CNN reports that Romney is correct. 46.4% pay no income taxes.

I'm trying to understand why you felt such a link would clarify anything. Everyone knows why nearly half the country pays no income taxes. If your income is under a certain threshold, it's easy to take advantage legally of tax breaks to either pay no taxes or receive back more than you pay in.

What's not mentioned, is many people have a negative income tax rate and our tax code has become more of a means to redistribute income than actually raise revenue.

What needs to happen is complete tax reform. Lower the tax rate for everyone, but also eliminate all tax breaks/exemptions.

 

Just like this thread has been debunked, so hasn't the claim that the 47% are O-bots who support the Democratic Party. While there is no hard data available, one can look at the demographics of the 47% and deduce that a large chunk of them will vote Republican.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/how-do-the-47-vote/

 

Try telling that to the hundreds and thousands of business owners who had help starting a business from the government because their familiy members had no money to lend. Sorry, you do not speak for 99% of business owners. try again. This is just more partisan bias.

 

I dont know one.....that is still in business.

.......but I do know a plethora of US Businesses that went out of business or fled this country due to excessive Democrat Taxation and out of control Liberal Regulation.
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one may think that to help sleep at night, but the realistic reason is America is part of a global market.....businesses are going where they can find the cheapest labor.

 

So excessive Taxation and Regulation play no role whatsoever.....in Imaginationland.

Can you name any Democrat Policy over the last 100 years that encouraged US Businesses w/jobs to remain in this country?

Neither can I......see what a complete lie and utter fraud you believe in?
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can you name any Republic Policy that worked to increase the middle class?

 

Doesn't matter what I think helps what, because you're going to disagree anyway - but I wanted to make a point.

There should be no policy at any level from any Government entity which should work to the benefit of only one group. Doing so is the definition of unConstitutional cronyism.

However - and here's the point - the policies that increase incomes across all classes are the best policies, and for that, you need look no farther than Reagan's results, and not even the charts which dishonestly show "the income of the poor".

What matters is if the same people occupy that quintile throughout the duration of the chart. When proper economic policy is pursued, the standard of living increases (all quintiles move up, as - under Reagan - they had to redefine the poverty level because too few were considered poor), and social mobility increases.

 

The tax code.

Republicans.
> both doing the bidding of the rich/elite.
Democrats.

All unconstitutional.

 

I agree. Reverse trickle down policies that have redistributed most of the growth of wealth an income to the 1%

Reagan's trickle down policies -- tax cuts for the richest, increasing taxes on the working poor, lowering minimum wage and gutting unions, are major reasons why most of the growth in income has been redistributed to the 1%.

Reagan's "trickle down" policies were the start of the redistribution to the 1%.

 

Yes, we know. What's the point of your comment?

You do know this sort of thing has been taking place forever, right? You offering the pithy commentary is rather useless. If you want to discuss specifics, then do so.

 

Well if I am pointing out the obvious nobody is paying attention, to the obvious that is. Maybe it needs to be said regularly until it actually sinks in. Unfortunately the extremists responsible for the countries demise will once again vote democrat or republican, foolishly thinking their vote will/can make a difference when nothing will change.

Nothing!

 

But do they think of themselves as victims?
Are they dependent on the Govt or want to be as little mittens says they are?

 

How about the righties that don't pay taxes and don't have jobs?
The red states have always been on the dole more than the blue states, so this whole meme of the 'makers and takers' is lop sided and once again the morons on the right are on the wrong side!

 

Do they like paying NO TAXES while receiving FREE MONEY?

Yes We Can!
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It was the beginning of the end for the country.
The further to the right we go the worse things get.

 

The facts show they do NOT receive "free money".
Ask romney if he likes paying NO TAXES.
No you can't.

 

So you can't name a republican policy that has helped the middle class.
Then you have to wonder why you support them?

This is just an outright lie and I'm surprised anyone would have the stones to say it, let alone believe it,
"When proper economic policy is pursued, the standard of living increases (all quintiles move up, as - under Reagan - they had to redefine the poverty level because too few were considered poor), and social mobility increases."

You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

There seems to be some confusion over the term "trickle down." It is not a policy. It is a description of the way a capitalist economy like those of the first world countries works. Wealth is created with business profits and in no other way. In order for the economy and the citizens to do better, there must be more wealth and, in order to get more wealth, you must have more business profits. There isn't any other way that works. The wealthy are wealthy because they create the wealth. Like it or not, every one benefits from that wealth. Reduce that wealth and the economy itself suffers.

Let's look at the opposite. Let's look at "trickle up." There is no way for wealth to "trickle up" because it must come from business profits. Those who amass wealth by working for others do so because the wealth "trickled down" to them. Without their employer there would be no wealth for the employee. The employee cannot create wealth. In order to create wealth, the employee would have to launch a business of his own and make a profit at it. That activity would help his suppliers, employees, government etc. etc. etc.

I'm really nonplussed at the socialistic attitudes of so many Americans. Socialism didn't make the U.S. wealthy and strong. It didn't make any country wealthy and strong. It won't make any country wealthy and strong. It can't. It flies in the face of human nature.

 

Of course they do.......voting themselves other people's money is the at the very heart of voting Democrat.

Isnt that why you vote Democrat?.......for the Free Sh't?

Well he paid $2,000,000.00 in taxes last year.....

.......how much did you pay?
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"Trickle-down economics" and "the trickle-down theory" are terms in United States politics to refer to the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided by government to businesses and the wealthy will benefit poorer members of society by improving the economy as a whole.

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Today, "trickle-down economics" is most closely identified with the economic policies known as Reaganomics or laissez-faire. David Stockman, who as Reagan's budget director championed these cuts at first but then became skeptical of them, told journalist William Greider that the term "supply-side economics" was used to promote a trickle-down idea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Wealth is created by producing things of value in an economy. The benefits of such production are distributed to those who work to produce it (generally via wages and salaries) and to the owners (via profits).

"Trickle down" policies (as well as automation and globalization) have shifted the balance of this distribution between wages and profits, so that over the past 30 years, the bulk of the growth in income and wealth has been redistributed to the owners, e.g. the 1%.



Thus, today, we have median incomes and wages stagnant and declining at a time of record corporate profits and the tiny fraction of millionaires and billionaires being the fastest growing group.

Meanwhile, the economy stutters despite trillions sitting in businesses and offshore bank accounts, the great engine of spending, the middle classes are tapped out and don't have the wealth or income to drive a robust recovery.

You figure it is just coincidence that every single recovery since Reagan's trickle down policies have been shallower and slower?

Compare the recoveries in 1990, 2001, and the current one with earlier recoveries:



This chart is older, but the differences are dramatic:

The country has more wealth. It's just that much more of it is trillions sitting in offshore accounts of the 1% not doing much for the economy.

Like it or not, only the 1% is really benefitting from that wealth.

Your premise is wrong, as explained above. It also comes from the productive effort of workers and distributed to them in wages and salaries. Unlike the 1%, they don't stick most of it in Swiss bank accounts. When they make more, they spend more. When they spend more, businesses expand, hire more, generate more revenues and profits.

That is when everyone wins.

The Clinton years were a great example of that. After his tax increases, wages and incomes of the middle classes grew strongly, creating 22 million jobs and the longest boom since WWII. And guess what? Even those the wealthier paid higher taxes, they did better too.

Great thought, but as the chart above shows, it didn't trickle down. It trickled into offshore bank accounts.

I'm really disgusted at that greedy attitudes of so many of the 1%. Greed and consolidating wealth into the 1% didn't make the US wealthy and strong. It was the growing and healthy middle class that made the US wealthy and strong.



We need to reverse trickle down policies, and have leadership that focuses on re-building the middle classes. We don't need even more pandering and enriching the 1%.

 

Trickle down is a theory and the theory has nothing to do with capitalism, unless cronyism is added to it.


The truth is, the trickle down economic theory which dictates when the government plays favorites with mega corporate entities, and gives those selective few exemptions/loopholes/grants, and/or tax breaks it can only help them eliminate their competition while creating monopolized industries to maximize profits, is the best way to stimulate the economy. On paper anyway.


The lie is, that when the government helps specific companies, they will produce more and thereby hire more people and raise salaries. The people, in turn, will have more money to spend in the economy.


The reality is it doesn't work, because it was never intended to work, not the way the lie claimed it would, and by the time 'the people' figured out they were blatantly lied too, the damage will be done and they will have no choice but to comply with the rich/elites wishes or die.

 

Technically his investments paid taxes, he is unemployed. Less than half of what his tax obligation would be if he had income.

 

Investments from money he already paid tax on when he was employed......

......how many times should The People be taxed on the Fruit of their Labor before they are able to keep some?
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He doesn't pay taxes on the money he has already been taxed on, he only pays taxes on the interest, the annual profits the non taxable income made.