Nevertheless, the Buffett Rule is a good symbolic start that will resonate with the post-OWS electorate and keep their attention on the inequalities in the economy, which is where Obama needs to keep the focus.

Is that your assessment? Or, to be more accurate, is raising taxes on the wealthy strictly symbolic?

What about raising corporate taxes?

Bryant

Used to be 2/3 of the revenue collected by the IRS. Now its only 1/3. Of course, there are so many loopholes that many large corporations pay no taxes, or even receive subsidies. If the loopholes were closed and subsidies eliminated, its likely the corporate rate could be greatly reduced, yet still generate greater tax revenue. This would be a needed boost for small businesses.

Will I still be alive?

why is collective bargaining the magic bullet?

Back when the marginal tax rates on the wealthy were over 70%, business owners were incentivized to reduce their tax burden by putting their money back into their businesses, or opening new businesses and branches. That often meant paying higher wages to keep and reward good workers, along with retooling etc. The tax code and its deductions made the choice easy - give that money to the government OR put it back into your business and reduce your tax liability.

By lowering the tax rate to the historically low levels of today, the business owner no longer has to think in such terms. If an additinal 40% of your income isn't even subject to taxes (ie: paying at today's 30% rate, rather than JFK's 70%), you may as well just take the extra income as personal, non-taxable profit, then take whatever deductions you have available and lower your adjusted rate to 12-15%. Of course, by taking the profits for yourself, you don't have any money left over to pay your employees more, especially as the government isn't stanidng there incentivizing you to "use it or lose it" by plowing it back into your business.

well, treat their customers right, etc. If every extra dollar of profit goes largely to taxes, there is less incentive to maximize short term profit at the expense of long term business viability.

When business owners pay low taxes, most of every additional dollar they earn by screwing their workers and/or their customers, stays in their pocket - a very tempting incentive to think short term and pocket the extra profit.

if businesses would pay what they actually owe for starters. I know that that is sort of a pipe dream but I think that the Feds, as well as every state and locality refuse to consider paying businesses a single penny more in tax subsidies, cuts, etc. until businesses start paying what they actually owe and stop dodging their actual obligations.

Corporations do an end run around using slave labor in the US which is illegal here sort of...and buy goods from other countries that use slave labor. So essentially slave labor in the US isn't entirely illegal. Raise taxes on the rich. Reduce military spending. Shut down bases in other countries especially those bases that are just their being used by corporations as their own personal security force. Watch how quick some corporations leave a country when they don't have free security.

This is just like Alice and the Red Queen trying to get ahead while running into the wind.

Loopholes are created for the incentives they provide to get the rich to do what Gov't prefers.

If you cut taxes, you actually reduce the real incentive value of the loopholes.

The job creators implementation of job creation is being stymied by the LACK of value of existing incentives to the rich.

If we want job creators to create jobs, we need twice as many loopholes.

To fix things, we MUST see the economic realities of Wonderland.

To make Wonderland function properly the thing to do is

RAISE TAXES AND CREATE MORE LOOPHOLES!!!



I wish I could hang a sarcasm smilie on this...but I think I need the currently nonexistent "painful irony of reality" smilie.

which is supposed to cure all, but won't."

(Kinda like how the "liberally-biased corporate media" portrays Obama's "All of the above" energy concerns as one specific thing, then they say the magic word "Solyndra!" like it will make Obama vanish)

and yet, when a Republican uses the magic words (magic cure-all) of "lower taxes" ... it's generally accepted as a "great fix" for the problem of ... whatever the topic was at the moment.

.. another a straw man. Nobody ever said they would.

Taxes on the rich are not the sole solution but THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL TO ANY SOLUTION. Every serious analysis of our problems concludes that both reduced spending and increased taxes are an absolute requirement for any workable solution.

In fact, the "Bush" tax cuts are IN FACT the cause of a lot of the current deficit.

of course, they didn't check with their TEA Party masters when they added their expert opinion, and were denounced.

Note that those were not paid for with cuts elsewhere. It shut 'em up every time. I had one try to blame our economic deficits on President Obama's "failed" stimulus just this past weekend. Every time I pointed out the facts, he changed the subject. Needless to say, he was all for half of our budget going to defense, because we "NEED that!" Typical bed-wetting right-winger.

that doesn't mean they shouldn't pay their fair share.

this isn't about deficits

this isn't about the increasing inequality

this isn't about the dying middle class

this isn't about employment numbers

this isn't about dead end jobs

This Is About Basic Fairness and The POSSIBILITY of the Rule of Law. If we can't have this then I suspect that the rest of that is out of reach inside this system.

That will force them to leave more money in their companies. When they reinvest job are created and wages go up.

If the wages are paid for by raising the price of goods (inflation), then the wage increase is worthless. It needs to come out of the hides of the ultra rich. And the only way to do that is with a high top marginal tax rate that doesn't have a pile of holes for them to weasel through. That however, will NEVER happen, because THEY control the reins of government.

I make sure to say that it's PART of a solution...I usually start off with
other stuff first and then bring up raising taxes on the wealthy last.
It seems to get a better response that way.

on the ground effective change here and meaningfully raising taxes is another one not for some kind of magic but to staunch the bleeding in the treasury as quickly as possible and to promote some investment rather than leaving incentives to walk away with a pile of money in your pocket.

Wealth needs to be a product of investment over time rather than what capers can be pulled to impact the next earnings report to ca$h in on quick and move on the next score.

I guess that could help some problems but isn't a smart approach in the long run.

Ask Zimbabwe

Tax the 1% at a 99% rate and only allow deductions for ACTUAL upgrades in equipment and jobs in their businesses.

and I dont care either if it is enough,it is the fair and right thing to do and will still benefit all of us.

Make the special bonds held the the SS Trust Fund interest free. The Federal Govt. currently spends about 116 billion a year in interest payments to the SS Trust Fund for the money already borrowed. Eliminating the the cap would roughly generate enough revenue to replace the interest money paid into the Trust Fund.

As SS will continue to run at a surplus for the next several years, the Federal govt. will borrow that, interest free, to fund a massive infrastructure improvement program. Every billion spent on the interstate highway system generates about 40,000 jobs.

Money can also be used to upgrade our national electrical system. Making it more efficient and creating more jobs. Also funds to be used for the construction of solar, geothermal, wind, hybrid, and biomass power generation plants.

One can also consider raising the minimum wage so that one who makes that today would have the same purchasing power as one who made minimum wage back in 1968 and that would be about $10.50 an hour. This would generate more revenue from SS taxes which the govt. could borrow, interest free, to fund more job creating projects.

The above won't solve our debt problem but it could be the beginning of a snowball effect. It took two decades of having a robust economy and high tax rates for this nation to pay off its WWII debt.

American labor is now competing with labor in other countries that will make the same products for less money. Historically, that was not true, but it is now and unions in this country have lost a lot of leverage as a result.

We need trade agreements that protect our workers from unfair competition. The playing field should be level and I believe that is not what we have now.

And every journey has to start somewhere.

The power of high marginal tax rates is not the in the direct levy itself, but in changing the economic math. It changes the decisions high-income people make to avoid paying those high rates.

If you are so high up on the income totem pole that 70-90% of every extra dollar you add to the pile has to go off to Uncle Sam, then you start finding looking for other things to do with it than to just add it to your pile. Charitable donations, certain forms of investment, and simply paying people more become better uses of those resources than just letting them get taxed away.

It also works against speculation and liquidation of assets that someone else built up. If much of a "big win" from derivatives gambling or dismantling a company to ship its production overseas and sell its property gets taxed at high rates, those options become much less attractive. It strengthens the hand of long-term thinking over quarterly-report thinking.


Yes, collective bargaining and higher wages are what is needed, but high marginal taxes on the wealthy help create a favorable terrain for that fight. It is not an either-or kind of thing.