Conservatives want to reduce the power of politicians and the influence of political decisions on their lives and instead favor traditional institutions like the family, the church and the armed forces, whose only job is to protect private property and the borders of the nation, and the government has a solely administrative role, no?
Ah, so when you say conservatives want to "get rid of politics," you mean they want to reduce the role of government. Strikes me as an odd (and extreme) way to say it. It's about as accurate as saying that liberals want to make EVERYTHING the purview of government simply because they want it to do more.
Well, either Buffett is not investing enough of the 82 % he gets to keep or you are not taxing him enough because, obviously, the cash-flow into the American economy isn't strong enough. With your logic, Buffett would loosen up on his wallet if he could a bit more than the meager 82 %. Since you have almost the lowest tax revenue of all the OECD countries, I doubt that more tax cuts is a very good thing right now.
Your claim carries with it the assumption that there's a special, ideal tax rate that somehow "fits" a country. Or that you can tell what a good tax rate is by looking at an average of other countries. I don't see much support for either idea.
As I said before, it's not that there's a special line of taxation, and that if we're below it we can "afford" to raise taxes. If we raise taxes, we will get less growth. To say we have "room" to raise taxes is to phrase the issue incorrectly, because it implies some sort of optimal level which we're below. We have "room" insofar as we are willing to accept lower levels of growth to provide some other service. Which means that any suggestion that we raise taxes should be about the growth we lose versus the service provided as a result; the average of other countries, or some other such arbitrary comparison, has nothing to do with it.
And I find it very interesting that, when you notice that we have the lowest tax revenue as a percentage of GDP among that group, you DON'T make the connection that this fact might explain our $14 trillion GDP. You cite it as an argument for raising taxes, but it seems like a better argument for keeping them low.
Is a profit invested in something rendering growth of the economy taxed the same way as profit in the bank, btw?
You mean like interest, from a savings account? If so, all forms of income are taxed in different ways.
What are they paying then? Are they paying less than their secretaries, but more than Buffett?
It depends on many, many variables. But income is taxed higher than capital gains, especially for the wealthy.
Yes, I think 25 for the secretary and 40-45 for Buffett would be more like it. 20 to 50-55, and we would really be talking. But - since conservatives are against progressive taxing, that will not happen in America - ever.
Some conservatives are. Some aren't. And some, like myself, accept that it's probably inevitable whether it's good or not.
But, more importantly: we
do have a progressive tax system. Higher income brackets pay more.
Fairness defined by representatives elected by the people. If Americans think it's fair that Buffett is paying 18 % of what he earns while his secretary pays 30 %, then that's fair to the American people. What Americans don't realize is that with progressive income taxes, the low and middle classes would get more money and better social security and the rich would get healthier and happier labor and consumers with more money to spend on their products. It's fair - and it works.
But what of my question? Which do you choose if growth and the arbitrary idea of "fairness" conflict?
But again, we
do have progressive income taxes. This is why something like a third of all income taxes are paid by the top 1%. People can argue (and they do) that it should be even higher, but the wealthy pay the
overwhelming majority of taxes in this country.
The idea that higher taxes means consumers have more to spend on their products is completely circular. Either the employees and consumers are PAYING those taxes, in which case they're "receiving" their own money (minus government overhead, of course), or else the people employing them are paying for it, in which case it doesn't make sense to say it benefits the employers as well. There might be a worthwhile discussion among reasonable people as to whether or not progressive taxes are good, and you know I'm glad to discuss that.
But I don't see how someone can possibly claim that simply transferring money from one party to another is going to make everyone better off.
What you are saying is that if Buffett can't invest $ 87 million instead of just $ 82 million, someone will be affected in the same way as when you make the holes in the social safety net bigger?
Never in the exact same way, but it will undeniably have an effect. That $5 million in lost investment would have been invested in a business, and that business will inevitably hire people and possible increase productivity in general. Every dollar that goes to tht social safety net is a dollar not going to help employ someone in another industry.
Basically: nothing is free. There is no way you can take from businesses or investors without somehow dispersing that cost throughout the rest of the economy. People miss this because they think wealth is only money, but it isn't. Wealth can come from both more money and better/cheaper/more available products. If the government just hands you a check that doubles your income, you're twice as well off (and someone else is worse off). If businesses and investors get to invest more, and the corresponding productivity causes prices to be cut in half, you're also twice as well off.
If the purpose of big business was primarily to create new jobs and to stimulate the American economy, you would have a point. But it's not, their number one priority is to generate profit for their stock holders, i.e. themselves.
Well, firstly, what matters are the effects, not whichever idea is foremost in their mind. But the distinction between employment and profit is largely a false one, anyway. You say businesses are first concerned with generating profit, but why do you think that drive just suddenly stops? The drive for ever-higher profits can only be satiated by expanding, which requires a larger workforce. In instances in which it doesn't, that profit is taxed and then either invested into some other business which is just starting up, and will hire people, or else it is saved, and then loaned out for said investment.
Basically, the only way that profit does NOT go towards expansion, employment, and growth, is if the wealthy person takes their profits and hides them under their floorboards. That is, seriously, the only way.
And that would almost be okay if it, at the same time, created jobs for the economy that they are holding back tax money from. But it doesn't. Capitalism is about accumulating capital as fast and as effective as possible - and the american market isn't the most profitable market for that right now. So, the lost tax money that was supposed to be invested back in the economy - and trickle down on the lower levels of society, Reagan style - is instead invested in new factories with cheap labor in southeast Asia. So, more tax cuts leads to more capital for the corporations to invest in other markets than the American.
This misses two very important things:
1) If American investors are investing elsewhere, it's because taxes and penalties are too high here. You say if we lower taxes the investment will simply go elsewhere, but the higher taxes or penalties are the
reason it's going elsewhere in the first place.
2) What do these other markets do, if not produce for less, thus driving prices down? Remember, wealth is increased in both ways. Just as there is no way to take from business without hurting consumers in total, there is no way to benefit them without it also benefitting consumers. Unless you think American investors are going to invest overseas AND refuse to sell the cheaper or better products here. And if that's the case, then it must be for some other, unspecified reason, like excessive tariffs. Which means the realy problem is not taxes, but other economic policies that are so heavily discouraging people from doing business here.
And by the way, our blind faith in infinite economic growth
It's not blind, it is observable and empirical. And nothing is infinite.
...is what brought you and all of us into this mess.
No it isn't.
We have to figure out other ways to create prosperity without economic growth.
This is a contradiction in terms. If you define prosperity as access to technology, food, shelter, etc., for increasingly lower amounts of labor, then you're just describing economic growth with a different word.
Read Tim Jackson.
Just a modern-day Malthus, I'm afraid. But I'll watch his TED talk on checking growth if you agree to read some Henry Hazlitt.
Whaddya say? His stuff is freely available only and written simply and concisely for both the expert and laymen alike.
Closed Thread
