Well, you tell me what a 43% and higher federal tax rate would do to the middle class. I'm all ears.Originally Posted by jp1
Well, you tell me what a 43% and higher federal tax rate would do to the middle class. I'm all ears.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
You’re claiming it will do all these things. Yet, when we had that tax rate it didnt. I suppose you’re right that this time could be different. After all, how many times have the republicans promised that tax cuts wouldn’t increase the deficit? Surely if they do it enough times they’ll be proven correct eventually.
The good thing is, right now it's all just speculation and talk. I'll continue hoping we never find out just what effect those sort of rates would have.
I feel lucky in that I've been able to live below my means, using excess dollars to save and invest. As a result, I'm able to retire comfortably with a very nice return on my lifetime of investment. I'm not sure that I could have done the same under those rates. I could have survived and been comfortable I suppose, but I'm not sure that I could have ever stopped working.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
Interesting that you believe a majority of us can agree on one "utopia". I'm already fairly certain your utopia looks very different from mine and there does not appear to be much intersection.
I'd be fine with government not being the "best way to achieve societal goals" but I don't see non-governmental groups stepping up to that in any coordinated equitable fashion. So who takes care of business if for-profits or religious organizations or other affinity groups do not? Those issues do not merely go away for the dreaming.
What constitutes "force"? (genuine question; guns? economic weapons?)
Depends on how you look at that one. In the U.S. Senate, the way one third of this country is represented allows it to force its point of view on the other two thirds. Seems kind of un-American to not let majority rule. Or even have much of a say in what goes on.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
Steve I am not sure that groups would step up in the way that you envision to achieve societal goals, but the statement that you don’t see it happening with the qualifications you give really disses all of the thousands of do-gooder organizations that spend all their time doing good. Also – many of us , OK like me – figure I’m paying into my societal do Gooder dues via taxes to support the humans. Why should I step up more?
I use my Spare money to give to many organizations the government doesn’t support at all. Nor should they.
Last edited by iris lilies; 5-11-19 at 11:14am.
Some groups are better than others at doing good work. Some like the Red Cross have huge salaries for the big wigs and when people donate for a specific cause they kept much of the money. Most military hate the Red Cross. Now the Salvation Army gives a small wage and the money goes to the programs. Anyways no these groups can’t do what the government does. As a society our taxes should pay for services for the common good. A strong middle class is good for the country as a whole. That’s fading and it should worry everyone.
No in many cases the groups can do it better.
The federal government thru its top-down one-size- fits -all approach should be doing a consistent job, one would think, yet the variation in quality of programs like veterans’s hospitals just goes to show all of the regulations in the world does not achieve parity.
It's not a diss. Want to be part of a group that "does good" for left-handed albino dentists living in Missouri? Have at it. But, as things are constructed currently, organizations like that cannot be relied upon to provide a part of the social services safety net that so many believe the government should not provide. The Missouri Society for Left-Handed Albino Dentists, as a non-governmental provider of social services, should not be able to choose which dentists they support, excluding the ones who are gay or black or female or not-Protestant or unmarried or who have green cards -- or to put morality-based restrictions on the ones they serve.
As far as I can see, only the government has the charter to support all equally regardless of gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. And, especially in rural areas and less-populated states, there are many fewer organizations to provide that support and fewer people "on the edges" to band together for themselves. Lots of holes in that safety net.
The other issue I have is the slippery slope on which government subsidy is built. Governmental entities trip over themselves trying to attract companies like Foxconn and Amazon and the Minnesota Vikings, somehow believing -- despite many studies to the contrary -- that their subsidies (TIF, infrastructure improvements, interest-free loans, etc.) will return to them manifold. But the voters for those same entities seem to sing a very different tune in subsidizing, say, children with after-school programs so there's something for them to do besides get in trouble when one or both parents are out at work at minimum-wage jobs. The same voters who are chanting about how people should not be allowed to use the overloaded asylum process in this country are the same ones who don't believe the crop set aside money they get from the government every year is government spending as well. Maybe we need to spend more money on education...
Though I don't use him often as an example, the handicapped relative I sometimes refer to is a good example here. He was graduated from college and started working at a manufacturing company. He contracted a neuromuscular disease through no fault of his own (i.e., didn't become paraplegic by drinking too much and getting behind the wheel). That disease gradually brought him to the point at which he needs every daily care and specialized adaptive equipment. He cannot work -- even though he wants to. In a sense, he's one of the lucky ones since his employer maintained disability insurance coverage for their employees, so he draws on that even though it's nowhere near enough to live on anywhere. So what does he do? Family cannot care for him on anything but an emergency basis because his physical needs are so extensive. Care assistants, even at $10-12/hour with no benefits, add up over 80-hour weeks. He recently needed a new wheelchair access ramp to the house in which he lives; the old one just wore out. That ran around six grand. My relative could live decades longer with this illness. Should he be denied help because he may not be Catholic or white or left-handed or because chance landed him in sparsely-populated Frostbite Falls, Minnesota? Should he be voted off the island and put on an ice floe and sent off into the sunset because of his net expense to society? A lot of the "government shouldn't provide a safety net" conversation I've seen to date seems to rely on generalities and doesn't get to the rubber meeting the road on surprisingly typical cases like this.
Agreed to this. My expanded view of this, however, includes for-profit corporations and churches and private colleges. Charity runs more than one way.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
Yes Steve people don’t really think about what catastrophic events happen to people and what type of expenses/care you could end up needing. Depending on charity to fill that need is ridiculous.
Usually, we pay for the tax person and net about the same or up to 2x as much. This year? This year our refund paid for the tax person. Just increased my determination to get out of being self-employed so that we have to do the most complicated part of our taxes, my schedule C.
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