Senate Fiscal Cliff Bill Approved by House

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by adpimiz

Life isn't fair.

This argument could be used the other way around too. You have more so you pay more and you deal with it because life isn't fair.

Editing, because I don't want to triple post...lol. Several of my Republican friends are griping on Facebook about the 2% increase in pay roll taxes. Apparently they don't remember that the stimulus package, which the Republicans were against, reduced the Social Security payroll tax by 2%. That is now being reinstated. They should be happy because they didn't want the ARRA in the first place.

[ASTalumna06]

I guess I just don't see the logic in taxing certain people more when half the people don't pay (AT ALL), and the government spends millions and billions of dollars every year without batting an eye or thinking about the consequences.

How can you justify hiking tax percentages on the responsible people who are already paying taxes in this country?

It makes no sense.

How about you make the "poor", who have contributed nothing, pay only for the percentage that was just raised on the rich?

If you continue to "punish" the people making money, how can you expect anyone to make more (or want to make more), and throw that money back into the economy? Let me tell you... if I was making $390,000/year, I would try my hardest to do the bare minimum and never get a raise.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by adpimiz

However, our President can't simply spend and spend and spend.

As Vito pointed out, no, he can't. Congress, not the president, controls spending.

Originally Posted by adpimiz

Life isn't fair.

An interesting approach for arguing that taxes should be fair.

Anyway, life may indeed not be fair, but there can be consequences to taxing those with lower income to the point that they can't pay for essentials. That increases the chance that those people will need government assistance like food stamps, Medicaid, etc.

I think the tax system needs an overhaul, but I think simple answers are not likely to be effective ones. Everyone paying the same percentage may sound appealing on the surface, but if the effect of a system like that is to increase the burden on the government for social services, then is it really effective? Is it preferable to have structured rates that encourage more self-sufficiency for those with lower incomes?

[AGDee]

They don't pay because they don't have income! I know when I was a college student, I didn't have to pay any federal income taxes. That article goes on to say that lower income people contribute a larger share of their income to social security and medicare than wealthier people do.

If you're living on the $1300 a month you're getting from Social Security after paying federal income tax your whole life, don't you think you've paid your share already? If you took 20% of that income for a flat tax, as some propose, you're asking them to live on $1040 a month. Add $500/month in prescriptions and medicare premiums and they're making $540/month. (My mom's actual figures before she passed away).

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by AGDee

They don't pay because they don't have income! I know when I was a college student, I didn't have to pay any federal income taxes. That article goes on to say that lower income people contribute a larger share of their income to social security and medicare than wealthier people do.

If you're living on the $1300 a month you're getting from Social Security after paying federal income tax your whole life, don't you think you've paid your share already? If you took 20% of that income for a flat tax, as some propose, you're asking them to live on $1040 a month. Add $500/month in prescriptions and medicare premiums and they're making $540/month. (My mom's actual figures before she passed away).

Where are you getting the idea that low income = no income?

I'm not saying that a flat tax is the answer. But everyone should pay SOMETHING.

If you make $40,000/year, you don't have to pay anything, but if I make over $400,000, I have to pay for you and your entire family?

Uh, no thanks. Everyone should contribute. Otherwise, the whole system falls apart. Because if I was a business owner, and I was taxed at an extremely high percentage, I wouldn't hire additional workers at $40,000... and then you're making nothing.

ETA: Cut the flipping spending!!!

[AGDee]

You do have to pay if you're making $40K. You don't make $40K as a student, on disability or from social security.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by AGDee

You do have to pay if you're making $40K. You don't make $40K as a student, on disability or from social security.

So every family making a total of $ 40,000 is paying taxes?

Ok.....

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

So every family making a total of $ 40,000 is paying taxes?

Ok.....

If a married couple is making $40K, they have to have 6 kids or extreme medical bills or some other bizarre circumstance to not pay any federal income tax.

Realistically, every family is paying taxes, be it state income tax, state sales tax, federal taxes on gas, cigarettes, alcohol, social security and medicare pay roll taxes, local property taxes, city income tax, etc.

You really can't ever say "every family making xxx is paying taxes". There are people making hundreds of thousands who aren't paying taxes because they have the ability to use every loophole in the tax code. A family making $40K is barely making it in most geographic regions, unless someone has given them a free house (inheritance, gift from parents, etc.) But yes, the vast majority of people of making $40K are paying federal income tax.

[AOII Angel]

Dee, there is no use arguing with people who have been indoctrinated with "people don't pay their taxes" and "why would you work hard if they'll just take you money" even though they are ridiculous statements. The Republican Party has done a great job convincing people that someday they will magically be in the 1% and want to protect their "hard earned money" from the government. It's a fallacy. It cracks me up when my mother worries more about what my tax burden will be than her own. Seriously?

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Dee, there is no use arguing with people who have been indoctrinated with "people don't pay their taxes" and "why would you work hard if they'll just take you money" even though they are ridiculous statements. The Republican Party has done a great job convincing people that someday they will magically be in the 1% and want to protect their "hard earned money" from the government. It's a fallacy. It cracks me up when my mother worries more about what my tax burden will be than her own. Seriously?

You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here and/or stupid. Im realistic about my potential earnings, I know I'll most likely never be in the 1%, and the Republican party hasn't brainwashed me into thinking that I will be one day.

I can think for myself and form an opinion on my own.. just like you.

[AGDee]

I was actually thinking "fraud, waste and abuse", which would encompass those kinds of things you're talking about. Then again, if we lay off 40% of government employees, that's more people getting entitlements. Seems like a vicious cycle that we can't get out of. Cuts in spending always means cuts in jobs too.

[adpimiz]

Some quotes I saw the other day that I enjoyed..

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that it does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half get the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by adpimiz

Some quotes I saw the other day that I enjoyed..

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that it does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half get the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Can anyone identify one wealthy person who has been "legislated" "out of prosperity" or one poor person who has been "legislated" "into prosperity"?

And exactly where does the idea that "half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them" come from?

There are so many unfounded assumptions in bumper stiker sloganeering that it makes my head hurt. Yes, sometimes the pithiness can be enjoyed at face value, but too often it can't stand up to any actual examination.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

And exactly where does the idea that "half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them" come from?

People jump on that "47% of the people don't pay federal income tax" and make assumptions. They don't pay attention to the stats that show that most of them are the elderly (who paid their share their whole lives and are now living on fixed incomes), college students (who will, presumably pay their fair share in the future), and those who are too disabled to work (and I don't know what people think we should do about them... let them die???).

I've yet to meet anybody who would rather be sitting home collecting barely enough to live on than working, paying taxes, and making enough to cover their essential expenses.

All those welfare folks with their $120 a month in food stamps are really living high on the hog, don't you know? So what if they can't be used to buy toilet paper or diapers.

[UGAalum94]

I think the 47% issue is perhaps a different problem that just reducing it to makers and takers, which I know a lot of folks want to do.

How do you effect entitlement reform if 47% of voters benefit from "entitlements" of one kind or another? How are we going to pay for all the spending that we are presently projected to need?

The whole "tax the rich" "make them pay their fair share" rhetoric was great, but I think most people concede that you can't fund it by taxing people with incomes at the level that most folks think can afford to pay more in taxes.

And I don't know a lot of people likely to be affected by the income caps you most read about, but for the ones I do (It's really one family-owned business), I do think it's plausible that they will scale back the volume of business they do and have more time with their families etc, than continuing to work ridiculously, long hard hours to basically see less take home pay. I don't think the country's going to collapse because of it or anything, but I do think it's possible that people's behavior will change. Incentives matter.