First of all... RollingStone magazine is always the 1st place I look for unbiased reliable information....
Also, the article states ".......Modern-day Republicans have become, quite simply, the Party of the One Percent – the Party of the Rich."
Well, if that's the case, I don't know why the Dems need to do ANY campaigning at all... 1% of the vote isn't going to win....
Also it states: "...Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays less than 17 percent of his income in taxes – five percentage points less than a bus driver earning $26,000 a year."
***I know, a Billionaire likely makes more than 1 billion. Thus he likely pays more, but for arguments sake I will use "1 billion=billiionaire".
Alright... Let's do some math. 1,000,000,000x.17= 1,700,000........26,000x(17%+5%)=5,720. Which that is likely inaccurate because I'll bet the "bus driver" will likely get most of that back in a tax return.
Anyway, assuming that is correct the "billionaire" pays..Let's see...1700000/5720=297.2(?!)... Wait... Did I do that right? So the Billionaire pays almost 300 times as much as the bus driver??? That's crazy talk. Someone check my math and tell me where I went wrong! The rich guy probably uses more gov't services too! The selfish nerve of that guy..
(*****I don't particularly like either party. I am for a consumption tax... To me, that is THE MOST fair option.*****)
First of all... RollingStone magazine is always the 1st place I look for unbiased reliable information....
Also, the article states ".......Modern-day Republicans have become, quite simply, the Party of the One Percent – the Party of the Rich."
Well, if that's the case, I don't know why the Dems need to do ANY campaigning at all... 1% of the vote isn't going to win....
Also it states: "...Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays less than 17 percent of his income in taxes – five percentage points less than a bus driver earning $26,000 a year."
***I know, a Billionaire likely makes more than 1 billion. Thus he likely pays more, but for arguments sake I will use "1 billion=billiionaire".
Alright... Let's do some math. 1,000,000,000x.17= 1,700,000........26,000x(17%+5%)=5,720. Which that is likely inaccurate because I'll bet the "bus driver" will likely get most of that back in a tax return.
Anyway, assuming that is correct the "billionaire" pays..Let's see...1700000/5720=297.2(?!)... Wait... Did I do that right? So the Billionaire pays almost 300 times as much as the bus driver??? That's crazy talk. Someone check my math and tell me where I went wrong! The rich guy probably uses more gov't services too! The selfish nerve of that guy..
(*****I don't particularly like either party. I am for a consumption tax... To me, that is THE MOST fair option.*****)
Take the quantity of bus drivers who collectively earn a billion dollars a year. This will be a fairly large group of people. These people together earn exactly the same amount as your billionaire, but pay more in income taxes?
What percentage of that billionaire's income did he pay for his one driver's license? What percentage of their income did that billionaire-worth of bus drivers pay for their multitude of driver's licenses?
For his basic living expenses, what percentage of the billionaire's income goes to sales tax? What about the billionaire-worth of bus drivers?
The billionaire pays more than any individual bus driver, obviously. But he is NOT paying his fair share, far from it. The government receives far more revenue from the billionaire-worth of bus drivers than it does from the billionaire. The gap grows when you look at the middle class instead of the bottom end.
Talk about a "stealth tax".
Your arguments demonstrate exactly why the GOP is the party of the rich. You've just made the argument that the richer you are, the lower a percentage you should pay in taxes. You've just argued that you and a majority of Americans should be financially supporting people who earn thousands of times our wages.
Half of your taxes go to pay a soldier to protect your share of the american dream. Half of that billionaire's taxes go to paying soldiers to protect his share. Now you get your little community together until you have a group of people with a billion dollars in assets, and you walk up to this billionaire and ask him to join your group. You've got a group of people with 2 billion in assets, and that billionaire refuses to pay his half of the cost of defending the group. His assets make your group a bigger target to attack, but he won't pay his share of the common defense.
And this is somehow a *good* thing?
Bull****. For a party that preaches personal responsibility, why do the ultra-rich get a pass? The answer is simple: Republicans are so bad at math that they are more interested in "He pays more than 300 times the taxes of the common man" than "He should be paying his fair share in taxes, even if they are 900 times that of the common man"
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We work together every damn day. --Jon Stewart
Take the quantity of bus drivers who collectively earn a billion dollars a year. This will be a fairly large group of people. These people together earn exactly the same amount as your billionaire, but pay more in income taxes?
What percentage of that billionaire's income did he pay for his one driver's license? What percentage of their income did that billionaire-worth of bus drivers pay for their multitude of driver's licenses?
For his basic living expenses, what percentage of the billionaire's income goes to sales tax? What about the billionaire-worth of bus drivers?
The billionaire pays more than any individual bus driver, obviously. But he is NOT paying his fair share, far from it. The government receives far more revenue from the billionaire-worth of bus drivers than it does from the billionaire.
Sounds to me like "fair share" is a subjective term. I sort of feel like just because Joe schmo makes $xxx more money than John doe, doesn't necessarily mean Joe Schmo should have to pay such a different amount than John doe for _____ service.
Again, I think a consumption based tax is the most fair. Obviously rich folks consume more so they would pay more taxes. Fair is fair.
Also, I like the idea of choosing how much I pay in taxes. If I want to pay less, then I would buy less cr@p.
There will NEVER be any agreement as to what "fair share" means between all income categories. The only way is with some variation of flat tax or sales tax... Basically something that does not look at income to determine the percentage one pays.
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"A society that puts equality ... ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom."
"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom." Alexis de Tocqueville
glad we agree, we have let the republicans change business practice so much that employees are abused, every other developed country has more vacation, no insurance based job locking, no mandatory binding arbitration..... heck at least with slavery they would likely be REQUIRED to provide healthcare....
glad we agree, we have let the republicans change business practice so much that employees are abused, every other developed country has more vacation, no insurance based job locking, no mandatory binding arbitration..... heck at least with slavery they would likely be REQUIRED to provide healthcare....
Yeah, a slave owner had a vested interest in the health of his slaves, just as a cattle rancher has a vested interest in the health of his livestock or a factory owner has in the maintenance of his equipment. Business owners have no such interest in the well being of their menial laborers today. They are disposable. I'd compare them to rental cars, but the rental company has an interest in maintaining their fleet. Menial laborers are more like toilet paper.
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We work together every damn day. --Jon Stewart
We could try labor unions, but that might drive prices so high the work would go offshore.
not all jobs can be moved offshore..... and no we won't have manufacturing jobs and don't want them, it's not unions you are mad at, unions don't force the chinese to work for 50 cents an hour which is the real issue, companies want what is cheapest unless you are advocating to pay americans 50 cents an hour to compete?