Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduces "ultra-millionaire" wealth tax bill

Nonsense. Anybody that is capable of paying for care, or who have paid for insurance to cover their care, is equally served. Even still, those people that didn't elect to provide for their insurance are still served.

The only motivation for a public healthcare system is so some people get free care paid for by others. If you desired a public health insurance option that operated without subsidizes, I would be all for it.

And there it is. I can't believe those doctors and hospitals want to be paid. We should have a system in which they are forced to work for free because some people feel entitled to care provided by other people.

The problem is, there is no such thing as free. Free for one person means somebody else covered the cost. Until we start capturing intelligent small children, enslaving them in medical school, and forcing them to provide care then it will never be free.

What you desire, and what you consider a travesty is that other people are opposed to paying for care for people that can't, or won't, pay for themselves.

There is nothing inherent to a right for healthcare anymore than somebody has a right to shoes, food, or water. If you want those things, they are readily available, but you need to pay the people that worked to bring those to you for a price.

I would rather my dollars be used to widen the road.

Look, you just need to admit that your political agenda is based upon feeling entitled to a certain standard of living with certain amenities paid for and provided by other people. That's your agenda.

Name a US city of a population of a quarter million or more people that doens't have Public Transit. Every single one of those systems operates at a loss, dependent on federal funding, and things like taxes because the fares themselves don't cover the cost.

 

Bullshit. Many states, like my own, balanced that by assessing an annual excise tax on electric vehicles and applied it to the road tax revenue.

 

It's clear that Democrats simply want to punish people who have too much. But, since I don't belong to the group who has too much (yet), I say pass the bill and make her write the first $2 million dollar check. Actually, I would like to see her and John Kerry hand there money to people personally. Just skip the D.C. middle men and hand out $500 checks until they have paid their fair share. Then do it again next year and the next year for the rest of their lives.

 

“The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew!”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/

“People and families are considered poor when they lack the economic resources necessary to experience a minimal living standard. Official U.S. Census Bureau statistics estimate that 40 million persons, 12.3 percent of the total population, were poor in the United States in 2017. The topic of poverty is widely considered a cause for national action because poor families often encounter material hardships and reduced well-being and because children who grow up in poor households are less likely to thrive as adults.”
https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-estimates-trends-and-analysis
Sociologist Herbert Gans (1971), mentions several ways in which poverty is functional for the better-off members of society:

1. Dirty work gets done. Poverty means there will be people to do low-wage, undesirable work. In a society where there are no populations dependent on low wage, where everyone has equal opportunity for social and economic advancement, where there wasn’t great variation in formal education levels and job skills, who would do the dirty work?
2. Domestic work gets done. This frees up wealthy for other pursuits (professional, cultural, fodder for people magazine, tabloids, etc.-we also love to cut them down in celebrity rags).
3. Professional and business niches get created. Poverty creates the ‘need’ for a number of professions, occupations that ‘serve’ the poor. Pawn shops are in a sense banks for those who couldn’t qualify for loans. Stores in inner-cities often specialize in cheap liquor, cigarettes by the carton, lottery tickets, etc. Payday loans. Collectionagencies. Lawyers on contingency. Hotels/motels can prey on poor people who can’t afford to get into an apartment rental (because of the up front cash needed for security deposit, first and last month’s rent, etc. Hey! Maybe with a payday loan!). There are social workers, in the public, non-profit and private sector, professors who study poverty, etc.
4. Recycling contributions. Poverty helps with the recycling of goods and incompetent professionals. Poor people often buy goods others have discarded, including clothes, appliances, automobiles, etc. In addition, the poor may be forced to go to professionals that can’t attract wealthier clients (this is where the term ‘ambulance chasing lawyers’ comes from). If we recognize that most all professions have a normal distribution of competence, for instance, that a certain percentage, say 10%, are extremely skilled, and another 10%, are downright incompetent, and most fall somewhere in the middle, then there will be doctors, lawyers, contractors, etc., who are incompetent but still working, practicing. Maybe they charge lesser fees, accept more types of insurance, but who is in worst position to avoid going to incompetent professionals? Where are these people likely to operate? In Beverly Hills or Harlem?
5. A population of poor helps uphold conventional norms. The poor more often get ‘caught’ in criminal activity, and most studies deal with crimes committed by the poor.
6. Moral distancing. Poor people are perceived as morally deviant, engaged in debauchery–the rich can be said to be acting ‘decadent,’ like the poor, rather than morally deficient themselves (as Gans wrote, they can do it vicariously, rather than as a vocation);
7. Cultural contributions. Impoverished cultures have produced culture that has been valued by the wealthy classes. Blues and jazz, for instance, or country western music, all have their roots in black and rural heritage. The Beatles came from working-class Liverpool. Modern variants of this are rap and hip hop. Thank your ancestors, Robin Thicke …
8. Security of social location. With respect to status comparisons, the poor serve as reference points–guaranteeing status of those who aren’t poor. As long as there are poor, others ‘know’ they’re better off (morally, financially . . . ).
9. Helping others achieve. The poor aid in upward mobility of other groups. For example, waves of immigrants in the early part of the century provided services to people in slums, often of their own ethnic/racial group, and were able to work their way up the socioeconomic ladder as other immigrant groups, more recently arrived and less well off, followed in their tracks. Poor people still need goods and services, and there is usually some economic incentive to provide them.
10. Supply of charity balls. Poor people keep the aristocrats, philanthropists busy. Ever check out the society pages of the paper? Thousands of dollars are spent holding charity black tie balls, well-documented by a newspaper’s photographers?
11. Bearing the brunt of disruptive change. Poor people are often asked to absorb costs of change. Some examples include:
    1. urban renewal, the razing of neighborhoods. This was especially big during the time Gans wrote about, a period of industrial decline, suburbanization and growth of the interstate highway system. Those roads had to go somewhere, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which neighborhoods were dislocated.
    2. volunteer army. Who will fight a war in Iraq? Who fought in Vietnam? The wealthy were able to get deferments from the draft (VP Dick Cheney got two . . . here’s a listof some of those who avoided armed conflict but are now willing to send others off to war).
    3. ‘risk society.’ Think about risks in our society, and who takes them. I’m not talking about extreme sports, things people can choose (which are often limited to those with mountains of gear). Living next to a superfund site, or close to a nuclear power plant. Or a busy street, noisy or polluting factory, high-crime neighorhood. The wealthy can generally afford to pay money to reduce these risks, live in a gated neighborhood, on the hill, away from noise and congestion. In general, poor people bear more risks in our society, and are less able to avoid them.
12. Keeping American politics stable. The poor help stabilize the American political process. They are less likely to register, less likely to vote, but if they do vote, will more than likely vote for democrats. Why? Republican policies are generally pro-business (if not anti-poor), and pro-human capital arguments (those who want to advance must invest in their human capital). Their social policies are conservative. Democrats generally know this, and know that most poor people would not vote republican, and therefor have a limited obligation to address their needs. This is the sort of situation that allowed President Clinton to sign the 1996 welfare reform legislation, drafted by the Republican-controlled Congress. However, in the last 15 years, efforts to make voting more difficult have tended to affect poor people the most. Rather than ‘politicians should make sure no one legally entitled to vote is disenfranchised’ we get ‘politicians should make sure no one who isn’t entitled to vote is able to’ (a very small population by any objective measure).
13. Finally, if the poor are morally deviant, there is less pressure on other groups to alleviate poverty (back to human capital, poor are lazy arguments). Their own deviance is the root of the problem, not their neglect by better-off groups in society. And ultimately this means lower tax rates for the wealthier taxpayers. So stigmatizing the poor is a price society pays for a political system where money and campaign contributions seem to count over popular representation and voting.
14. (I’d add a couple): The poor pay out a lot in regressive tax revenue. Yes, the Wall Street Journal once contended that the poor are lucky duckies because they avoid paying income tax. But, what about more regressive taxes that hit everyone equally? Sales tax, for instance (which we don’t have in Oregon). ‘Vice’ taxes on cigarettes, alcohol. Payroll tax. Vehicle regisration. Lottery tickets. Written on one of my favorite bumper stickers is ‘a lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.’
15. Low-wage work gets done. It’s not just the ‘dirty work.’ Welfare reform is increasingly designed to push welfare recipients into the workforce. They often can’t compete for decent jobs–there are already unemployed people with more skills. Often they end up in low-wage, low security employment. Who benefits from this? What are the potential costs to the welfare system of subsidizing predatory employers’ ability to pay workers non-living wages?
16. The wealthy can buy their illicit drugs without risking criminal charges. Groups of different SES all use illicit drugs at various rates. Law enforcement target minority inner-city areas, populations that aren’t likely to hire expensive lawyers and fight back in court. Black men make up 90% of the non-violent drug offenders in federal prisons, even though their use of drugs is proportional to their numbers in the population (13%).
17. https://people.eou.edu/socwelf/readings/week-3/is-poverty-functional/

 

We have to figure out how to pay off the Native Americans... Right Liz "Light Possum" Warren?

 

they are sovereign citizens on tribal land

 

which states, and what is the annual fee? Do you understand that there is both a fed and state tax on fuel? What happens when your Prius drivers go out of state and use those roads? They don't buy as much (if any) fuel yet those state roads still need to be maintained

nice try at defending leftist insanity. If it makes you feel good, then who cares if it makes no sense; isn't that the new Democrat mantra?

 

Sixty percent of the federal fuel tax is used for roads. The rest goes to a host of unrelated uses. Meanwhile the states are increasingly taxing electric vehicles to compensate for them not being subject to fuel taxes to pay for the roads. Apparently you didn't know that so you posted a false story about electric vehicles not paying their fair share for roads. And now that I corrected you on that, you pivot to another made-up complaint that you think will salvage your hurt feewings.
What a case.

 

nice dodge

please explain how a Birkenstock wearing, Prius driver from California pays their "fair share" in state road taxes when they buy 2 gallons of gas in Nevada while the guy in the Corolla buys 10 gallons?

I await your Democrat voting spin on this as well as yet another insult

 

Please respond to what I posted and asked you since you said they [the wealthy, successful high earners] WANT everyone else to be poor.

Really? And why is it an advantage for them [the wealthy] that everyone else be poor, how is that in their own self interest? How is it better for them?

 

My state started charging fees last year as more and more states are doing. $200 for electric, $100 for hybrid here. More states are starting to do so and it's about time.

 

The quote from Herbert Gans explains it pretty well. It begins after the second citation.

 

Just the first two

1. Dirty work gets done.

Dirty jobs pay some of the highest wages

1. Domestic work gets done.

So everyone does domestic work? And you can do domestic work and not be poor.

If the rich and wealthy want everyone else to be poor why don't they just pay everyone minimum wage?

 

Perhaps 40 million poor people is enough to maintain the other 13 intentions.

 

A clarification:

Poverty Myth: Poor People Choose Not to Vote
FALSE!

https://4thworldmovement.org/poverty-myth-poor-people-choose-not-to-vote/

 

Please get a basic understanding of the topic as a whole before you try to condescend to someone....makes you look less foolish and spares folk like me the time and effort to educate you.

Now pay attention: a tax puts money into the national coffers, a "tax break" keeps money OUT of the national coffers. When you have corporations making millions on a daily basis BUT GET TAX BREAKS, where do you think the federal and local gov'ts get the financial resources to address the infrastructure of the common wealth? When corporations are given tax breaks to out source their factories and such, the same question arises. As I asked before, guess who has to pick up the slack?

In your little screed you tried to ignore my reference to a historical fact....when the wealthy in this country paid a much higher tax rate, THERE WAS NO LACK OF MILLIONAIRES...IN FACT YOU HAD AN INCREASE OF SUCH ON A PERIODIC BASIS.

Thirty years of reaganomics (trickle down economics: the "owners" unfettered by taxes and regulations were to create well paying jobs a plenty. So far, that ain't happening!) damn near put this country into a 2nd depression! Now you have nonsense like the Walton family of Walmart being uber wealthy while a good portion of the people who help make their wealth had to supplement their salaries with food stamps. Or Bezos of Amazon having millions of dollars in advertising while bitching about unionization and additional Covid safety standards at his warehouses. These two entities can well afford the additional taxes that Sen. Warren introduces....and they will STILL BE UBER WEALTHY AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE.

You carrying water for people who essentially use you as cannon fodder is a mystery to me....like people voting for a guy who exclusively builds hotels they can't afford.

If you're so against forms of socialism, then perhaps you should focus on such things as "corporate welfare" or the situations I mention here.

 

again you either choose to ignore the topic, or are incapable of understanding the topic. Which is worse?

Let's simply call this the "Democrat grab"

I will simplify this as best that I can. If you do not reply about the actual topic, i will assume that it's due to your heavy Democrat leaning and that you support the idea

The Democrat grab is not an income tax. Let that sink in; it's not an income tax. That means that it's not the taxing of "unearned income or capital gains" or taxing income.

What the Democrat grab intends is to determine some level of wealth, and to go to those folks who meet that level, and take some of their wealth

Is that clear?

If yes, please comment on that.

 

I didn't say that people with lower incomes CHOOSE not to vote. I said that people with lower incomes vote less often than people in other income brackets and the article you linked to states that as well.

 

What's clear your use of the usual revisionist clap trap used by right wing punditry and politicians when faced with facts you don't like or proposals that you can't logically disprove or refute.

Here, read this carefully and comprehensively (as the objective reader will do automatically), and then tell me how NONE OF THIS is dealing with net worth income. https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax

My previous post stands valid, challenge and all. The reading audience awaits your response here.

 

Coolness!

 

and of course labored income is taxed more, the rich get most of their income from unlabored income

 

Man, can I just ask - what is with these little pejorative nicknames in almost every post? "Trumpocity" "Trumpist" "Trumpling" I see so much of it here and I don't just mean from you. What if we right-wingers started calling left-wing voters "Bidums" or "Cuomuppets" or some other cute belittling nickname? Wont we all be better off just sticking to the common phrasing; Republican Democrat Conservative Liberal Progressive and such?

 

Do you even realize that your link is exactly what i rail against? It's about taxing wealth. You can try and accuse others of not understanding but it is you who either

A: is too much of a Democrat voter and supports all things Democrat (scary)

B: doesn't understand the printed word

My hope is that it's B because A is not a good thing

It is frightening to think that not just you, but others also support the concept of deeming that someone has "too much" and the govt should come in and take some. Is that really what you think should be the role of govt?

 

lawful government force is necessary to pay for welfare

 

Because trumpers are not conservatives. They are not even Republicans. They are trumpers. The delineation is required.

Your words wouldn’t work as well as most people that voted for Biden have not formed a cult around him. We do not fly his flag over the US flag. We do not have his signs in our yards or logos on our vehicles.