online.wsj.com — Take everything the top 2 percent of the wealthiest Americans earn, and it still won't be enough. In order to pay for his very ambitious domestic agenda, President Obama is inevitably going to have to tax, and heavily, the middle class.
Feb 26, 2009 View in Crawl 4
bombulaFeb 26, 2009
The whole taxation debate is really about what % tax rate is at the top of the Laffer Curve.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve</a>The douchebag writer at the WSJ seems not to understand this basic economic concept, since he goes to great lengths to play out the "even if the tax rate on the rich was 100% ..." I guarantee you Obama knows what the Laffer Curve is, as do all of his economic advisors - and probably just about everyone on his entire staff. Funny that the moron writing for the WALL STREET Journal apparently doesn't.Moreover, the optimum tax rate is different for different levels of income. On top of that, you have to account for the impact that a tax burden is going to have on the overall economy. We've just proven that we don't have a viable _investment_ economy as the right-wing ideology had claimed was possible - in other words, we've just seen that the engine of our economy cannot be earnings based on investment, whether at home or overseas. In other words, you can't base your entire economy on earning interest, because that just creates imaginary wealth in the form of a bubble - and bubbles burst. That means rich people pushing money around is not the engine of the economy. Something else is.Thankfully, we know what that something is: consumption. We are a consumer-driven economy. If rich people want to make profit by shuffling money in and out of companies, those companies have to DO something - like make toothbrushes or hamburgers or cars or shoes. And if people aren't buying those things, no amount of investment juggling is going to save help companies generate earnings.Well guess who the consumers are? Is it the top 1% - the millionaires and billionaires - who buy shoes and burgers and t-shirts and pick-up trucks by the trainload? Of course not. And it's not people scraping by on minimum wage either. It's the middle class.The middle class is the engine of the economy. You want a healthy economy, you make sure the middle class can afford to buy stuff. A very good way to do that is to not tax the hell out of them.Another whine you here from WSJ and other right-wingers is that if you tax the rich, there won't be any money for investment in companies and there won't be any credit for small businesses, etc, etc. It's a complete crock because the housing bubble was created by having too much money and not enough places to invest it in - that's what made credit ridiculously cheap for the last 10 years. The truth is, we got into this financial mess because the richest 1% had so much f**king money they didn't know what to do with it, and for lack of better options they cooked up the subprime scheme in order to build a zillion new homes so that they would have something to use their money for. Of course we know how that 'investment' turned out. Instead, we should have been taxing these people at 10% higher than we were and using that money to pay down the debt, invest in infrastructure, reform healthcare, and all the other things Obama is now talking about doing.WSJ: the definition of having your head up your own ass.
remeloxFeb 26, 2009
Just because she is someone else's wife doesn't mean it is legal to beat her.
puterprsnFeb 26, 2009
Perhaps you misunderstand how big business works. There's no "mr. big" at the top of most corporations. There's a gazillion shareholders like your grandparents that invested in the company. If those shareholders got together to actually vote on stuff and make the boards behave rather than just signing the waivers and allowing the boards to do whatever they thought necessary to improve profits, the outsourcing could stop. Of course, the profits would go down as well, which would impact the retirement benefits.
tasineFeb 27, 2009
Wow, you are cheap. I have a load of cow manure I'll sell you cheap.
theswashbucklerFeb 27, 2009
Are you implying that only the top 2% in this country work?
gaoshanFeb 27, 2009
Whatever Obama's plan does, and your scenario is laughable, it will be a hundred times better than the steaming pile of fail that the Republicans have left us with. I welcome my taxes going up if it will help this country heal. The fact that conservatives will be forced by the left pay out their hard earned dollars to help clean up their mess just makes it better. Poetic justice. You people deserve it.
bkemperFeb 27, 2009
I didn't say anything about 48 million without insurance. My half-sentence about health insurance was not the main thrust of my comment, but congratulations on finding something there to argue with while ignoring the rest. And congratulations if you are satisfied with the spiraling cost of health insurance, as I know many people personally for whom it results in less take-home pay every year, or else they are forced to do without. And knock off the name-calling, why don't you?
griberalFeb 27, 2009
If government health care is enacted, there needs to be some guidelines that the free loaders have to abide by. If you take government health care you should not be allowed to smoke, drink, or do drugs. These free loaders should also have to be within the standard weight for their age and body type. They should also be required to submit to drug tests and examinations every four months. If they don't follow the guidelines then they should lose their coverage. Also, there should be certain doctors that only handle government patients, and they should be the only ones that they can go to. Since these people are not paying for their insurance, I'm sure we can agree that these guidelines are only fair.