We just need more productive people instead of the whiners and libtards that exist today. It can't be helped that some of the affluent are naturally more intelligent and smarter than the average chap, that they actually had a novel idea or sold a product that was in demand, of course leftist retards who never produced a thing in their meager lives want to tax them because governments generation ZERO wealth.
Intelligence Squared U.S. hosts a debate on whether the rich are taxed
enough in the United States. How do we fix the economy? The U.S.
government's budget deficit is nearing a trillion dollars for the fourth
straight year and unemployment remains high. With the Bush-era tax cuts
that are set to expire at the end of 2012, what is the best move for
continued economic recovery? President Obama says we should raise taxes
on those making more than $250,000 to reduce the deficit. Others say
that the richest 1% already pay more than a quarter of all federal taxes
and higher taxes for job creators would slow economic growth. Are the
nation's wealthiest not paying their "fair share," or should tax breaks
be extended for everyone in the name of job creation? For the Motion:
Glenn Hubbard and Arthur Laffer. Against the Motion: Robert Reich and
Mark Zandi.
Last year, the government took in roughly $1.1 trillion in income taxes (including payroll taxes) from 138 million American individuals and families filing returns. The top 1,380,000 taxpayers, the top 1 percent, paid a total of 38% of the total revenues collected, or $418 billion. That comes to an AVERAGE income tax paid of $303,000 each. That’s over $5,800 per week in income taxes that those people had to pay. How can anyone say they’re not paying their fair share?
ReplyDeleteThe top 6,900,000 taxpayers, the top 5 percent, paid 59 percent of the total revenues, or $649 billion. That comes to an AVERAGE income tax paid of $94,058 each, or almost $2,000 per week. I’m sure we all know lots of people who would be happy to just earn $2,000 per week before taxes.
The top 13,800,000 taxpayers, the top 10 percent, paid a total of 70 percent of the total revenues, or $770 billion. That comes to an AVERAGE income tax paid of $55,797 each, over $1,000 per week in taxes.
Those are some pretty serious numbers when you consider that the average total annual income tax paid by the bottom 50 percent of filers came to only $478 each. That comes to only about $9 per week on average.
Each time one of the top 1 percent gets fed up and moves to a different country, our economy has to generate over 600 new entry-level jobs to replace the tax revenue the government loses as a result.
One only need to look at the mass exodus of the rich from France, now that their new socialist president has raised the marginal tax rate for income over 1 million Euros a year to 75 percent. I get real frustrated listening to the pundits on Fox say that Obama doesn’t get it, and is making a big mistake by insisting on higher rates for the rich because it won’t help create jobs if he does so. Au contraire – Obama knows exactly what he’s doing. By raising rates and driving the rich out of the country, he’s hastening the collapse of our economy and our entire way of life, which is, after all, his primary objective.
FS