Do you support taking money from the rich and giving it to those that are poor?

Where doe that occur? When did that occur? Can you supply a single example that otherwise wasn't obtained illegally?

 

not sure what you're asking

 

People shouldn't pay more. How about we lower everyone's tax rate to the lowest level possible? America's government does not have a tax problem, they have a spending problem. Stop spending so much!!

 

I don't see any spending problem. Just a funding problem.

 

how about the billionaires pay more and the rest of us pay less

 

How about we all pay less.

 

Are you suggesting that when one acquires wealth they become immortal?

The quantity of stocks or bonds someone owns has almost no impact on me. Or you. Or anyone else.

That would take 100s of years if not 1,000s of years to play out.

Are you suggesting that you're immortal?

That is entirely you're fault, because none of you will man up and do what needs to be done.

Here, I've already got a starter-kit for you:

Proposed 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution [Annotated]

Section 1

No person or entity shall contribute money, or goods, services, tangible property or intangible property in lieu of money, to a political candidate, or to the political campaign of a ballot initiative, who is not a natural born or naturalized United States citizen, and who is not legally domiciled and eligible to vote within the geographical area that an elected official serves or represents, or in which a ballot initiative may be operative.

Notes:
1) One does not need to be registered to vote. One need only be lawfully eligible to vote in the place they are domiciled. This bars "snow-birds" from voting in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida and then voting by absentee ballot in New York, Michigan, Ohio, et al, while they're snow-birding in southern States for the Winter.
2) If you cannot legally vote for a candidate, then you cannot contribute money to their campaign. That means Soros, and Gates and the Koch Bros can contribute money to presidential campaigns; to the gubernatorial candidates of the State in which they live, but not those in other States; to the Senators in their States, but not other States; to their congressional representative, but not Congress-critters in other States, and not Congress-critters in other districts in their State; to judges and elected county officials in their county, but no other; to mayorial candidates in the city where they live, but to no other; and to ballot initiatives in their city, county, or State, but no other.

Section 2

Political parties shall not transfer or distribute campaign funds or monies raised, donated or accumulated within a State to another State or to the several States.

Notes:
1) Campaign donations received by political parties in a particular State must be spent in that State. What has been happening for the past 40 years is that if Democrat Senatorial Candidate Ass-clown is gonna win by a hefty margin in Ohio, then the Democrat Party of Ohio dumps money into the campaign of Democrat Senatorial Candidate Ass-wipe in Nevada who is in a close race and might win, if only he had mo' money. Likewise, if Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Doofus is going to win Michigan, then Republicans dump mo' money into the campaign of Gubernatorial Candidate Dork in Iowa to help him win. Section 2 puts an end to that nonsense.

Section 3

Any natural person who knowingly or willfully commits a violation of this Amendment shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years and fined not less than 300 percent of the amount of money, or goods, services, tangible property, or intangible property, contributed to the political candidate or the political campaign of a ballot initiative.

Notes:
1) That applies to people, as in human beings.

Any non-natural person or entity who knowingly or willfully commits a violation of this Amendment shall be placed in receivership for a term of not less than 7 years, and not more than 10 years, and fined not less than 500 percent of the amount of money, or goods, services, tangible property, or intangible property, contributed to the political candidate or the political campaign of a ballot initiative. The United States Bankruptcy Court having jurisdiction over the non-natural person or entity shall appoint a receiver to act as trustee

Notes:
1) This applies to all non-humans, including publicly-traded corporations, all for-profit and non-profit entities, including for-profit S-Corps, limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships, limited partnerships, general partnerships (but not sole proprietors), and all non-profit organizations, including unions, think-tanks, political action committees (PACs), colleges, universities, clubs, etc, etc etc.
2) Since non-human entities cannot be imprisoned, the US Bankruptcy Court appoints a receiver who takes control of the entities finances. For a publicly-traded corporation, its stock price would drop to $0.03/share and it would end up filing bankruptcy anyway, so it's a good thing a receiver will already be in place. The receiver will ensure the 500% fine is paid, and will have total control over every facet of the entity's operation, as receivers normally do.

Section 4

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 5

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date its submission.

Now, go forth and have your State legislature amend your State's constitution and if they refuse, then get them voted out and have this put up as a ballot initiative to make it an amendment to your State constitution then work on getting it added to the US Constitution, which should be easy to do, since you now own your State legislature once again.

The reason good people don't run for office is because they refuse to kiss Democrat/Republican ass and they ain't got $3 Million to spend just to elected as mayor of your city.

Now, once the money obstacle has been eliminated, basically, anyone with internet access can run for any political office.

 

Actual examples. I understand why you don't actually want to discuss specifics. They entirely undercut your narrative. Hence the duplicity.

 

so if the billionaires don't pay even less, the middle class should suffer

 

Nope. How do billionaires cause people to suffer? They don’t. It’s the taxes that cause them to suffer and that is government.

 

we saw Trump and Romeny's tax returns... we saw Amazon paid no taxes.... plenty of examples

 

I thought you were saying if the billionaires do not get a tax cut, the middle class should not

 

Which still means taxes, most of which isn't spent on 'government' per se.

Approximately 45% of total government revenue (which includes borrowings BTW) is spend at the State level. So that stays put. Of the remaining 55%? about two thirds goes on non-discretionary spending - 80% of which is Medicare, Medicaid and social security. Of the remaining one third discretionary spending? More than half of the remainder goes on defense.

So after deducting social security, health and defense from the mix the Federal government spends about 28% of the federal government spending on 'other' (which includes things like the court system, post office, weather service & homeland security etc.)

Which means, unless you decide you don't need a defense force, health care benefits and social security that's all you've got to play with in terms of slashing 'big government' i.e. just over 15c in the dollar of the Federal Governments tax take. Or if you prefer just over 12c in the dollar of every dollar you pay in tax.

Not so much a 'small' government then. More like 'low fat/reduced calorie' government.

 

Didn’t I say that? I should have. Everyone, billionaires included, should pay low, low

Are you telling me there is no room to reduce this budget to a level of spending far less taxpayer money?

First, strip all programs not specifically authorized to the federal government by the Constitution, then cut the remainder by 50%. The very least to be accomplished is to remove any need for debt.

Yes, that would put greater burden on state and local governments, but that is where it belongs. It’s also where citizens have to be far more vigilant to control costs. The closer the cost of running government is to the individual the more scrutiny it will get.

 

I didn't say there was no room. I said there was little room. Certainly not enough to get that 'small government' your dreaming of.

And that's not going to change anytime soon. Not unless all of a sudden a magical consensus gets reached between both sides of politics as to where any significant cuts should be made. And that in turn won't happen without a similar broad consensus also having being reached amongst the various power blocks/factions/lobbies etc supporting each side. So you want rid of social security, Medicare and Medicaid? Be my guest - just run the idea past all concerned first and see what happens.

The wake me when something actually changes and we can discuss further.

 

We cant pass that. Congress would have to do it. We have to elect people who would pass it. That would require them to run.

...as far immortality goes- most of the corruption can be tied to money that originates from families of dark age royalty. They're not immortal, but they are quite good at passing their agenda of regaining their thrones on through their family lines. Not sure why you think it would take a yundred years... just look at what has happened in the last 20- with 9/11 we gave up most of our rights and with covid we've given up the rest. Another 'emergency' or two is all its gonna take.

 

I only told you what needs to be done, not what will be done. I think the country is on a disastrous path which will end in a social collapse. More likely, we get into another global war that will finish most of us off.

 

Or maybe not. Crystal ball gazing has never exactly had the greatest rep for pinpoint accuracy.

 

Pinpoint accuracy? Where did you drag that up from?

 

I believe it was the cheerful 'collapse of society as we know it and global war scenario' your were espousing. Could that happen? Yes. But there are also powerful incentives and positive developments that work against such an outcome. I'm just not prepared to 'WAG' my way to a prediction one way or the other.

 

"Didn’t I say that? I should have. Everyone, billionaires included, should pay low, low"

but would you agree to just the middle class getting a tax cut and the billionaires paying what they paid under Reagan

 

The tax codes are complicated, so trying to find equality by focusing on “rates” can be deceptive. High wealth individuals get most of their income from investment capital gains and dividends, while middle and lower wealth individuals get income mostly from salaries and wages. These different sources are taxed at different rates for very good economic reasons which are too convoluted to explain in short comments on discussion forums. They have to do with things such as taxing future vs. present consumption, perverse disincentives, taxing the same dollar several times as it moves through the economy, etc. All of these things have an effect on the overall economy and we don’t always get the results we want by changing something. Raising capital gains and investment taxes can actually result in lower revenue received.

This is probably an unsatisfactory explanation but it’s the best I can do without steering you to some very boring and confusing books, articles and studies.

 

agree, and I have said all income should be treated as income, labored income should not be taxed more

I would though be for the first 10k of investment income per year be tax free

 

6 years old? Do you think this graph would look any better now? The other 49%? do a little math. That's a 66% share of the income, but I noted earlier the upper 10% have 70% of the wealth in the US. The top 20% of Americans owned 86% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 14%('07).

It sounds like the rich have gamed the system. I wonder who the heck are writing these tax laws? Could it be.....no, the rich?

".....there is nothing the federal government does that the States cannot do better, cheaper and more efficiently." What nonsense is this? 50 different programs is better than one? That only gives a program 50 times more chances to be corrupt, incompetent or inefficient. A poor state would not be able to meet its citizens needs. A corrupt state would line contractor company pockets for kickbacks. Programs would be placed in the hands of incompetent political hacks. Sure states have had good ideas, but to run efficiently and have all citizens get equal benefit, programs need to centralized and also there can be easier oversite.

 

It's irrelevant how it would look.

Yeah, so?

While don't you learn the difference between wealth and income and get back to us?

When you learn the difference, we can have a discussion.

We can discuss how I took $10,000 of my own money, and got investors to contribute additional money, so that I could buy a piece of property and build a 40-story high-rise with apartments, retail, office and parking space.

Then we can discuss how you and other people like you, said my asset -- my wealth -- was worth $8 Million.

And, then we can discuss how 20 years later you and other people like you say my asset -- my wealth -- is worth $40 Million.

Then you can explain to all of us why you're upset that you increased my wealth by $32 Million by claiming my asset is worth $32 Million more than you originally said it was.

I wonder why you're unable to comprehend and differentiate between the following terms:

Income
Asset
Wealth
Constitution
Amendment

Yes, it is better than your one-size-fits all nonsense.

Your nonsensical food stamp program gives a maximum of $520/month to a family.

As a result, your one-size-fits all program unjustly enriches some families while not providing sufficient monies to other families.

You are unable to comprehend the data on the Housing & Urban Development's website in which a person who receives $1,166/month is denied HUD housing benefits because they make too much money while someone getting $4,666/month qualifies for HUD housing.

The reason that is true is because you have 937 economies instead of 1 single economy and the Cost-of-Living in each of those 937 economies is different.

As a result, $7.25/hour in some of those 937 economies is equal to $27.25/hour in certain other of your 937 economies.

That's why one person can earn $14,001/year and get denied HUD housing while another can earn $55,991/year and qualify for HUD housing.

I would remind you that part of the reason housing prices are so high in some of the 937 economies is because of the failed policies of HUD.

Because you keep voting for Liberals?

Yes, it would.

You have ass-backwards.

Instead of people paying 10% to 35% of their income to the federal government and 0% - 3.7% to their State, they can pay 0% - 3.7% to the federal government and 5% to 25% to their State and their State would have plenty of money.

There's no law that says contractors must be used

Like the federal government?

Centralization is exactly what the Framers of the Constitution opposed and were willing to die for it.