It's not government's(*)job to redistribute the wealth. Fix the stupid trade policies and over-regulation that is driving jobs overseas and the middle class will not need to beg for handouts from Obama and the big government libs.
The top 1% pay 40% of income taxes, the bottom 50% pay virtually nothing with the bottom 25% making money off the tax system. When has it been more progressive? The highest earners pay more in revenue and a larger percentage of taxes than ever before.
The middle class had the greatest increase in incomes as a result of the Gingrich/Kasich and Bush tax cuts and have seen that fall under the failed policy of Obama and the Democrats. Wanting to increase their income through wealth and income transfers rather than enabling them to EARN more money is the stuff of folly.
They've sent over 20 bills to the Senate that would raise revenues, the Democrats refused to even read them.
Just an adjustment to show how things are much worse than you are posting. 51% of WORKERS do not pay any taxes. There are 140 million tax returns filed. 51% of them do not pay taxes, thats 71.4 MONEY EARNERS WITH JOBS that take out rather than put in. The 49% that do pay in are 68.6 million people. Our LEGAL population is 312 to 313 million. 68.6 million ARE paying the fare, ALL the rest are riding at considerable expense. It cannot go on much longer. Its just the last couple of years that the payers/parasites went upside-down. We used to have more than 50% paying in and it was bad. Now with less than 50% paying in, it is clearly unsustainable. 68.6 million PAYING IN,, 243.4 million living off them. Sometimes I'm glad I'm very old.
You don't understand what progressive means in the context of a bracket system, and now everybody knows that you don't. At least try to pretend to use words meaningfullly.
And everyone knows that the purpose of progressiveness in the tax system is to shift the tax liability to the higher earners and from the lower earners. That is not just a factor of the brackets but also the deductions and credits which apply thus the goal is to make the effective tax rates progressive. So again I ask. The top 1% pay 40% of income taxes, the bottom 50% pay virtually nothing with the bottom 25% making money off the tax system. When has it been more progressive?
If the Govt did have a debt problem resulting from 3 decades of mismanagement, that might be an option.
I am actually kind of curious if the percentage of growth is even a good measure anymore. If our economy grew 1.5% this year, that would mean we added over 210 billion $ to our economy over the entire year. That the size of Israels entire economy added to our's in a years time. We simply can't keep expecting to add 7, 8 or 9 percent to our economy every year. That would be mathematically unsustainable as the amount of money we would need to generate would increase exponentially over time.
It is the Govt's job to set tax and other policy. Trickle down policies have redistributed the wealth to the 1%. It didn't trickle down.
While incomes of the 1% have soared and almost tripled in real terms, middle class incomce have basically been stagnant over the past three decades. They made some progress when Clinton was president, but lost it under Bush and the recession. Where did I say I want them to increase their income through wealth and income transfers?
That 43% of federal taxes collected is the amount collected from the individual income tax. That's exactly what the issue is. You've not mentioned tariffs, payroll taxes, or corporate income tax. It sounds like you are purposely trying to cloud the issue.
No, the purpose of the progressive tax system is fairness, since in absolute terms one dollar means more to lower income taxpayers than higher income taxpayers. Your post merely celebrated the fact that more and more Americans are poorer and poorer, due to failed conservatives economic policies, and thus in absolute terms, income taxes paid by the lower brackets make up a diminishing percentage of total revenues from income taxes. That's the opposite of the policy's goals. The goal is to keep more money in the pockets of lower bracket earners, so they can move up the economic ladder. All you're doing is celebrating the consequence on revenues of more and more Americans moving down the economic ladder. Typical conservative stunt.
The conseratives have clouded the issue. The only reason the rich are paying more in absoute terms (and not as a percentage of income) is because more and more Americans are getting poorer and poorer and hence paying less income tax. Another conservative pretense instead of a coherent argument. Bottomline: the rich pay less today as a percentage of income than they did at almost any time in history. Time to change that and have a truly progressive system, which is both fair and necessary for economic growth.
Are the rich paying less as a percentage of income then they did previously? Our income tax code right now is pretty progressive.
I am considering the taxes we are talking about in our progressive income tax system. But then if you wish to show that the poor pay the lions share of corporate taxes or inheritance taxes or the new investment tax feel free to try. So did you come up with a time when our tax system has been more progressive?