The Income Tax Burden of the Top 1%: A Geographical Perspective

Obviously its wrong that an extremely small percentage of citizens control so much of the wealth of the country. Obviously, if corruption and greed didn't exist, it wouldn't be seen as a problem. But sadly, its becoming increasingly worrisome that more people are becoming poorer while others, who already have so much, are being even richer. At what point do you hit that ceiling where you have so much money you seriously can't possibly spend it? And are these people obtaining it through moral means? Legal? Yes. But a lot of it is REALLY scummy. Honestly, the bonuses that certain CEOs get is completely out of line. Its hard to intelligently justify the salaries that some people have obtained. But someone is willing to agree to these salaries and bonuses. Is it all self serving? Probably.

If all the extreme wealth was going towards projects that were helping the country as a whole, than who's to criticize? There are many who are doing great good with it all. Others are just hording it away saving it to pass it down, which is fine or using it for unscrupulous goals...NOT FINE!! Its hard to say any of them should be FORCED to use it a certain way. Its when govt is involved that it gets dicey. ANYONE working for the govt should not be obtaining great WEALTH. The govt was NEVER designed that way. The corruption where politicians kick back to supporters and supporters donate to control politicians, has to END!!! The time of people studying to be life long politicians needs to be nipped in the bud.

 

There is a problem with the growing division in this country. But I'm less worried about the wealth piling up on one side of it, that why it's happening. The question of why so many folks are choosing to pay one side and not the other seems to be the key.

If there's something 'scummy' or 'immoral' about how folks are earning their money, then let's discuss that. Maybe we can agree it's wrong and pass a law prohibiting that behavior or practice. If we can't find a cause we can agree should be illegal, then the cause is simply that one side is offering more value than they're consuming -- and the other side isn't. Taxing wealth back across the divide won't fix that problem, it will only hide it and let it get worse.​

 

In my opinion, we should have actually solved poverty in our republic by now instead of still merely paying for a War on Poverty.

 

Poverty is solved by helping folks produce more than they consume.​

 

Assuming you have good health, yes. If you get cancer, you might enter poverty without a good insurance plan.

 

Won't happen as long as the two party system keeps playing favorites, and embracing cronyism. Yes both parties!

 

You might be right. There's no guarantee we will solve poverty, but increasing our options in government beyond two parties and calling out our politicians that do play favorites, might be a good start.​

 

I wish that lefties did know who is really paying the vast bulk of the taxes. Not sure however that it would matter. I saw a clip of Sharpton being asked how much the top 10% paid, and his response was much lower, laughably so, than the actual percentage. He just kept talking and his ignorance did not seem to bother him at all.

 

It seems to me, that we merely need to solve for any rate of unemployment above one percent through public sector intervention in the market for labor.

 

I am not sure what you mean by that, under our republican form of Government. Are you implying that we must purchase our privileges and immunities with our tax dollars under any form of Capitalism regardless of a republican form of Government?

 

That is economically impossible and stupid. Not to mention that gives the public sector complete and total domination over private sector taxpayers who they serve.

 

Simply appealing to ignorance does nothing to inspire any confidence in your sincerity since such a public policy would merely be an investment in the general welfare due to an already proven positive multiplier effect; and, would result in securing greater individual liberty by letting market participants allocate their dollars according to their consumer preference in a market friendly manner.

 

A theory that has been completely and totally debunked by the facts of real life. In the real world, the public sector is totally dominated by powerful rent seekers like green snake oil salesmen, silicon valley industrialists, and academia who suck up all the funds and put them into their pockets.

There is no multiplier effect. That is a myth as well.

Your economic theories are garbage and have been debunked thoroughly. Why not just cut a check for 10,000 in cash to each unemployed American if you want an absurd demand side solution?

 

Debunked by whom? Everyone I have argued this point with resorted to as many fallacies as you.

 

None of that (*)(*)(*)(*)ing math can possibly account for the overwhelming presence of influence peddling democrats and thier rent seeking special interest groups like solyndra, Jon Corzine style industrialists, and public sector unions!

Why won't you admit that democrat politicians are the most corrupt in America and direct money to equally corrupt special interests that elect them?

In order to prevent anymore corruption we have to starve democrat special interest of money. Which means starving the corrupt public sector and forcing it into submission to the Republicans who are almost solely responsible for the taxes that pay the public sector because dems sure don't pay taxes!

 

I am not sure what you are referring to. I am only advocating being moral enough to bear true witness to our own laws, simply for the sake of morals and a more efficient economy, instead of merely transferring our incomes on a generational basis while not accomplishing our objective.

 

I heard you could fart the Horst Wessel song pitch perfect, which rang true until I realised this implied a man who was incapable of controlling his thoughts could manage his sphincter enough to get a tune out of it. Bet you wish you could though.

 

I agree, the higher incomes are taxed disproportionately higher. I am all for a flat tax and we all get taxed the same.

 

Fifty years ago was the 60's and coming up on the 70's, quite modern times. So prove that the poor are poorer now than they were then. And if you are able to do so then acknowledge the failure of the war on poverty and the massive amounts of tax payers dollars we poured into it.

Well they do but it is not the job of government to take the earnings of one person and give it to another to subsist on.

How does your viewpoint regarding taking money from those who earn it and giving it to those who don't which we have done in increasing sums and are at record levels now account for the failure to bring those of the receiving end into to productive end? But to address you question people can have LOTS of marginal utility when they can express it with other peoples money.

 

solving poverty will never happen. That is because some causes of poverty are not fixable. Drug and alcohol addiction is one example, you cannot stop everyone from drinking and drugging, and it leads to poverty for millions.....
..
. anyone who thinks its possible to end poverty dont understand all the causes of poverty or the human psyche, Jesus was right when he said "you will ALWAYS have the poor with you", because he understood human nature...
. Liberals often are unaware, ignore, or delude themselves about some negative human behavior, and that any attempts to achieve their, and any, "Idealistic" or "Eutopian" levels of existence in our society is futile and doomed to failure....
...
. Liberals have a need to feel superior, and they believe that at least attempting to implement policies and govt controls that ideally would lead to a Eutopia is morally superior to a conservatives view of pragmatism and awareness that human behavior wont allow a eutopia to ever exist, and that, in fact, those
.......
....... attempts at eutopia usually, if not always, has a detremental effect on some of those who its suppose to help because libs dont take into consideration the basic human nature of many people to exploit and steal from such programs.
.
a perfect example of that is "welfare", which was suppose to end poverty in our time, when in fact it made poverty a more difficult reality for some to shed because of the basic nature of some people to be lazy and accept welfare instead of seeking work.
....the above mentioned explotation, thievery and laziness are only a few of many, inevitable basic human behaviors of some people.

 

If you are talking about giving the public sector any more funds, power, or control of any kind to gain more freedom, economically or otherwise, is nonsense.
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..\people can philosophize, theorize, research, study, provide graphs and information and statistics, til the earth gets sucked into a dead star, aka black hole (xlint description of the govt) but the bottom line and the basic and simple truth is ,,,,more govt, less freedom.
.
. that is easily proven by the founding fathers, who on first attempt failed to provide the central govt, feds, enough power for the states to work in harmony and sucess. Their err on the side of caution, was to err in having too little govt, rather than too much govt, and they had just risked their careers, wealth, reputation, social standing, and even their lives
to stop the govt from being too big and powerful, yet today we handily destroy their accomplished goal because we consider immediate results more important than virtue in deciding what power and control the govt should and does have.

 

I am not sure why you believe persons are more or less poor now than they were at some time in history is relevant, we have official poverty now and we should deal with it in modern times; and, in my opinion, in a manner that is friendly to the markets of Commerce.

Why do you believe income transfers may not be necessary to reallocate resources via public sector intervention? What if I claim that those tax monies you claim are being transferred from one person to another person are coming from public sector means of production and Duties, Imposts and Excises? And, I could further claim that what you believe to be true of persons is really only true of our war on drugs, which is specifically coming from your tax dollars but not my tax dollars? The point I am getting at is that special pleading is simply that.

Why do you believe money should be earned? From that perspective, capital gains are not earned and neither is corporate welfare.

 

You may be confusing poverty with merely being poor. Only one can be solved via personal initiative. In any case, no one a guaranteed to succeed in life but merely the opportunity to try. We could be solving for a poverty money when due to a simple lack of income that is usually associated with employment, through unemployment compensation that clears our poverty guidelines, simply for being unemployed. What excuse could a person have for staying poor, if they are not in official poverty where all it would really take is personal initiative instead of luck?

 

All I am suggesting is merely being moral enough to bear true witness to our own laws and using existing infrastructure and existing laws.

 

Lack of personal initiative.