

I'm rich; tax me more - mattmaroon
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gruener-tax-the-rich-20100920,0,6399518.story

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grandalf
The problem is not the progressive tax system. How progressive it should be is
a legitimate matter to be debated.

The problem is that and middle class pay _far too little_ in taxes, to the
point where they happily allow elected officials to overspend. This is
entirely rational from their perspective, since the most outrageous spending
will only result in a few more dollars of taxes owed over the course of a
year. It's known as a collective action problem in economics.

For example, the Iraq war should have cost the typical middle class taxpayer
at least $500 in 2001, $500 again in 2002, and so on.

Instead, Bush gave a tax rebate intended to make a large swath of the
population ignore the massive cost of the war.

Why shouldn't the average American pay just over $1 per day for a war? Why
shouldn't he/she pay just over $1 per day for healthcare? As it stands, both
of these were free so why should anyone really give them too much thought?

Bottom line: If the public actually had to pay for the grand schemes, there
would be significant pressure not to waste money and taxes for everyone would
be far lower than they are today.

To argue against this you either misunderstand my point and thing I'm
advocating raising taxes or you think that the public being blind to spending
is a good thing.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
The war is just another form of elitist corporate welfare. Bush sent a bunch
of poor uneducated minority kids to war and used them to fight over a country
so the corporations can export our jobs to.

Don't kid yourself, the rich love socialism, but only for themselves, not for
anyone else.

~~~
grandalf
So you would seem to support my argument. Bush's propaganda may have been
enough to get the middle class on board to support his wars, but I imagine
that if it'd come with a tangible price tag the propaganda would have failed
miserably.

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noelchurchill
_For nearly the last decade, I've paid income taxes at the lowest rates of my
professional career. Before that, I paid at higher rates. And if you want the
simple, honest truth, from my perspective as an entrepreneur, the fluctuation
didn't affect what I did with my money. None of my investments has ever been
motivated by the rate at which I would have to pay personal income tax._

This is wrong and he's missing the point. It's not important what he feels
he's motivated to do, or not do. The important part is that every additional
dollar he pays in taxes is one dollar fewer he get's to invest in whatever it
is he's motivated to invest in. It's the opportunity cost that we need to
evaluate. And a large percentage of every dollar he pays in taxes will be lost
in the inefficiencies of large government bureaucracy. He would be able to
make much more efficient decisions on how to spend that money himself, and
that's what's lost when when he pays a higher tax rate.

~~~
0abdd0e66h
"he's missing the point"

This is what gets me about a lot of people who argue against anything related
to increases in taxes despite the practicality of it. They refuse to look at
it in an objective light and take up ideological arguments. Really? A 4%
increase on 2% of the population is going to destroy the country? You don't
even care about it. It's against your "principles" despite the fact that we're
hurting and that makes it wrong.

~~~
lzw
I think you misunderstand those who argue against increases in taxes. The
argument is not "principles" but practicality of it. It is never %4 on %2. For
instance the "bush tax cuts" would have cut the taxes of the poorest brackets
in half, but the democrats wouldn't allow that. That there was %7 on %90 or
so.

High taxes are why we're hurting in the first place. It is government that has
so damaged our economy. Take the housing bubble, for instance. Ideologues want
to pretend that "banks" caused it, but the reality is it was clinton and bush.

During the clinton era, they decided that "lending money only to people who
can pay it back is racist" and changed bank regulations to make the "american
dream" available to "all". Then under bush, the interest rate-- controlled by
the government via the federal reserve-- was lowered below inflation, which
means you could borrow money and earn a zero-risk return on it higher than the
cost of borrowing. The primary mechanism for this was the housing market.

Thus, housing bubble. Leftists like Krugman praised it claiming that the
housing bubble was just what the economy needed. Meanwhile, practical people
who understand economics warned against it.

Now, after half a decade of listening to political types claim there was no
housing bubble, or that the bankers caused it, you're now claiming we need to
raise taxes because its "practical".

I'd like to see you explain how it is practical.

One things for sure, it won't help the economy.

~~~
prodigal_erik
The CRA required the _same_ lending standards for good credit risks in
minority neighborhoods, not _lower_ standards. And it didn't even apply to the
shady mortgage banks who fueled the housing bubble. They were eager to write
loans to anyone who could fog a mirror, because they knew they could get a
bent rating and dump even the stupidest loan on Wall St.

~~~
bd_at_rivenhill
Actually, the CRA has very vague requirements, which led it to be used as a
tool in a political process whereby community activists worked to block
expansion of banks which did not meet their criteria. When stuck between the
requirement that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a
safe and sound manner and the vocal opposition of politically powerful groups,
the regulators did the logical thing in their situation and avoided bad
publicity by relaxing standards. In addition, the law was changed to require
Fannie and Freddie to do more business in low to moderate income areas in the
early 2000s, which defacto reduced their standards and allowed a great deal of
crappy subprime paper to be stamped with an implicit (later explicit)
government guarantee. If it weren't for this last part, a lot of those loans
could not have been securitized. The flood of low quality mortgages did not
come as a result of regulatory laxity but of legislative intent, and that is
the story that is not being told.

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esponapule
I'm poor, tax me less.

