How much longer...

[AZhitman]

Again, you can't say that.

Being that 98% of Americans do get by on less than $250k/year, I'm not seeing why he can't. Now, I'm not in favor of demonizing the wealthy, but let's not pretend that they're victims of the system.

Never said they were. I'm pulling an Isaac here and arguing that the argument they make is fundamentally flawed.

I don't care if 99.9% of people "get by", that's a stupid metric and you know it. You might as well say 99% of people didn't die, or 99% didn't jump off a bridge, or 99% didn't call Grandma on Christmas.

I don't aspire to "get by", and I resent our Administration making a judgement call on how much THEY think we "need" to "get by" F*** them - Let THEM live on $250K or less. Why are they immune to demonization?

[C-Kwik]

..and I still hold to my position that a family of 5 with $250K gross annual income shouldn't be anywhere near a million-dollar home, much less a half-million dollar one - especially if they have the debt that comes along with being a typical American family of 5.

That's what got half these knuckleheads into foreclosure in the first place.

And now that I think of it, no way in hell am I gonna let a mortgage seller tell me how much house I can theoretically "afford". That's just dumb.

I don't disagree except for the part about what got them into foreclosures. Most of the people foreclosed on, were people who had much smaller than $250K/year incomes and bought half-million dollar homes. Not saying it wasn't a bad decision, but my original response was that $250K/year can buy a pretty nice house out here in a non-ghetto area.

I will however make one counter-point to how much a family of 5 should spend on a home. A larger family needs more room. In the case of 3 kids, that would be a 4 bedroom house. So the price of housing goes up. And if you make $250Kish a year, you probably value education. And short of sending the kids off to private school, the quality of public education (at least here) tends to be largely related to the price of local housing. So in a way, there are some indirect benefits to paying more for a house. By how much? Not sure, but one could compare the cost of sending three kids through the private school system vs the difference in cost of homes in different areas and the associated interest. Some level of argument could also be made on the safety of your children/family. Lets see, spend some money, live in a decent area with decent or good security? Or save some money and live in South Central LA?

The problem is that a substantial number of $250k earners are the self-employed, farmers and individual business owners who have not incorporated. It's pretty easy to have $250k in income and still have a hard time paying your bills. Take away the tax cuts on those people and watch them cut employees to make up for it.

Not to mention the 300k + small businesses that report on personal tax returns, and sit in this evil "top 1%" bracket that the left love to demonize, those "millionaires and billionaires" that hold the backbone of employment in this nation, they just keep getting pissed and crapped on more and more everyday but the progressive left who have these "tax breaks for the wealthies", and "millionaires and billionaires" talking points droned into their heads.

Curious. Do you guys have statistics on this? And secondly, how much is the tax break actually saving them anyways? I see a lot of generalities being thrown around (on both sides). I'd prefer to see a more substantive discussion...

[AZhitman]

...my original response was that $250K/year can buy a pretty nice house out here in a non-ghetto area.

And my point was that annual income is irrelevant (at least under the "anything-goes" lending spree that predicated all this crap). $250K / year doesn't "buy" you anything. Or it can buy you a $10M house.

What you're willing to spend or sacrifice is what dictates house size / location. Not income.

What YOU'RE saying is that $5K a month is theoretically do-able for a family with $250K annual income. I can't disagree with that, because I've seen people buy $900/month cars on $14/hour wages. It's meaningless until something breaks.

According to a few NICO folks who live out there (and have been here), my house, in SoCal, in a comparable neighborhood, would be a $2M home. Guess who can't afford that? THIS guy.

[IBCoupe]

Never said they were. I'm pulling an Isaac here and arguing that the argument they make is fundamentally flawed.

I don't care if 99.9% of people "get by", that's a stupid metric and you know it. You might as well say 99% of people didn't die, or 99% didn't jump off a bridge, or 99% didn't call Grandma on Christmas.

I don't aspire to "get by", and I resent our Administration making a judgement call on how much THEY think we "need" to "get by" F*** them - Let THEM live on $250K or less. Why are they immune to demonization?

But Greg, the argument you're making doesn't really begin to address the issue: the argument (at least in the context of this one, isolated point) isn't a matter of what is reasonable or what is justifiable, it's of what is logical. If it's not only possible for 98% of Americans to get by on $249999.99/year or less, but they actually do, then there's no reason to suppose that these people couldn't live on that same amount.

When people are arguing to you that rich people won't die from having less, reminding us of how unhappy they'll be is beside the point. I'd object to your "didn't die" analogy, but the "didn't jump off a bridge" is a bit more apt. If there's all kinds of people in the world who manage to not wilfully throw themselves off of bridges, it seems to me a fair statement that it would have been possible for you to similarly not wilfully throw yourself into the Delaware.

[AZhitman]

Jibberish and circular nonsense.

There's nothing in your bellybutton worth analyzing, so let's get back into the real world - For someone in the government to posit that it's appropriate to tamper with one's income because they've judged what that person's standard of living should or should not be is simply abhorrent.

Someone comes to me with the argument that "rich people won't die from having less", they can kiss my a$$.

And my "bridge" comparison had nothing to do with their happiness - You misread me. My point was that the metric is moronic. You could just as easily say, "99% wiped after they pooped"... it's not relevant and it's no one's business anyway.

Putting arbitrary numerical constraints on things is a bad idea. If she's such a champion of "fairness", then for F*** SAKE make it fair (and not the Democrats' version of "fair", which we all know involves people getting things they didn't work towards at the expense of others who did.)

[WDRacing]

Why don't you go not jump off a bridge...

[AZhitman]

Why don't you try and not stop me not jumping off a bridge?

[heliochrome85]

Why don't you try and not stop me not jumping off a bridge?

is it a bridge to nowhere?

[AZhitman]

Image link fail.

[heliochrome85]

seems to be the theme of the day. also, burritos are tasty.

[IBCoupe]

...it's not relevant and it's no one's business anyway.

Which is where your analogies diverge from issues entirely central to discussion of income taxes. How much money a person makes versus how much money beyond which would be going too far in taking it away is entirely relevant. Congress' authority to levy taxes makes it the government's business. It may be nobody's business the percentage of Americans wipe after going to the bathroom. It most certainly is the government's business in setting a cap on how much cash we can take away from the public to fund the services it demands.

Arbitrary metrics have to be drawn somewhere. In fact, they have to be drawn in a great many somewheres, otherwise we don't have a system of government at all, we just have a system of people gathering in Washington, D.C. and talking on TV.

[AZhitman]

How much money a person makes versus how much money beyond which would be going too far in taking it away is entirely relevant.

I'm gonna sue you for having to read that. In fact, put that f***ed-up sentence back in its leotard and send it back to Cirque du Soleil.

It most certainly is the government's business in setting a cap on how much cash we can take away from the public to fund the services it demands.

"...how much cash we can take away from the public...". Ahh, eeeeexcellent... Yep. Nancy Pelosi looks an awful lot like Mr. Burns.

Again, that wasn't my point, and I refuse to believe a smart cookie like you missed it.

But just in case someone from 240 Gen Chat wanders in here: In my original post, I pointed out the extreme hypocrisy of Pelosi's double-standard.

You wanna take X amount, take it. But let's stay the hell out of discussing "getting by" and "making it" on a certain arbitrary number... That is NONE of the government's business.

If you propose that it IS, then I propose we systematically penalize all poor stewards of earned income, because I'm fed the F up with paying for other peoples' idiocy, INCLUDING poor money management and entitlement syndrome.

[stebo0728]

Why are our jobs missing? Why do we buy all our sh*t from China now? I'll tell you why. This nation has fallen in love with the idea that hard work, profit, and ambition are bad, and we penalize these evil notions with our tax code. Right now our tax climate gives NO REASON WHATSOEVER for anyone to go out and make something of themselves, because as soon as they do, as soon as they start seeing prof*t (OMG not prof*t! Its so EVIL!) then along comes uncle sam to penalize the ever lovin hell out of it. Taxation HAS to be fair, and the only way to be truely fair is to spread the load equally across the board. And the only way to do this is a FIXED percentage. If you are so in love with income taxation, and withholding for lazy a**es to be sure and pay their tax bill, then we have to go back to a flat tax, and we have to KEEP it flat and not d*ck around with it. Thats what got us in the spinning vortex of tax code we are in now. Now I dont believe taxing income is the best way, or fairest way to go because it still keeps the control in the governments hands, where it doesnt belong. Consumption based tax puts the power back in the hands of the people. They know what they will pay based on what they consume, and can adjust their consumption accordingly. But whether you like John Linder/Neal Boortz plan as I do, or whether you like Steve Jobs plan, we HAVE to simplify taxes, and make them fair. As long as we keep this ludicrous notion of "the more you make, the higher your percentage" we arent gonna get anywhere.

</rant>

[AZhitman]

Too simple. Too logical. Ergo, the left will hate it.

[stebo0728]

Too simple. Too logical. Ergo, the left will hate it.

No the left will hate it because its the single largest power shift from Washington, to the people, and the left are lost in the idea that our nation is great BECAUSE of government, and that government holds all the answers, and that only government knows how to run the world.

[IBCoupe]

You wanna take X amount, take it. But let's stay the hell out of discussing "getting by" and "making it" on a certain arbitrary number... That is NONE of the government's business.

If you propose that it IS, then I propose we systematically penalize all poor stewards of earned income, because I'm fed the F up with paying for other peoples' idiocy, INCLUDING poor money management and entitlement syndrome.

It's as if you're not paying attention to what I'm saying. My point is that "getting by" and "making it" are fundamental things to understand when designing an income tax, as they're central to the design of the tax structure itself. These concepts establish an upper limit on how much money the government will take from you, because the goal is not to take so much money from you that you can't "get by" or "make it."

That doesn't mean it will always want to walk right up to that line, but it's helpful to have the knowledge that there does exist that line.

[IBCoupe]

Taxation HAS to be fair, and the only way to be truely fair is to spread the load equally across the board. And the only way to do this is a FIXED percentage.

That's not the only way to do it, and a flat tax is not a particularly fair way to do it once you take into account that there's a basic cost you've got to eat in order to not starve, and that this basic cost does not change when you suddenly get a larger paycheck every week.

Consumption based tax puts the power back in the hands of the people.

They're also regressive, because guess which portion of the population uses the largest share of its income on necessary consumption? The poorest portions.

Stebo's right, Greg - that was a rant; it wasn't particularly logical.

[stebo0728]

Taxation HAS to be fair, and the only way to be truely fair is to spread the load equally across the board. And the only way to do this is a FIXED percentage.

That's not the only way to do it, and a flat tax is not a particularly fair way to do it once you take into account that there's a basic cost you've got to eat in order to not starve, and that this basic cost does not change when you suddenly get a larger paycheck every week.

Consumption based tax puts the power back in the hands of the people.

They're also regressive, because guess which portion of the population uses the largest share of its income on necessary consumption? The poorest portions.

Stebo's right, Greg - that was a rant; it wasn't particularly logical.

Actually the rant tag was for comedic effect, and had you any particular working knowledge of the Fair Tax (which I have spelled out quite nicely in a previous thread) then you would realize that your regressive argument above is invalid.

Google "fair tax prebate" and watch your argument above melt like the wicked witch of the west.

As for your first argument, you sorta said one thing, and argued its opposite. My assumption is that you are trying to argue that as your pay grade decreases, theres a point where you make at or below your exact cost of living and therefore any tax burden means you can eat and wipe your poop. I agree that a flat tax does get into this realm of difficulty, and thats another reason I dont back the idea. Again see my above rebuttal and you'll understand why the FairTax consumption based tax plan is the most logical, fair way to have a tax structure that supports a capitalist society.

BUT then perhaps Greg was a little closer to the mark when he said ...

Too simple. Too logical. Ergo, the left will hate it.

[C-Kwik]

And my point was that annual income is irrelevant (at least under the "anything-goes" lending spree that predicated all this crap). $250K / year doesn't "buy" you anything. Or it can buy you a $10M house.

What you're willing to spend or sacrifice is what dictates house size / location. Not income.

I'm really dealing with your contention that a person making $250K would have to settle for the ghetto (with the implication being that $250K is not necessarily "wealthy").

I agree with the aspect that the size/location is dictated by one's personal choices. But again, a person making $250K would not have to settle and live in the ghetto, even here in SoCal. They most certainly can choose to do so. But not for a lack of options.

What YOU'RE saying is that $5K a month is theoretically do-able for a family with $250K annual income. I can't disagree with that, because I've seen people buy $900/month cars on $14/hour wages. It's meaningless until something breaks.

I didn't say that. You did. I merely applied the 28% correctly.

According to a few NICO folks who live out there (and have been here), my house, in SoCal, in a comparable neighborhood, would be a $2M home. Guess who can't afford that? THIS guy.

While I certainly can't afford a $2M home, if I could, I'd be able to find a much nicer home than yours for that kind of money, even out here:

http://www.homes.com/listing/photo/1238 ... 1711#photo

[AZhitman]

They're also regressive, because guess which portion of the population uses the largest share of its income on necessary consumption? The poorest portions.

No Econ or Sociology classes at that school of yours?

Guess who also spends the most on cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets?

Necessary consumption my butt.

[AZhitman]

While I certainly can't afford a $2M home, if I could, I'd be able to find a much nicer home than yours for that kind of money, even out here:

Ouch. Crash got you guys even worse than us.

Right now, the house next door to me is F/S, and almost identical to mine: 3950 sq ft, 5 BR, 3CG. Sold new for $410K, now on the market for $180K. Owner lost it to foreclosure.

[IBCoupe]

Actually the rant tag was for comedic effect, and had you any particular working knowledge of the Fair Tax (which I have spelled out quite nicely in a previous thread) then you would realize that your regressive argument above is invalid.

Google "fair tax prebate" and watch your argument above melt like the wicked witch of the west.

The "Fair Tax Prebate" is a check the government mails out to everyone. This doesn't make it less regressive. Want to know why? Google "What do poor people do with checks from the government?" and watch your "non-regression" turn right back into a "hidden regression." Rich people invest their cash. Poor people spend it. Unless you've got some magic way of labeling that $183/month or whatever check from the government as "not-to-be-taxed," you haven't really avoided much of the regression, as 23% of it will still go right back to the government.

A poor person who invests none and spends all of the cash the government gives will have pocketed $1,694/year of the $2,200 that the government sends them, right? That's 77%. At the end of 10 years, they will have gotten an extra $16,940.

A rich person who invests all of the cash the government gives them will have pocketed $2,200, and will be earning an average of, say, 7% annually. If they invest every year's "prebate" (except, of course for the 10th year's prebate whose value would only be $2200), then at the end of 10 years, they will have gotten an extra $34,738.

As for your first argument, you sorta said one thing, and argued its opposite. My assumption is that you are trying to argue that as your pay grade decreases, theres a point where you make at or below your exact cost of living and therefore any tax burden means you can eat and wipe your poop. I agree that a flat tax does get into this realm of difficulty, and thats another reason I dont back the idea. Again see my above rebuttal and you'll understand why the FairTax consumption based tax plan is the most logical, fair way to have a tax structure that supports a capitalist society.

I don't understand what you think was contradictory about my first argument. My point is that it's regressive because a flat tax ignores the flat minimum that is a basic cost of living. If that minimum is $2500, it's 10% for a person who makes $25,000/year, but it's only 1% for a person who makes $250,000. If we set a flat tax at 20%, that lower-income person will be left with only 65% (or $16,250) and the higher-income person will be left with 79% (or $197,500) of their income.

The difference between a progressive tax advocate and a flat tax advocate is that the latter examines the percentage the government takes away, and the former examines the percentage the government leaves behind.

[IBCoupe]

They're also regressive, because guess which portion of the population uses the largest share of its income on necessary consumption? The poorest portions.

No Econ or Sociology classes at that school of yours?

Guess who also spends the most on cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets?

Necessary consumption my butt.

Reread my comment, Greg. I said "The largest share of its income on necessary consumption;" I didn't say that the poor doesn't have unnecessary consumption. Stop being dense. Your response was about as contributory to the discussion as me asking "Guess who spends the most on yachts?"

[audtatious]

Who determines what necessary consumption is? To the poor today it includes HD TV's, cell phones and cable access.

[IBCoupe]

Well, that's certainly a generalization that furthers the conversation. Good on ya!

Even if they have a lot of unnecessary consumption, the point is the same: the portion of their income that goes to consumption that is necessary is relatively larger than the portion of the income of wealthier individuals. This is true because "necessary" represents a minimum. And that minimum doesn't change when you get more cash, thus when you have more cash it represents a smaller portion.

See? Logic!

[audtatious]

Do you consider "necessary consumption" to be the basics for survival or do you feel the term should include whatever the basics are to make a person happy?

[IBCoupe]

I don't know why the distinction would matter for the point I'm making.

[audtatious]

Yeah, whatever.

[AZhitman]

I do.

It's MY money.

And I don't want it to go to cigarettes, liquor and lottery tickets.

So, if that makes me a dense racist who wants babies to die, then so be it. YOU buy 'em cigarettes, liquor and lottery tickets.

[audtatious]

But without those "comforts", which rich white people can get due to their birthright, they are unhappy. Thus, rich people, who only got their money due to their ancestors owning slaves or being crooked, should fork up the coin to make living without working more comfortable.