in federal income + payroll taxes

Furthermore, 25%, 1 out of every 4 people who earns $1 mil a year pays less then 12.6% of their income in federal income + payroll taxes.

Thus, if you're a Police Officer who rents an apartment and doesn't have student loans, puts your money in a basic savings account instead of a 401(k), etc. etc. and you bust a coke orgy at a mansion, 25 out of the 100 millionaires their pay a lower effective rate than you.


Warren Buffet and Obama aren't saying that this is widespread. All that Warren Buffet is arguing is that NOBODY EARNING 40-50K PER YEAR SHOULD HAVE A HIGHER EFFECTIVE RATE THAN HIM. He didn't say that most people did or even a lot of people. That cop is not taking advantage of the consumption tax treatment available in the code so maybe you could argue it's his fault but Buffet and Obama say it shouldn't matter.

But what we can garner is that over 40% of people earning 40-50k per year have a higher effective tax rate, combining payroll and income taxes, than Warren Buffet does. And when you take into account the declining marginal utility of dollars as incomes rise...well, the very wealthy are feeling very little pain from taxation compared to those 40% of people earning $40-50k per year paying 21% of their income in taxes.

The rich as a whole pay more than the middle and lower as a whole...but all Warren Buffet claimed is that He paid less than his secretary and that there are some who do and that that should not be permissible in his view of a just society....Obama agrees and proposed his "alternative minimum tax" for millionaires to try and insure that no one paid a lower effective rate than even a single person earning 40-50k.


***As an aside...if you take away the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction and Eliminate the Cap Gains Rate and Qualified Dividend Rate to 0....As the Republicans and Paul Ryan and every House Republican from Ohio want to do....This distribution will be even worse because it effectively eliminates consumption tax treatment for the middle class while creating a pure consumption tax for the very, very rich. Of course, they additionally want to eliminate the estate tax and there you go.....

Why do you always have to lapse into "Tolstoy Mode?" Your cred would increase drastically if you'd learn to be a tad more concise in your prose. Just sayin.

In any case, you can obfuscate to your hearts content, but as jmog succinctly put it (see how he did that?)...you've done nothing to disprove the fact the Buffet is wrong, and Obama is a liar.

fish82;922965 wrote:Why do you always have to lapse into "Tolstoy Mode?" Your cred would increase drastically if you'd learn to be a tad more concise in your prose. Just sayin.

In any case, you can obfuscate to your hearts content, but as jmog succinctly put it (see how he did that?)...you've done nothing to disprove the fact the Buffet is wrong, and Obama is a liar.

This. Again and again.

jmog;922946 wrote:More BS from Boatshoes.

Listen shoes, you can stretch out statistics as far as you want, no matter how you do the tax code, as long as there exists tax credits and tax deductions you will be able to find at least 1 millionaire and 1 middle class guy where the millionaire is paying a lower percentage of their income than the middle class guy.

Lulz. This is not true. Any number of methods could be and have been proposed to prevent such things in Congressional bills and in law review articles.

Geez, when you start throwing in statistical distribution charts and looking at quartiles, standard deviations, etc of course there will be a small percentage of millionaires (notice small) paying a lower % in taxes than a small percentage of middle class people.

I imagine that a reasonable, prudent person would not consider 25% of people making $1 million per year paying a lower effective rate than 50% of people making 40-50k a small percentage. 40% of anything isn't small. Perhaps it is not a lot but it is definitely not small methinks.

Its called the difference between being smart and not being smart with your money.

The traditional conservative position is that a man ought not to change his economic behavior for tax reasons...that is a person ought to choose to invest in municipal bonds because he thinks it a good investment...not because he's going to get tax free interest, etc. You ought to be arguing that he shouldn't have to pay a higher effective rate because of his economic decisions if you're to follow in the conservative tax policy tradition....

Either way, obama argues as a matter of principle a person who makes more should not pay a lower effective rate just like President Bush argued as a matter of principle that no person should pay more than a third of their income in taxes...no matter what.

Plus, your charts do not take into account family sizes and adjusted income, just gross. The top quartiles of each income level are going to be single people with no mortages and the lower quartiles will be married couples with a few kids and a mortgage. Its not hard to figure out, its common sense.

Not sure why as a matter of principle, as long as regressive taxation is not justifiable nor desirable, why it would matter if the guy making 45k is single paying a lower effective rate than 1 out of 4 people making $1 million per year.

It still doesn't change the fact that on average, Obama is wrong. Your data actually proves that Obama is wrong.

On average Obama is wrong??? Obama nor buffet has ever claimed that on average the tax code is not progressive. Never, never, never, never, never, never. All Buffet has claimed is that he has paid more than his secretary and that raising the capital gains rate would not harm investment. Obama has not claimed that as a general rule millionaires don't pay more than the middle class. He has never claimed that, he has never claimed that, he has never claimed that! No one is disputing that on average the rich don't pay more. Liberals have never said the tax code isn't progressive.

Obama has not "lied" and said that the rich as a general rule pay less taxes. I cannot repeat enough that that is not the claim.

George W. Bush argued that as a matter of principle, no one ought to pay more than 33.3% of their income in taxes.

Obama argues in principle that no one who earns more than $1 million per year ought to pay a lower tax rate than a middle income earner. All he has said is that this is happening...that there are millionaires who do. He simply says that;

1. If any millionaire pays a lower effective rate than a middle income earner....they're not paying their fair share....

2. It's demonstrably true that there are people who earn $1 million per year who pay a lower effective rate than middle income earners citing Buffet as a colorful example

3. Therefore, he argues, "they're not paying their fair share" because people who can afford to pay taxes ought to pay them.

That is all his argument is

The data supports that the tax code is generally progressive but that there are also quite a bit of people who earn way more than the national median who pay a lower effective rate than those in the median and a lot of people who earn more than a million per year.

I do like the fact that in nearly every percentile, as you go up in income, the effective tax rate goes up...but yet what the libs want us to believe is that this is not true.

Of course it does because the code is generally progressive...no liberal has ever argued that it's not. Liberals have argued that 1. It's not progressive enough and/or 2. that High Income Earners are able to pay lower effective rates than lower income earners.

The second part is true. Simple as that. Liberals argue that it is unfair arguing that in principle a rich person ought not be able to pay a lower effective rate than a middle income earner. They say in no circumstance is that permissible. It's a matter of principle for them like a conservative would say it's never permissible to obtain an abortion.

No prominent liberal has ever suggested in a public forum to my knowledge (at least no credible one) that average effective rates do not rise as income rises. They simply have argued that they should 1. rise more or 2. that a lot of people deviate from the average effective rate and results in unfairness based upon ability to pay norms.


Here's a question. I suppose you don't believe in a progressive tax. Herman Cain argues that 10% is enough for God so 9% ought to be enough for the government. He's arguing, in principle that it is wrong for the government to acquire more than 9% of a person's income in tax receipts. Although he believes each person ought to pay the same percentage...I doubt he would argue that it is justifiable In Principle that a person earning $1,000,000 per year pays a lower effective rate than a person who earns $10,000 per year.

10% of people who earn only $10,000 a year pay 12.4% of their income in taxes (not even including state and local taxes which are regressive). 20% of people who earn $1,000,000 per year pay a lower effective rate with 10% paying an effective rate of 4%. Perhaps you don't believe in progressive taxation but I can't imagine you believe in regressive taxation. And you argue as a matter of practicality that such a scenario cannot be prevented (not true imho using things like AMT, etc.) But, as a matter of principle do you believe that such an outcome is justified? I do not believe that Herman Cain would. He might say that the person earning $10,000 ought to pay the same percentage of 9% as the person earning $1,000,000 but not that the millionaire should pay a lower percentage.

All Obama has argued is that 1. yes this has happened (True) and 2. It is wrong (up for debate)

"Well if you follow traditional conservative economic norms and believe that the tax code ought not distort an actor's decision between earning their income from their labor or from capital,"

There is a big difference which some people (I call them idiots) neglect, the element of risk. If I earn my income through a cash payment, there is zero risk aside from monetary fluctuations. If I earn it through an investment, any tax is on already taxed money and there's no guarantee of a positive return.

There's a stronger argument for not taxing capital gains at all then taxing it at ordinary income levels, unless we want to completely kill our economy, which presently stinks to high heaven.

"10% of people who earn only $10,000 a year pay 12.4% of their income in taxes (not even including state and local taxes which are regressive). "

It shouldn't include it because no one pays it. I take it you are referring to FICA because no one making $10,000/year pays any "taxes", if anything due to the EITC they have a negative tax liability.

fish82;922965 wrote:Why do you always have to lapse into "Tolstoy Mode?" Your cred would increase drastically if you'd learn to be a tad more concise in your prose. Just sayin.

In any case, you can obfuscate to your hearts content, but as jmog succinctly put it (see how he did that?)...you've done nothing to disprove the fact the Buffet is wrong, and Obama is a liar.

Well I'm sorry I write so much but I do so because I guess I believe it might help me sway your hearts and minds. As to your points;

1. I've never seen Buffet's tax returns but based on that data there's a good chance it's true, especially the better he pays her

AND

2. Obama is not lying when he says that there are indeed people who earn $1 million per year and pay less than the secretary. He has never claimed as Writer's thread title purports, that as a general rule the rich don't pay more. He then goes on to claim that they don't pay their fair share and that is not a factual question.