What is Digg?479 Comments
- Pssdoff, on 10/10/2007, -30/+114Not one cent collected by the Income Tax goes to ANY government program whatsoever.
ALL the money collected via Income Tax goes directly to pay interest on the national debt.
Currently the system we have ensures that the National Debt can never be paid off EVER.
Watch these to understand the evils of The Federal Reserve.
Fiat Empire
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531
Monopoly Men
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7065177340464808778
The Money Masters
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5...earch&plindex=0 - openthink, on 10/10/2007, -44/+104what's comical (actually really sad) is how the republicans defend the tax cuts by saying but all the less rich also benefit. they twist the facts to suggest the non-rich are benefiting...without clarifying that the hugest benefit goes disproportionately to the richest. what's especially sad is that so many of those least-advantaged don't question or object.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -20/+65Civilizations have proved that the health of a nation isn't how rich a few people are but by the distribution of wealth among all its citizens.
The USA wealth distribution was a diamond shape with the middle class in the middle. It is now becoming an hour glass with the middle class being pushed in the same space as the poor.
Warren Buffet said thanks but he didn't need the extra cash from the Bush tax breaks. Isn't it time we believe him? - Nougat, on 10/10/2007, -19/+61And this is why tax laws favor the rich. Everyone expects that they'll be rich someday. Your odds of becoming rich are virtually nil, unless you are born into money, marry into money or are insanely lucky.
- Rahodeb, on 10/10/2007, -29/+63I don't begrudge the rich their money, as long as it is honestly earned. I hope to be one of them someday, and I don't need some communist ideal of what's fair used to take what I have worked hard for.
- yubman, on 10/10/2007, -5/+38Why not get the information from the horses mouth. The Grace Commission called for by Pres Reagan noted that all income taxes go to the national debt (aka Federal Reserve) back in the 80's.
http://www.uhuh.com/taxstuff/gracecom.htm
"100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government. " - dukeeeey, on 10/10/2007, -20/+52Reminds me of globalisation. Poverty is exported. Stuff is made by slaves, and the people who run the companies at the top make enormous profits. And because the imported goods are so cheap, no one in the local countries can compete and so go bust. Then they all end up working for walmart for min wage.
- theshizzler, on 10/10/2007, -16/+46Sounds to me like we should all be trying to be part of that .25 percent.
- hydroplane, on 10/10/2007, -16/+42Welcome to the Corporated States of America a Limited Liability Country
- laserdog, on 10/10/2007, -6/+28I'd like to suggest the idea that it's possible to guarantee everyone necessary food and medicine without becoming a communist state.
- aloser, on 10/10/2007, -6/+28The title is extremely inaccurate and misleading. The article is about revenue GAINS from 2000 to 2005, not revenue itself.
In regard to the article, think of it this way, you're making 50k a year, your salary increases 10% over 5 years (5k gain). Someone making a million a year in 2000 gets a 10% increase (100k gain).
Do you really expect them to be on par? For it to be equally distributed your salary would have had to have tripled.
And then think about the people who are making 10, 20, 50 million a year who are included in this study.
Statistics tell the story you want them to tell. The article is sensationalism. The title is just plain incorrect. - Pfhreak, on 10/10/2007, -1/+23"Not everyone is equally smart, so why should everyone reap the same benefits?" There's more kinds of intelligence than the kind needed to become rich. Being rich is not proof that someone is "smart". "It's economic natural selection." And I thought Social Darwinism had died out. There's more to becoming rich than being smart, effective, and creative. If that's all that was needed, many artists, scientists, and social workers would be rich, instead of laboring in obscurity. Charisma and ruthlessness are also required.
- Piedramente, on 10/10/2007, -24/+44Oh no!!! The rich people are rich? STOP THE PRESSES!
Yet another article promoting a redistribution of wealth - atheinostic, on 10/10/2007, -5/+23If we really lived in a meritocracy, Paris Hilton would be on the bottom.
- PJ1967, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18Here's what Adam Smith, the intellectual patron saint of conservative economics, had to say about taxes...
"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
-- Wealth of Nations (Book Five, Chapter II, Article I)
"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state."
-- Wealth of Nations (Book Five, Chapter II, Part II)
So, Adam Smith favored a progressive tax system. While it's likely he did not favor soaking the rich in taxes, he did believe that the rich, having a more vested interest in a stable society, should pay more to protect that interest. In other words, you gots more land, you pays more to hire police to protect that land. - kajoob, on 10/10/2007, -18/+34The rich also happen to pay the overwhelming majority of the tax burden.
- RealHyperX, on 10/10/2007, -25/+41top 5% of the US population pays for 90% of all american taxes. If you like communism, go live in China. Heard they have swell toothpaste!
- Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -5/+21"The person who made $40M most likely used their mind and hard work to make that money and deserves to reap the benefits."
WTF? Bullcrap! I can easily show that "hard work" is vastly less important than being born to the right parents.
Two people are born. They each *inherit* money. The first guy inherits $100, the second guy inherits $100,000. They each invest it with equal hard word and intelligence.
After 20 years, the first guy has made +$80. The richer guy made +$80,000.
Making exactly the same business choices, with equal levels of intelligence and hard work, one of them made a thousand times as much. Now repeat the cycle with descendants of each family, where each family is equally hard working and intelligent and they make the same choices.
OMG! One is filthy rich, the other is still pretty poor (with inflation, maybe poorer) and THEY HAVE THE SAME MERIT.
Voila. - 1ifbyclam2ifbyc, on 10/10/2007, -7/+21Wow some people need to learn the difference between revenue and profit. Revenue is how much a company takes in before costs and taxes.
- GibZilla, on 10/10/2007, -7/+21Flat taxes favor the rich. Lets say you tax everyone at 35%, if you are poor and make $20,000 a year you pay $7000 in taxes and take home $13,000. If you make $40,000,000 you pay $14,000,000 in taxes and take home $26,000,000. Which of the two is easier to live on?
- Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -5/+19"No, not everyone thinks they will be rich, nor do the majority favor tax laws that favor the rich. I support a flat tax. No more loopholes, shelters, or reams of tax paperwork."
When you factor in sales taxes, social security, etc. in addition to Income tax, people are already being taxed at a flat rate. Making income taxes flat would actually make overall taxes regressive, where the poorer you are the larger part of your income goes to tax. - g30ff, on 10/10/2007, -5/+17Economic natural selection? Man, I've heard some dumb things here on digg, but that takes the cake.
- laserdog, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14How about this, why don't we all start communicating in sarcastic hyperbole!
- Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11It's a bad analogy because you're confusing inherited wealth with business acumen. A stupid rich guy can easily make more money than a poor smart guy.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -5/+17Nail on the head Nougat. It's such a shame that people don't see it. It's that lottery/Vegas mentality. Like our friend Rahodeb up here. I feel sorry for the dude. He reminds me of the "Trailer Park 'mericans", tellin' how they support Bush and the $300 he gave'm on tax day. People like you Rahodeb get bought cheap with your American Idol mentality. The American Dream has changed, and unless you turn someone else's dream into a nightmare, you aren't going to be the .25% in today's USA. Either-way, best of luck to you there Rahodeb. Best of luck.
- kakwakas, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16And something like 50% of the entire world's money belongs to the richest 6%.
If you're reading this, you're in the top 6%. Be happy that you're that high up on the food chain. - surfacewound, on 10/10/2007, -11/+22Solution? Be one of the 0.25 percent.
- AriaStar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11A lot of the methods to earn money aren't exactly honestly earned. Whipping your employees down, paying them peanuts, so you can reap the fruits of their labor, is not exactly honest work. Paying your employees fair wages and treating them well is another story. But read the article again - the rich are getting richer, yet paying people less and less. They're getting richer partly by cutting employee salaries, because they can.
My problem with the rich is when they treat everyone else like ***** and their employees like non-humans, just to create a larger divide between us and them to make themselves feel more elite and special. - jeffiek, on 10/10/2007, -5/+15Headline is INACCURATE. It's half of the gain, not half of the revenue. Continuing on, the article conveniently neglects to mention what the gain for the 99.75% was. For them (myself included), the increase of the .25% is irrelevant. It neither helps us nor harms us. It is not important what "they" made, it is what YOU made.
Promoting jealousy may serve the interest of the author, but it does the 99.75% and myself no good at all. What does us good is a sound economy and the freedom to reach our highest potential. Those are ideas worth reading about. This is pure propaganda. - wiggles, on 10/10/2007, -1/+112001 data shows that the top 5% earners pay 53% of the taxes collected by the federal government. The top 50% earners pay 96% of taxes collected by the government. Of course, that was before the Bush tax cuts, I'm not sure what it is now.
- arjung, on 10/10/2007, -10/+20i'm sorry, but i disagree.
let's say i make a million dollars a year (not cap gains) and therefore have to pay $250K in taxes.
you make 50K and therefore have to pay 10K or less in taxes.
we get the same benefit from the govt and you pay 1/25 what i pay... how is that fair??? - outhouseinput, on 10/10/2007, -5/+15Sure, capitalism makes everyone unequally rich, and thus tax cuts benefit people disproportionately. But wouldn't you agree that regardless of how much they help, that they help more than they hurt, even to the poor?
It seems like just because someone gets something better than you, you feel that you have to make it so that nobody can get it. Well, my friend, that is not smart. - swrostmore, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11We can't help the poor in our country, that would be socialism! But it is absolutely necessary to help the poor folks in middle-eastern countries to redistribute their oil wealth to the rest of the world...
- shredluc, on 10/10/2007, -6/+15Funny, after seeing how much the top 0.25% pay i would say that the contribute MORE than the other 99.75% combined.
- strafefire, on 10/10/2007, -6/+15Because people like Warren Buffet don't donate BILLIONS to charities!
Nope, he's just eats babies, and drinks goats blood all day! - Tenlow, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12That's what I want to know, what percentage of taxes are paid by that .25% of earners. I'm guessing it's more than 0.25% of all taxes.
- aapala, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8In defense of the OP, it does appear that the original story was amended and that it did previously state "half of America's revenues..."
- Monolith4, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10@ swrostmore
So if you dont work a 9-5 job you dont earn your money? What kind of retard are you? - Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10Exactly! Adam Smith's capitalism model also relies on laws (can't assassinate the competition), regulation, etc. It is also predicated on a freedom of information, e.g. "That food contains X".
A huge chunk of our tax (and the loans that it is paying the debt off of) actually goes towards either economic things which the rich mostly benefit from, or from national defense, which again the rich mostly benefit from. (If China were to invade, who would lose the most?) - RobN, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12What openthink ignores is how much of the income taxes come from this tiny percentage of people who benefited "disproportionately." Democrats are fond of pointing out that 50% of the tax cuts went to the super-rich, while ignoring that 90% of the taxes are paid by that same group -- which means the tax cuts disproportionally helped the non-rich!
Of course, this article isn't talking about taxes at all, which makes the poster's comments idiotic. Then again, the headline is wrong too, since half the revenues don't go to the richest quarter percent, but rather half of all the GAINS went to that group -- which makes sense, because a 0.1% increase in income for someone making a million a year would be greater in actual dollars (at $10,000 per million) than a 20% increase in income for most of us.
Don't let people get away with playing games with percentages and proportions unless they give you ALL the relevant numbers. - g30ff, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8"Economic natural selection is a dumb comment? It's a perfect analogy. You must be stupid too."
Then let's hear you explain it, genius. I'll readily admit that I'm no economist, but I do know something about natural selection (being a PhD candidate in a decidedly evolutionary field and all). - strafefire, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10Actually, the only people in that .25 percent who pay taxes are the not so bright ones.
The way the tax code is written, a person call literally go YEARS before he has to legally pay anything, or he can continue to differ his taxes by using REAL ESTATE. - Frnnkdlxx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Can we start the revolution now?
- StudsTurkel, on 10/10/2007, -14/+21I really don't understand how people can think that it is "fair" to take more money from people, let alone taking MORE money from people based on the fact that they have more of it.
- appetite, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Yes, because money is the measure of all things good, right? *****. There's no way in hell that .25 % of the country impacts half of the efficiency and productivity of the country. Think about that. Wealth is supposed to be produced by labor and innovation. Do you really think those people account for all that? No way in hell. Many of them are just greedy thieves. Look at the most profitable businesses right now: oil, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and military. And they're all doing a horrible job in terms of production and innovation.
- MrSketch, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Warren Buffet also said that he only payed 17.7% in taxes last year (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700097.html). The truly poor ($0-$7.8k) pay 10% and the poor ($7.8k-$31k) pay 15%, everyone else, except the super wealthy, pay more (http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=164272,00.html).
- PJ1967, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Paying an ISP for their service is not the same as paying taxes. If someone uses this internet thingy you speak of to hack your system and steal from you, the ISP isn't going to do ***** about it. However, the FBI would. Who do you think pays the FBI?
It would also seem likely to me that your online business would require a business level internet service as opposed to a stricly "residential" one. If you tried to use a residential service, the ISP would likely notice your usage and either throttle your bandwidth and/or force you to purchase a more expensive "business" service. - XopherMV, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8People making $10K a year can barely pay for all the things they need to survive. Someone earning that little spends every single dime they make on living necessities. That is why the tax rate for earnings up to $15100 is 10%. People making more than that still spend a considerable amount of money for everyday living expenses. That is why the tax rate goes up to 15% for amounts between $15100 and $61300. Higher up the scale are people with more free money to spend. That is why the tax rate increases as it goes up. The more money people have, the more the tax rate increases for that ADDITIONAL amount. Someone making $200K pays 10% up to $15100, 15% on the additional to $61300, 25% on the additional to $61300, 28% on the additional to 123700, and then 33% on the rest. The rich can afford more than the poor. THAT is far more fair than a flat rate, which would literally kill the poor.
- yutt, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Nice ad hominem lacking any rational argument. You truly are "an intellectual".
- BabyWookie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8How about Yugoslavian-style socialism, where every business is owned by the people employed there and the profits are distributed according to personal contribution? This way, instead of apathetic wage slaves, you get people directly invested in the success of the business. Yes, the CEOs should make more than an average workers, but not 100x times more like they now do in this country.
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