Those questions don't specify who is to pay for all of the benefits.
Once people realize that they might have to pay for the "freebies," attitudes change a lot.
In the last decades since Reagan there has been a massive shift of taxes from the rich to the middle class and poor.
All that is needed to pay for Bernie's plans is a shift back towards the tax rates under Eisenhower. Bernie's plan to fund his issues was fairly simple:
This shifts the taxes back to the rich and off the poor and middle class.
Once people realize that they get more bang for their tax buck, especially when you include the cost of health insurance (versus medicare for all) and the tuition costs of higher education (versus free college tuition), with your current tax rate, so you compare total costs before and after, then their approval rises sharply.
Sadly, the Democrats can't articulate this to save their life. That is one of the most baffling things I have seen is that many of the Democrat policies are viewed in a favorable light by the majority populace. However, the Dems really need to learn how to do better marketing. The Republicans are very adept at spin and effective communication.
Agreed. Even after Bernie Sanders demonstrated their popularity and appeal, the DNC is doing their best to ostracize, demonize and purge the party of Berniecrats.
I think the main issue is Republicans like to beat the drum of 'trickle down economics' and constantly use that phrase to persuade the general populace that if higher taxes for the rich are enacted, it will mean job losses for the middle class. The extremely simple Dem response to this should be: rich people don't use their own incomes to pay salaries. Salaries are paid through corporations and LLCs. Raising taxes on some rich asshole will do NOTHING to the salaries or jobs of working class middle income Americans. Jobs and salaries are driven by supply/demand for goods and services and the profit from those transactions are what pays salaries.
The dems need to articulate that what happens in every economy is that income trickles up, and that this was most evident in the mortgage failure fiasco, when failure at the bottom toppled all the way to the top; and wherever minimum wages were raised that the local economy grew, significantly, and that unemployement went down (because more people with money to spend generate demand that generates jobs).
We've tried the "trickle down" fiasco to varying degrees since Reagan, and yet jobs and wages (especially wages) have remained virtually static. That it doesn't work should be blindingly obvious: the mortgages failed at the bottom of the economic levels because "trickle down" never got there.
If someone on the Dem side could, once and for all, articulate the above in a manner that the people can understand, it will go a long way towards being able to enact more reasonable services and decrease the massive wealth divide in our country.
It won't be the DNC. It has to come from the left wing of the party, the progressives and social democrats.
What taxes are you talking about? Federal income taxes?
And state taxes that are based on the federal return numbers.
Is this information not correct:
That information confuses the total amounts paid by the groups with what the individuals actually pay, what their tax rates are .
The top 1 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted annual gross income of $480,930 or higher, pay about 39 percent of federal income taxes.
What is their tax rate?
Under Eisenhower the top tax rate was 70% AND they had fewer loop holes. Is the current top rate more or less than 70%? More or Less (in fact it is about 1/2 the 1960 rates).
This shows changes for 1960 to 2004:
People in the middle 60% pay more, people in the top 10% pay less so tax burden has been shifted from the top to the middle (that's most of us).
The people in the bottom 40% pay about the same until 1994 and then that drops, but this doesn't show the effect of cut social services that impact the poorest the most.
So effin what? -- that wasn't my argument. Tax plans whether they cut some taxes or increase some taxes are what affects individuals, not large amorphous poorly-defined groups
The context was who was paying for it and you replied that there has been a massive shift in taxes from the rich to the middle class and poor.
Precisely: "in taxes" -- not in amounts paid as a group.
And there has been. The tax rates show what the taxes a taxable income level pays, and to be accurate we would have to include all the tax loopholes that make taxable significantly less for rich people than their actual income, plus some income is taxed at a different rate on things like dividend and capital gains/losses -- things that generally do not apply to poor people. Plus off-shore tax havens, etc etc etc ... analysis of which shows that rich people are paying significantly less taxes than they should.
Then on the poor side we would have to include all income supplements from welfare to housing assistance to medicaid, etc to see their total benefits. As those assistance levels are cut that effectively taxes the poor more to replace those costs.
You would really need to quantify "take-home" income to compare apples and oranges.
So when you say a "massive shift" you are not talking about how much is being paid.
Irrelevant. You are lumping people into large amorphous poorly-defined groups rather than looking at the impact on the individuals.
But the changes in the rates doesn't tell you how much is actually being paid.
Irrelevant. The tax rate DOES tell you how it impacts the individuals. That is the point at hand.
So the question of who is paying for it isn't answered - and calling the change in rates a massive shift from one to the other is spin.
No, it is telling you the impact on the individuals: poor and middle income people are paying more and getting less while the rich are paying less and getting more.
It looks like the rich are still paying for most of it even if their rates have gone down.
In a progressive tax system that is the purpose, to shift the tax burden to those that most benefit from the economy.
This trickle-down hoax has done nothing to improve the economy or create jobs. It's a fraud designed to shift wealth from the poor to the rich, and it has been successful at doing that.
Everywhere a minimum wage has been increased the unemployment goes down and the local economy improves.
In addition saying that "group A" pays more than "group B" says nothing about whether or not the taxes have been shifted from the rich to the poor -- it is a non-sequitur argument, a red-herring, a dodge.
When I read your argument in context, it looked like you were saying that the amount of taxes being paid was shifted from the rich to the middle class and poor.
It turns out that isn't true, and that isn't what you were attempting to say. Instead, you were talking about the changes in the percentage of income that is tax, but that doesn't address the question of who is paying for it.
What groups are paying what total amount is talking about totals, I'm talking about deltas.
The rich are paying substantially less than previously -- that deficit means someone else takes up the slack, in higher taxed, in lost benefits and in a larger national debt -- and that means the poor and middle class pay more while the rich pay less.
"More" and "Less" are terms signifying deltas
And yet, the rich pay 70% to the others' 3%.
So effin what? What is the DELTA between now and, say 1960?
This "massive shift" hasn't changed that.
So effin what? Are they paying More Less now than before?
When you look at which group is doing the paying, there hasn't been a shift that can be called massive.
You massive shift takes too much spin to see.
The rich are now paying half what they paid before, that in my book qualifies with spades as a MASSIVE shift.
If you want to talk about how much each group should be paying as a whole, that is a totally different argument. One designed to hide or dodge the FACT that the rich are now paying about 1/2 what they paid in 1960 and that means an increase in our taxes.
Which doesn't show you how the rates have changed. End argument -- you are using the wrong data for the argument that tax cuts -- changes in rates -- for the rich is shifting to tax increases -- changes in rates -- for the middle class and poor.
Well, it depends. Hypothetically, the rate can decrease while the total amount increases if the income increases enough.
Irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.
It doesn't really matter to me how much the rate has changed since 1960. That the top 10% are paying 70% of the federal income taxes doesn't look like a problem of the poor and middle class having those taxes shifted to them. Especially when the bottom 50% are only paying 3% of the federal income taxes.
And still totally irrelevant.
If the rich are paying the vast majority of a tax, then it doesn't make sense to say that the tax has been shifted to another group.
Because totals don't tell you deltas. It doesn't matter how much they are paying if they are still paying less than before -- because that is a shift, a delta, a change, and not a total.
Turns out, if you look at federal income taxes, the rich are paying the bulk of them. They have not been shifted to the poor and middle class.
Still effin irrelevant to whether there has been a shift. You can't see it because you are looking at the wrong data.
It's like I'm saying it is getting cooler in the tropics and hotter at the poles, and you're saying that the temperature in the tropics is still way warmer than the arctic temperatures. That's a fact with no meaning to whether or not the temperature distribution is shifting from one place to another.
As others note, the real difference shows up in the levels of disposable income for the individuals. The poor and middle class have less disposable income than before, while the rich have more disposable income than before. This is due to tax cuts for the rich and increased burdens on the poor and middle class.
This is why the economy is not recovering at the bottom economic levels.
We don't need corporate CEO's, we don't need the rich.
Coyote writes:
Actions have consequences. Maybe the socialists can begin forbidding people to leave their countries due to their policies? A new iron curtain, perhaps?
All they would need to do is tax money that is moved out of French banks.
Actually if the rich left, it would leave the economy to be run by the workers instead of the CEO leaches.
Good riddance.
In 1776 we declared independence from a feudal king who thought income produced in the colonies was his to take at will.
We now have corporations behaving in the same authoritarian feudal manner, thinking the income produced by the workers is theirs to take at will.
Pure capitalism fails just as badly as pure socialism fails -- what is needed is a balance, where the people decide together how to divy the dividends of their labour. It's called democratic socialism, and it works. The best examples occur in worker cooperatives, where the workers in a company decide the pay rates for all employees, including management -- who can be hired and fired at will.
Sans that process the best mechanism we have is the tax code and minimum wage laws, and how they are used to restore balance between workers and management.
If workers don't have a vote in deciding corporate wages, then they do have a vote in deciding what the tax rates are -- but it is a clunky system depending on government representatives to actually represent the people instead of the corporations. When those representatives are bought by the corporations you have a corrupt system that fails to balance the needs of the people against the greed of the rich.
As I say, if they leave, good riddance, we-don't-need-them: they don't provide anything of real worth to the working people.
We found we can do without kings, and we will find we can do without CEO's ... they are leaches.
If the "rich" leave the taxes they pay will have to be paid by middle and lower income folks. Don't forget that the rich pay a huge percentage of the income taxes.
Because they take a bigger percentage of the profits. If they leave, those profits can be divided more equitably among the workers (who actually make the money) and their income increase will offset their higher taxes and they will need less government assistance, lowering the tax load.
What is better, to have people working starvation wages and relying on government assistance to get the bare necessities while having no disposable income, or people working a living wage so they don't need government assistance and have some disposable income?
I'd think that folks would treat them as a resource to be protected and nurtured rather than as enemies.
A resource for what -- a constant drain on the economy that sucks most of the money out of the economy so that it staggers like a drunken drug addict? What do they add to the equation?
Should Walmart pay a living wage or should they pay a starvation wage, encourage/train/school their workers to get medicare, housing assistance and food stamps so they can pocket the difference and we basically subsidize that behavior through paying the government assistance programs with out taxes? Is that the kind of "resource" you think needs to be protected, treasured, nurtured and encouraged?
The economy in the 50's was boom time, and the tax rate was 90%. High taxes on the rich is one of the few balances a democracy can have for greedy corporate high salaries, to return money to the economy that the rich take out. There is still a net loss of money flow to the economy.
Why should rich people get to decide what their salaries are, when a democratically run corporation can make those decisions in a way that supports all the workers equitably.
We got ride of tyrants in the War of Independence, we don't need new tyrants in the running of corporations.
It also requires a populace that resists being conned by politicians who seek to distract them with social ideologies in exchange for their economic futures. While the rubes are askeered of losing thur guns the politicians are working the back rooms to make sure corporate barons are raking in the dough at their expense. Tell them elections are all about stopping brown people from coming into the country when it really turns out to be about changing the rules in favor of the mega-rich. Tell them elections are all about stopping lil' babies from being murdered in evil liberal clinics when it is really about funneling money from the poorest class to the richest class.
It still floors me that conservative voters will continually vote against their own best interests, but it happens every single election.
The solution to the WalMart problem is to stop spending your money at WalMart, not using the federal government to force your will upon them.
Curiously I haven't shopped at Walmart in decades, but they are still using my tax dollars to subsidize their profits by getting/teaching/encouraging their workers to file for medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance, so no, your plan does not work.
RI passed a minimum wage bill that is in the process of raising it to $15/hr over the next couple years. Walmart left the state. Good riddance. Where they were we now have a new company paying better wages. Imagine that, my plan works.
Nobody is stopping you. Go start your company and get to work.
Again, having my own company has had negligible effect on large corporations getting handouts from the government and paying next to no taxes due to loop holes and off-shore accounts.
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