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Post by doctorquant on Jan 14, 2019 3:17:01 GMT
I don't understand why [Ryan's] tax plan wasn't seen as complete useless folly, but this one is. WhataboutRyan? Ooooooh ... I don't think you wanna go there!  |
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Post by doctorquant on Jan 14, 2019 3:20:53 GMT
Based on AOC's "opening offer" (applicable to incomes above $10 million), we'd see an increase of about $125 billion. If we expand it to incomes above $1 million, the increase would be about $365 billion.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2019 3:22:17 GMT
I do, though. It's the exact same issue (taxation and spending) and one set of ideas that would be replacing another. The Ryan tax cuts are wildly unpopular -- their approval rate is around 25 percent. And that's with everyone supposedly getting something back!
The GOP throws every scare tactic it can at every Democratic proposal, the idea being that they don't want Americans to experience it and see, "Hey, we really like this." That's why they blocked healthcare in the '90s and why they want to rail against (but don't actually want to end) the ACA now.
Meanwhile, no matter how much hyperbole we think we're seeing in discussions of the GOP's ideas, that group's vision is actually worse. These guys really, really do want to destroy Medicare, Social Security and everything else.
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Post by doctorquant on Jan 14, 2019 3:24:40 GMT
These guys really, really do want to destroy Medicare, Social Security and everything else. Which is really kind of silly ... all they gotta do is sit back and Medicare and Social Security will destroy themselves! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2019 3:31:29 GMT
Reddit co-founder and Mr. Serena Williams:
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2019 3:36:33 GMT
Also -- to get away from this heavy policy stuff and back to the question at hand of why she has so much influence, today she commented on a Politico rip job with a tweet referencing Watchmen:
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Post by ecwyanks on Jan 14, 2019 3:37:21 GMT
He can pay more than the government says he owes. So he should send the difference when he files this year.
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Post by doctorquant on Jan 14, 2019 3:41:55 GMT
Reddit co-founder and Mr. Serena Williams: Oh, he's entirely right. But that's a non sequitur ... would he have invested in his business in a similar manner over that time period had a 70% marginal rate been in effect? Had the 70% marginal rate (and accompanying credits, penalties, etc.) that Ronald Reagan was so happy with been in effect? I seriously doubt it. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2019 3:47:00 GMT
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect it would have had far less impact than you're saying, because most of the doomsday predictions from Republicans about such measures end up not panning out. They've been bitching about the minimum wage since it started at a quarter an hour. California's millionaire tax a few years back was going to destroy us.
Truthfully I'd be more interested in the Dems looking at ending the difference between the long-term capital gains rate and the marginal income tax rate. Long-term capital gains is almost exclusively for the rich. No reason it should be 20 percent when income in that bracket is at 37 percent.
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Post by batman on Jan 14, 2019 3:51:04 GMT
Politics is a negotiation, right? In effect, she's making the opening bid. The response is "no, that won't solve every problem we have so we won't even consider it." And a lot of scare tactics. That sums up the current government shutdown perfectly. As far as tax policy goes, one of the reasons we're in a mess is that there has to be a blend of tax hikes and government cuts to solve it. Neither party seems to grasp that. Any time there's a projected surplus, Republicans want to cut taxes and Democrats want to increase spending. If there was a sense among the public that raising taxes would actually go to cover some of the deficit, people might go for it. Instead it's sold as a way to pay for even more new confusing programs that, no matter how beneficial they might be, it's not hard to see they're only going to add to the deficit and debt. On the other side, you can't pay a debt when you have less money coming in. Cutting spending is great, and cutting taxes is great, but you need to keep your revenue up for a little while to pay the bills. If there was a sense that cutting spending would magically erase the debt people would be for it, but it's not reality. Meanwhile, neither side wants to meet in the middle because the other side is jerks. |
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Post by lcjjdnh on Jan 14, 2019 3:54:01 GMT
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect it would have had far less impact than you're saying.... At the end of the day, this is the key question that no one on either side of the debate can really answer. Taxes, like all prices, will necessarily have some effect on the margin. Whether that negative effect will outweigh whatever benefits we hope to gain no one knows. (And which side of debate that favors I’m not sure.) |
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Post by doctorquant on Jan 14, 2019 3:54:09 GMT
Long-term capital gains is almost exclusively for the rich. No reason it should be 20 percent when income in that bracket is at 37 percent. My good friend here has a daughter, a school teacher, who bought her first house in Galveston not too long after Ike. She fixed it up a bit, then married and moved inland, renting it out to other teachers she knows. Last Thanksgiving at a microbrewery she was ragging on tax policy and the like and my friend caught my eye ... when she was out of earshot I said, "I bet she doesn't really know much about capital gains tax!" He laughed and said, "Nope!" Spoiler alert: She's gonna get hammered on capital gains. |
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Post by jaketaylor on Jan 14, 2019 3:54:42 GMT
Imagine the money that could be made taxing the press box spreads reporters get. I had two slices of Little Caesars at the game I covered today. Somebody should be giving me money. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2019 4:05:28 GMT
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Post by Da Man on Jan 14, 2019 5:06:04 GMT
I can't get current numbers very quickly, but we can get a sense of what I and others are getting at with what I can get ... There were about 235,000 $1 million filers in 2010 ... individuals or households reporting $1 million plus in adjusted gross income. That's 1 ... ONE! ... million bucks. In total, those entities took home about $727 billion. Let's assume that every such entity was taxed 100% at the top marginal rate of 39%. And let's further assume that every such entity will be taxed, under the AOC regime, similarly ... the top marginal rate is equal to the effective rate. At 70%, AOC's "plan" (applied thusly to this cohort) would bring in about $225 billion more than is currently collected. Let's say that's 20% more in today's dollars ... about $270 billion.
At present the current deficit looks to be about ... $985 billion. And that's without the first. fucking. penny. of any of the lefty pipe dreams (e.g., Medicare for All) that are "on offer."
AOC thinks there's this very, very small cluster of people who're getting all the money and keeping the rest of us from being happy. Any wonder why she reminds some people of a certain tangerine buffoon in the White House?
I don't know how many billionaires there are in the U.S., but I'd be willing to wager that you could take every dime from every one of them and still not come close to paying for what she proposes. |
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