@ jpgredsox - "And while we're on the topic of taxes, the top 1% pays about 40% of the income tax burden in the united states, while the top 10% pays 71% of taxes" [citation needed]

"The stimulus did work." Actual unemployment is about 20% right now; that doesn't strike me as "working." Stagnation does not equal success, and just because the economy recovered after the 2008-2009 recession does not mean the stimulus worked. Economies inevitably recover after recessions after a certain amount of time, and I don't know if our current economic situation was worth 787 billion dollars. And in regards to Warren Buffet, Buffet receives most of his income from his holdings in the corporate stock of Berkshire Hathaway, which is taxed first at 35% then at 15% for capital gains, adding up to a 50% tax; only then is the profits received from the stock moved into the 22.7% income tax. The rich don't pay very little, if you want to broaden the scope to all federal and state taxes, the top 1% pay about 21.5%

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/tax_liability_shares.pdf
most recent data

And let me repeat a question I've never ever ever heard an adequate answer to. If taxing the rich at a rate higher than their current rate is supposedly so disastrous to the economy, then why is nearly every country in the developed world in a better position than the US, even though they nearly all have higher tax rates for the richest members? And don't start talking to me about Greece. It's one example, but is not representative of every other western country in the world.

"Why is nearly every country in the developed world in a better position than the U.S.?" You're joking, right? I am very bearish on the U.S. economy, but even I wouldn't go that far. Europe is a dead man walking at this point in time, and it's not just Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and (especially) Greece (the PIIGS). Contagion has spread throughout the European continent: Dexia, a major French bank, collapsed last week, and the German stock market has been in the tank for the last month. Greece hardly has enough cash on hand to run the government for a few more weeks, and if Italy defaults neither the ECB nor the IMF will be able to bail out Italy.

And the collapse of one country's economy affects the entire Eurozone because of the common currency. Most investors and economists are expecting a recession in Europe in the next few months, and the big question in the past month has been whether the U.S. will go back into recession as well. Recent data does not suggest a recession for the United States, but depending on the volatility in Europe, a recession is still a very real possibility.

"Stagnation does not equal success, and just because the economy recovered after the 2008-2009 recession does not mean the stimulus worked. Economies inevitably recover after recessions after a certain amount of time, and I don't know if our current economic situation was worth 787 billion dollars."

787 billion is less than the 1.3 trillion in tax cuts and the 1 trillion in perscription drug benefit that the Republicans passed, not to mention it is less than the two unjust/unfunded wars during the 2000s. Evidently you're of the view that in the face of constant instability that investors were somehow, of their own volition, going to invest in the economy in early 2009 and thereby stem the hemorraging of jobs and the contraction of the economy. People believed you in the 1930s and our reward was the great depression. So evidently recovery is not 'inevitable'.

"The rich don't pay very little, if you want to broaden the scope to all federal and state taxes, the top 1% pay about 21.5%"

The effective tax rate of the top 1% in 2007 was 17%
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/17/national/main20054702.shtml


Despite the low tax rate they aren't investing in "jobs", despite the continued braggadocio about how they're "job creators". No matter how low taxes are the rich will always bitch and bitch and bitch, even as their income soars while everyone else's stagnates.

And according to your own figures, the richest 1% contribute 20% of the tax revenue yet they control over 40% of the country's wealth.

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

@ jpgredsox - I'll grant you that the situation in Europe is complicated by the high level of economic integration. But the effective tax rate on the top 1% in places like Canada, the UK, Australia, and so on is higher than what you claim is an unbearable tax burden in the USA. Why is Canada better off economically right now than the states? Why is the UK?

"787 billion is less than the 1.3 trillion in tax cuts and the 1 trillion in perscription drug benefit that the Republicans passed not to mention it is less than the two unjust/unfunded wars during the 2000s."
I disagree with Medicare Part D, as well as the wars in Iraq and (mostly) Afghanistan. But one wrong does not make a right; just because Bush contributed to the deficit doesn't mean Obama can as well, and I am disappointed by establishment Republicans and neocons as I am by progressives, and Obama has merely increased a trend present in the Bush years.
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-debt-something-new-something-old.html

the cbo numbers speak for themselves.

A major factor to the "richest 1% contribute 20% of the tax revenue yet they control over 40% of the country's wealth" was TARP and the Wall Street bailouts, which were instituted by the one-party of establishment democrats and republicans. Btw, if the rich own 40% of the economy and are thus obliged to contribute 40% in tax revenue, why aren't the bottom 50% obliged to pay at least something in income taxes?

"Dividends are not considered "income"."

Putin has obviously never filled out a 1040 before. Check it out:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf

Dividends go in the income section, on lines 9a and 9b.

It's quite hilarious to hear Putin defending the 'stimuli', seeing as they have been the biggest most in-you-face transfer of wealth from the government to the wealthy in the history of economics. And the total bill (including all the secret Fed loans) is in the tens of trillions so far, not hundreds of billions. Marxian ignorance strikes again.

"The stimulus did work. Do any of you even remember early 2009? When we were losing 800,000 jobs a month? When we were contracting by 5%? Yeah the stimulus ended that."

Sorry, contemporaneousness != causality. The job losses slowed down because companies ran out of places to cut while still keeping the doors open. There hasn't been a real recovery, and a lot of the 'improving' job numbers have a lot to do with people falling off the back end of the unemployment system without landing a job. I guess we have to wait for the $100 trillion stimulus package for a recovery.

And yet qualified dividends are not taxed as income but are get the long-term capital gains tax rate, anywhere from 0% to 15%. Evidently they didn't teach you that in your business class.

"It's quite hilarious to hear Putin defending the 'stimuli', seeing as they have been the biggest most in-you-face transfer of wealth from the government to the wealthy in the history of economics. And the total bill (including all the secret Fed loans) is in the tens of trillions so far, not hundreds of billions. Marxian ignorance strikes again."

I don't know where you're pulling these numbers from, perhaps the same websites that say fluoridation is a communist plot to make people dumber. How on earth was the stimulus a "transfer of wealth to the wealthy"? Do you even know what the money in the stimulus went toward? How is the TANF Emergency Fund a transfer of wealth to the wealthy? It alone created 260,000 jobs for low-income and otherwise disadvantaged people. The market can't take credit for that.

"Sorry, contemporaneousness != causality. The job losses slowed down because companies ran out of places to cut while still keeping the doors open. "

You base this on what? How did we go from 5% contraction to growth? What market incentives existed to add 2.4 million jobs? It doesn't matter what the government does you'll still claim that the market is responsible for everything positive, and the government everything negative. Just manufacture facts to comply with your pre-conceived narrative. We lost 3 million jobs from 2008 until 2009 (and 4.4 million from the end of 2007 until Obama was inaugurated), and from then on we grew 2.4 million jobs until August 2011. Had the libertarians been in power, we would have lost millions more instead and there would not have 2.4 million jobs gained. Nobody's going to invest in new plants or hire new people under the kind of economic uncertainty that was prevailing in 2009 unless the government stepped in.

"There hasn't been a real recovery, and a lot of the 'improving' job numbers have a lot to do with people falling off the back end of the unemployment system without landing a job. I guess we have to wait for the $100 trillion stimulus package for a recovery."

You can deny the jobs added numbers all you want. If you clowns were in power we'd have 35% unemployment and continual contraction. 787 billion is a paltry sum to pay for avoiding economic ruin, compared to the trillions we spent that did nothing whatsoever for the economy under Bush.

Mr. V knows a lot about this site considering he joined at 3 PM

"A major factor to the "richest 1% contribute 20% of the tax revenue yet they control over 40% of the country's wealth" was TARP and the Wall Street bailouts, which were instituted by the one-party of establishment democrats and republicans"

This is a ridiculous claim. The number I gave you was from 2007, Tarp and Wall Street bailouts hadn't even occurred yet. The trend of growing wealth concentration in the hands of the rich grew continually under Bush. It has nothing to do with the stop-gap measures to end the escalating financial crisis.

"Btw, if the rich own 40% of the economy and are thus obliged to contribute 40% in tax revenue, why aren't the bottom 50% obliged to pay at least something in income taxes?"

Because they can't afford it! You're so keen on taxing the working poor, the retired, people living off social security, and the unemployed. The fact that such a high percentage of the public doesn't pay income taxes speaks volumes about the extent to which there is income inequality in this country that a majority don't even qualify for the income tax. Once again, income tax isn't the only tax. Why do you work so hard defending people who don't need to be defended? Why are so many people on this forum in the thrall of the superrich? Do you aspire to be among their ranks or what?

I won't say who I think Mr. V is but I suspect the mods will look into this and we'll see a banning soon. But that isn't an accusation or anything, just an observation. in the meantime I'll just mute him.

Anyway, if you rightwingers were so concerned about jobs why is your party obstructing every single proposal for job growth while continually passing anti-women's health measures and other nonsense? You're fiddling while Rome burns while pinning the consequences of inaction on Obama. If inaction was so terrific for the economy, our unemployment numbers should have plummeted by now since government has been paralyzed ever since the Ron Paulie tea party thugs swept into power.

Mr v is a man who knows something that Obama doesn't. Will post more later when I actually have time

Putin, a little less insult to others would go a long way. I'm not a Tea Party member nor do I support the folks doing their protest in New York and elsewhere, but I don't go about calling them names just becaus eI happen to disagree with them politically.

Bush (who I am not a big fan of) lowered taxes on the rich, but that didn't cause the economic crisis. It's not like individuals receiving government benefits/entitlements all of the sudden quit receiving that assistance when the tax cuts went into effect. In fact government spending increased substantially under Bush and went to whole new level under the stimulus and then Obama. Therefore, I don't follow the logic that lowering taxes on the rich somehow hurt the poor. It's not as if those rich people thought "Oh wow I get to keep more of what I made, so I should go out and lay off some employees."

"why is your party obstructing every single proposal for job growth..." These policies won't increase job growth; government spending does not spur/create economic growth. It didn't work with the New Deal, it didn't work with the stimulus, and it won't work with the "American Jobs Act," which can't even garner enough procedural votes to move into an actual yes/no vote. This is more spending of money which we don't have; if you haven't noticed, we are 14.5 trillion dollars in debt. Have you seen the state of Europe? Unless the United States changes its path, that is its future. The country is bankrupt, the Senate hasn't passed a budget in 800 days, Obama spends a year to pass Obamacare before declaring a "recovery summer" in 2010 before realizing that the country is not entirely behind his proposals. Those "Ron paulie tea party thugs?" Who voted in those "thugs?" It couldn't have been the American people...oh wait, it was.

"And yet qualified dividends are not taxed as income but are get the long-term capital gains tax rate, anywhere from 0% to 15%. Evidently they didn't teach you that in your business class."

Actually, they did teach me all about that. In fact, IRS willing, I will be preparing tax returns for money next year after doing my own for the last 15 years (and taking an 80 hour class this year).

It's great that you can google "Qualified Dividends", but your ignorance of the tax system in general is showing. The long term capital gains rate is only 0% if a taxpayer is in the 10% or 15% income tax brackets (that is, those who have taxable incomes of $34,500 or less in 2010). Taxpayers who make more than that (which is the vast majority of people with dividend income) pay the 15% rate. And there is no in between rate at the moment, so your 'anywhere from 0% to 15%' just proves to me that you don't have the first clue what you're talking about.

"I don't know where you're pulling these numbers from, perhaps the same websites that say fluoridation is a communist plot to make people dumber."

Actually, it originated as a Nazi plot. And it's not to make people dumber, but to make them more compliant and submissive. I don't know what conspiracy websites you go to, but they're apparently full of misinformation.

"How on earth was the stimulus a "transfer of wealth to the wealthy"?"

Oh, I don't know. Maybe the bailouts of the Big Banks and the ten plus trillion dollars of Fed loans. Maybe the war on small banks and all the forced bank mergers that've put essentially the entire banking system under the control of a cartel of just 4 or 5 "too big to fail" banks. Maybe the bailouts of GM and Chrysler. Maybe the fact that 'shovel ready' government building contracts only go to government-approved federal contractors.

"How is the TANF Emergency Fund a transfer of wealth to the wealthy?"

It subsidizes low wages, removing pressure on companies to pay a liveable wage.

"You base this on what? How did we go from 5% contraction to growth? What market incentives existed to add 2.4 million jobs? It doesn't matter what the government does you'll still claim that the market is responsible for everything positive, and the government everything negative. Just manufacture facts to comply with your pre-conceived narrative. We lost 3 million jobs from 2008 until 2009 (and 4.4 million from the end of 2007 until Obama was inaugurated), and from then on we grew 2.4 million jobs until August 2011."

Yawn. More phony-baloney government statistics. Sorry Putin, but no one believes the unemployment rate is really only 9.1%, and even the Obama administration admits that what job growth there is on paper doesn't come anywhere near close to providing enough jobs for all the young people coming into the job market, let alone the vast army of un- and under- employed workers still looking for work. You can play along with these smoke-and-mirror numbers if you like, but you just make yourself look gullible doing it.

"Nobody's going to invest in new plants or hire new people under the kind of economic uncertainty that was prevailing in 2009 unless the government stepped in."

Um... First of all, creating new plants and hiring new people wasn't the problem - stopping closures of existing plants and layoffs of existing employees was. Now to your point, The government started stepping in almost immediately, by lowering the Federal funds rate by 2% in 2007 when the housing market started to implode. In 2008, of course, you had the Bush Bailouts and the start of all the massive Fed loans. I guess that just wasn't enough government involvement... or perhaps the involvement just didn't have the magic touch of communist good intentions.

"If you clowns were in power we'd have 35% unemployment and continual contraction."

Uh... where I live, we DO have unemployment of about 35%. Businesses haven't stopped going under around here. Property values have dropped literally in half and show no signs of rebounding. A company I used to do a lot of work for laid off 50% of their office staff in 2009; some of those people still haven't been able to find a job now, two years later. I've got five cousins in their mid to late twenties (and one in her thirties) who are all still living with their parents because none of them can find jobs that pay enough to let them live on their own - despite their much-touted college degrees in several cases.

"The fact that such a high percentage of the public doesn't pay income taxes speaks volumes about the extent to which there is income inequality in this country that a majority don't even qualify for the income tax."

Actually, it speaks more to the huge tax breaks people get for making babies. My income was low enough last year to put me before the poverty line, but I still had a (small) federal tax liability. If I had a qualifying child, however, I would've gotten a 'refund' of several thousand dollars between the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Credit.

"Anyway, if you rightwingers were so concerned about jobs why is your party obstructing every single proposal for job growth"

As a Libertarian, my party doesn't have seats in congress and thus no power to obstruct anything, but whatever. All of these phony job proposals are obvious sops to the government workers' unions and wealthy crony capitalists who happen to donate to the Democrats (like the executives at Solyndra).

@mafialligator
A flat tax is not regressive. As far as the argument "a flat tax has the perverse effect of actually redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich." You presume that the rich get more from the government than the poor do. Isn't it the opposite? Do the rich get any more military protection from foreign armies than the poor? Do the rich get more welfare/TAN/SSI, etc. than the poor? You confuse a flat tax with a sales tax which I agree would be regressive. That is the only flaw I see with Cain's 9 9 9 plan.

"That is the only flaw I see with Cain's 9 9 9 plan."

Except for the creation of a whole new national sales tax regime, and absolutely no guarantees that all taxes would *stay* at "9-9-9".

I can just see it now. "Okay folks, we've got the new national sales tax in place, but due to [insert lame excuse], we won't be able to implement the 9% flat income tax at this time, so we'll have to just continue using the old fracked up income tax system and rates for now."

(for "now" read "forever, or at least until the angry mob storms the presidential palace")

"You presume that the rich get more from the government than the poor do. Isn't it the opposite?" Do the poor get more roads than the rich? Do the poor get more public education than the rich? Do the poor get more consumer protection than the rich? Do the poor get more police, fire or ambulance services than the rich? Even military protection, the example you gave is provided equally to the poor and the rich. (Actually a strong argument could be made that certain rich people benefit hugely from military action while the poor benefit relatively little, or in fact are harmed by it, as the poor are far more likely to be in the military and thus, are more likely to die while protecting American corporate interests abroad.)

I'm not confusing a sales tax with a flat tax. I agree a sales tax is MORE regressive than a flat tax, but that doesn't mean a flat tax isn't also regressive in absolute terms. Let me explain. Lets say for the sake of argument that by some estimation the cost of living is around $15,000 a year, and now lets compare someone with a yearly income of $35,000 to someone with a yearly income of $200,000 and for the sake of keeping math simple, lets assume a 10% flat tax. The $35,000 a year person after taxes takes home $31,500. Now if we subtract the $15,000 for the bare minimum cost of living expenses, this person has $16,500 left over, that's around 47% of their actual income they have left over. The person with the $200,000 income pays $20,000 in income tax leaving them with $180,000 a year. Subtract the cost of living, and you're left with $165,000. That's 82.5% of their original income. Do you see the disparity? Granted this is based on the naive assumption that a rich person will pay the same for housing, food and clothing as a less wealthy person when this is demonstrably not true, but the disparity in spending is not enough to negate this regressive effect of flat taxation. Because there are expenses which absolutely no one can avoid, a flat tax means that middle class and working class people make a much much larger sacrifice so that government services can be provided. Government services which, with the sole exception of welfare and unemployment insurance are provided to everyone.

This is why most flat tax schemes have an exclusion on the first X thousand dollars of income - that $15,000 in base living expenses wouldn't be taxed, but everything above it would be. This takes a substantial amount of the bite out of the tax for low income taxpayers. I am rather surprised that Cain's proposal doesn't have an income exclusion, at least from what I'm reading about it right now.

The reason he doesn't is because he has the interests of the rich at heart and WANTS a tax scheme that steals from the poor to feed the rich.

In a way, the sales tax part does. The taxable items are new non necessities. Assuming the poor aren't buying brand new cars and TVs, they wont pay the tax the rich do.

Mmmmmm, yeah but the middle classes will buy new TVs and cars. In that sense you're redistributing wealth from the middle class to the rich. It's not as bad as from the poor to the rich, but it's still regressive.

How is that redistributing from the middle class to the rich? In general who spends more, someone with a 30k income or 200k income? If that spending is taxed at a flat rate, the person who spends more pays more. The income earned by individuals is not community property owned by society.