The Billionaire's Third Party

Warren Buffet says you're full of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/opinion/buffett-a-minimum-tax-for-the-wealthy.html?_r=0

 

Warren Buffet, like George Soros, is an excellent speculator, and there the competence and why we should listen to anything they have to say ends. Moreover, NOTHING, not word one, in your own source founds your silly, ignorant, dishonest claim that "Few people on Wall Street pay taxes on their earned income any more." In fact, the article disproves that statement in at least two places. Why would you link an article in support of something you posted that disproves it? Who the hell knows but that's what you did. Go ahead and retract what you posted, I'll wait.

 

You are 1. Out of your depth, 2. Don't know what a straw man is, you probably meant "red herring," which would still be incorrect, 3. Did not respond meaningfully to ANY of my numbered points. 4. The strictly limited amount of money one can contribute to retirement plans WILL BE TAXED as income when withdrawn, and in exchange for that deferral, significant tradeoffs and drawbacks apply. 5. Money that pays capital gains HAS OR WILL pay money as income. 6. No one said that differential treatment of cap gains was the same as stepped up basis, but they are indeed related by basis. You yourself brought up stepped up basis, which was why I dealt with it. 7. No one said that "the rich" don't benefit more from cap gains tax treatment in the status quo, but rather than ALL OF US benefit also. THAT'S a straw man you are attempting and failing.

There was one mistype in my prior post. Money contributed to a retirement plan will not pay tax in that year, such will be deferred, but will pay income tax eventually.

 

I have clearly misstated the issue!!!!

The problem I am trying (unsuccessfully) to alude to is, summed up in the article.

 

.It's clear the Republic is dead, and welcome to the Oligarchy. You just think your party represents you. They don't.

 

I know my party doesn't represent me, because we can't get any of them elected around here!!!!!

I know what you see on cable TV news every night is a show, and that the real business is behind the curtain.

 

You are correct, what I should have said is that your statements show total lack of understanding of tax law. And money contributed to a retirement plan may pay tax eventually on some part of the money but probably at a lower rate then when earned and I'd the person dies before the IRA is exhausted some or most of the money may never be taxed.

And your point two which said Capital investment is a real wealth creator as opposed to transfer payments is totally irrelevant to my point that taxing capital gains at a lower rate than money earned from labor is clearly a tax benefit slanted toward the rich who make a vastly disproportionate percentage of their income from capital investment. Why you wanted to compare capital investment to transfer payments is beyond my understanding unless it is because you really couldn't address my actual point.

 

Here is another part of your post #122 that you might want to try and explain.

" In many such instances, money could be earned as income, contributed to a retirement plan, and then partially taxed again as cap gains in the same year it was earned, which would be unjust "

You will have to explain under what scenario that could happen.

 

Sanskrit'

" 5. Money that pays capital gains HAS OR WILL pay money as income. "

Here is another of your statements that makes no sense. Maybe you could clarify how exactly money pays capital gains, or maybe clarify how money will pay money as income.. or maybe you could explain both.

I always thought investments paid capital gains but what do I know, I never worked on Wall Street.

 

I always amazes me that conservatives dredge up the principles of their beloved founding fathers and yet have no problem supporting the polices that destroy the very foundation the founders laid down. Democracy has no real meaning and is of no great importance for the modern day radical right wing.

 

It's simple. Money is earned as income, pays income tax at the prevailing income tax rate. Then whoever earns it may spend some and/or invest some of that money that has already been taxed as income. If they invest it in real property, stocks or bonds, when they sell those investments at a profit later, they will pay tax at the prevailing capital gains tax rate.

So, let's say worker earns money, pays income tax, then invests some of the after tax remainder in a mutual fund. He will be assessed an annual capital gains allotment by the fund. If he happens to pay say 20% in income tax, then buys a stock that goes up, sells it, he will pay capital gains tax on the amount of gain.

 

',

Exactly, the investment if it makes money eventually pays taxes as capital gains. The original money invested does not pay the taxes, the profit from the original money pays the taxes. In no way is this double taxation!

 

They mouth the platitudes, but when it's policy time, they want the back room deal and the favoritism for the fat cats.

And, as I noted in my OP, they want to do all this out of the public eye, so they fight to prevent Citizen's United from being adressed.

It has been interesting watching the way conservatives have acted throughout this thread. None of them have actually defended Citizen's United with any sort of logical argument. Several of them have demonstrated a near total ignorance of how campaign finance works. They routinely conflate 501c4's with Super Pacs, a fallacy that their media encourages. Or they try and pretend that the obvious trend of big money rushing toward the secret portals of power is not actually happening, dispite the very public declaration by the Kochs saying that is EXACTLY what they intend to do.

Why is this?

My view is that it is because the GOP really is, and always has been the party of influence peddling, going all the way back to the Lincoln Administration. The Roberts court gave political grafters of all stripes a wet kiss by ruling that free speech can be bought by the highest bidder without anyone knowing. This is nothing less than a return to robber baron era politics.

There's nothing remotely democratic about that.

But the GOP fights to preserve it, and some of its biggest backers are now the largest exploiters of this new reality.

I guess the unions and all the left wing groups will have to do the same thing. Once the shoe has been on the other foot for a cycle or two, watch the right wing sheep howl about it on cue.