There is a balance between them--the old swinging pendulum. Without seeing a detailed study as C.O. described I am inclined to defer my opinion on which side the pendulum is actually leaning.
Amen, especially as regards the fraction of income that exceeds the bare necessities of life. CO, why don't you explain what you think would fix this situation. We already have an earned income tax credit. We also have a sliding tax scale, so that the bottom earners pay a lot less or no income tax. Don't these compensations offset the Social Security, Medicare, and SDI payments? Let's say you don't think they do. Would you favor forgiving these taxes? Up to what earned income level would you forgive them?
Please also explain how many people you think fall into this category, that are not transitional. Do you think 10%, 20%, 50% of our workforce exists in a long-term status of working poor, which qualify for this consideration? Let's start somewhere and discuss in real world terms what you think would fix this.
But beyond that, I wasn't talking as much about the actual rates as much as I was addressing the way the right talks about them in the public debate. The people we are trying to recruit into an opportunity economy see right through that sort of argument,.. I honestly don't know what you want to do here? IMO, the way you help these people, is you get them a better paying job, and you tell the federal government to accept the fact that it should cut it's appetite by 75% or more. We are not going to recruit the poor, by savaging the people who are in a position to hire them. Going after the incomes of people with more money, just means they won't be hiring as many workers. You raise taxes on small businesses, they cut employees. You lower taxes on small businesses and they expand and hire more employees. This is simplistic, but it's not just blown smoke.
...especially when they see executives taking vacations on corporate jets etc. Everybody knows those benefits aren't taxed, just like we all knew how Teresa Heinz sneered at the idea she should pay much of anything. IMO, it is this kind of specious argument that allows the left to lump us in with the worst of their own malefactors where the backbone of the Republican Party is small business. Unless you want to put a lid on corporate compensation packages and perks, you are going to see things like this. CO, this is a class warfare arguement. IMO, we do a disservice to ourselves if we allow the left to use class warfare arguements without responding on point. Why would any corporate executive want to work for Kelloggs at $100k per year, if they could work for a much smaller business and make the same amount of money? There would be less headaches, the same pay. And if you think the smaller business should pay less than $100k, then why work as a CEO when you could work as a mid-level manager for the same pay? And if you think the mid-level manager should make less, then why not just work on the floor (figuratively speaking), because you wouldn't have the headaches of management without the requisite compensation. Can't you see the destructive effect this would have?
The market either sets these rates, or we jump off into a business environment with so many socialist geared regulations, that we have lost the battle without firing a single gun-shot. We will have become a socialist business environment nation.
Thus, this "the poor don't pay taxes," crap, and that's what it is, fails to grab the opportunity to show those who might listen the way the left keeps them down. That makes me crazy. Give us honest measurements and thoughtful explanations and we'll start winning a lot more elections. I don't have a problem with the honest measurements and thoughtful explanations, but I don't really see this quite the way you do. I spent several decades making dirt poor wages, while I raised two children, supported a wife and a home, and put my children thorough six years of parochial school in a single wage earner environment. And not once did I buy into what you are selling here. I considered my plight to be mostly of my making. I also continued to think that I would advance myself over time. And in the end, I did so.
It seems to me that the arguement is that we do not explain why some compensation packages seem out of line, but they honestly aren't. It seems that we are to tell coroporate executives that we are going to get their salaries in line with a socialist oversight program. We are going to tax higher wage earners more. We are going to go after corporations. Then we are going to try to get the poor to join us, because we are better than the left.
The only problem is, they won't be joining a Conservative cabal if we do this. They will be joining a socialist group, something we should be finding ways to avoid.
Bud, isn't what you are pushing simply a conversion on our part? I thought we were supposed to be converting others to our way of thinking.
If you disagree, explain where I am going wrong. I'll listen.