Posted on 12/12/2012 4:12:05 AM PST by IbJensen
Listening to the self-righteous protestations of the class warriors, one would come away with the impression that the rich don’t pay any taxes. In fact, the top 1% of tax filers paid 37.4% of all federal income taxes in 2010; the top 2% paid almost 50%.
Unfortunately, when it comes to real handouts for the rich, liberals are silent. In their dyslexic worldview, a tax cut is a handout and a handout is a tax cut. That is why both Democrats and Republicans are plotting to surreptitiously slip in a farm bill to the final negotiations over the tax rates.
At present, more than 3/4 of farmers who earn upwards of $250,000 a year receive subsidies from at least one farm program. Farm subsidies and crop insurance programs help promote income inequality in farming by offering larger subsidies to those who already have larger farms. These farmers can enjoy multimillion dollar insurance policies that are subsidized in order to guarantee their multimillion dollar investments that would otherwise not be supported by the free market. Also, federal guarantees of bankers’ loans to rich farmers have further increased their borrowing capacity, thereby driving up the cost of land acquisition. This, in turn, has shut out small farmers from the business, making it nearly impossible for them to compete.
While liberal politicians like to talk about income inequality, they fail to mention the corporate welfare inequality. Here is what AEI scholar Vince Smith observes over at “American Boondoggle” regarding inequality in farm subsidies:
Since 1995, the top 10 percent of farm subsidy recipients have cashed 74 percent of all subsidy checks. In 2011, for instance, 26 individual holders of crop insurance policies collected more than $1 million each in subsidies to help pay their insurance premiums.
Ironically, in the same deal where both parties plan to raise taxes on those who pay the most taxes, they want to renew and augment farm subsidies to rich farmers. Democrats in the Senate are pushing for a new shallow loss program, which extends the coverage of crop insurance from catastrophic benefits to a guarantee of 90% of the farmer’s annual revenue. The idea that the government could guarantee members of a specific profession 90% of their income, especially when food prices are so high, is an anathema to our system of free enterprise. It will also line the pockets of the very people they desire to tax.
Last June, Senator Rand Paul illustrated this liberal hypocrisy by introducing an amendment to the Farm Bill, S. 3240, which would have eliminated farm programs for those with annual income above $250,000. Only 1 Democrat (Herb Kohl) in the entire Senate voted for this amendment.
So what gives? Extending current tax rates for those earning more than $250,000 is bad; subsidies for those same rich people are good? Maybe we should just call the tax rates a subsidy, and Democrats will support full extension.
This is yet one more piece of evidence that the fiscal cliff imbroglio has nothing to do with taxes on the rich. It’s all about growing government for everyone.
The message from liberals is clear. It’s not evil to be rich, so long as that wealth is first transferred through the circuitous cycle of government, special interests handouts, and Democrat reelection favors.
These half-baked nutcase marxists will realize that true cutting of expenditures means not only cut their Great Society programs to the bare bone, but taking a meat axe to the entire central socialist government. They can't as they are living proof of what happens when a republic goes amok.
They have dragged our nation into a danger zone where it has developed a fatal illness and will die. It will, by necessity, have to be perhaps violently replaced by one that resembles the successful one in Singapore.
When that happens they'll lose everything as payback for their useless lives spent promoting marxism and elevating the worst examples of scum to be found on earth. Those poor simple souls, save those who are truly ill and disabled, will be forced to get out of their beds or off their couches and do something in order to eat!
New world order? New order for America is what's needed!
The GOP should claim it is for the “Dreamers”
Many liberals think the top 2% pay no taxes. Just had an argument on line with one who thinks they’ve paid no taxes since Bush. Also blames them for there being no jobs, and believes they should be taxed to create jobs.
“Many liberals think the top 2% pay no taxes. Just had an argument on line with one who thinks they’ve paid no taxes since Bush.”
This is how you fight it. You say that the media is lying since the Bush tax cuts for the rich are being rescinded. No one else is affected because it was only a tax cut for the rich. Keep saying tax cut for the rich.
When the argument comes back that everyone will be affected, you then say that it was Bush who gave the middle class and lower class the tax cuts. So why did the Democrats and the media lie for 8 years? Then call him an ignorant boob and end the conversation.
In fact, the top 1% of tax filers paid 37.4% of all federal income taxes in 2010; the top 2% paid almost 50%.
When the Federal government passed the federal income tax, it was, as you can imagine, really unpopular. In order to get popular support, politicians assured people that the tax would only ever be paid by the super-rich (i.e. "the 1%"). So, originally, ordinary Americans agreed to support this tax on the basis that it was a special tax and 100% of it would be paid by the 1%.
Of course, opponents knew that the scope of this tax would expand (it always does) and that eventually working people would be paying income taxes to the Federal government. They knew that some Americans would even support this idea.
What they never could have guessed is that conservatives would be calling for it.
So, instead of calling for a repeal of the 16th Amendment, we're complaining that rich people pay too much... and then people wonder why we're losing national elections.
The never ending brainwashing of talking points DEFLECTION away from the real issue of: total Aggregate Federal Taxes.
Republicans seem to stand for the rich paying less. That’s how Democrats would have it, and that’s how some of us actually talk. But what has been termed the conservative position on the matter is all about the “forgotten man.” See the landmark essay by William Graham Sumner. Of course, that is too subtle an argument for voters, let alone politicians. So we’re stuck with Republicans for the fat cats and Democrats for the little guy, and blah, blah, blah.
We never will win on the capital gains issue, nor convince pellet Dems are now the party if Wall Street. We never will get outran this hole we’ve dug whereby we support deficit spending in exchange for tax cuts in exchange for other tax hikes in exchange for spending cuts that never come, and on and on. Taxrs aren’t the thing. They were always supposed to be a means to an end, the end being in the very least slowing down government growth. But tax cuts were one thing Republicans were able to push through, in exchange for all of the above plus us arguing in favor of deficit spending, which wasn’t worth it. We’ve got to get off this pony.
The only meaningful difference between the parties, and the one that voters should be made aware of, is that Republicans want to have the government control marginally less of the nation’s wealth than do Democrats. That’s it. People should know it, but they don’t. Because we get bogged down in cutting thine instead of mine and the distinction between capital gains and income income, and the rest of the crap.
By the way, the way you frame the argument by backtracking to the original selling point, okay, it was always more popular to soak the rich than spread the burden. That is the very point of a direct tax like the income tax, as opposed to consumption taxes which are notoriously regressive. We had quasi-revolutions over those.
It remains unclear whether you bring up the original argument for historical curiosity, or do you side with the pitchfork gang? I certainly don’t. I think it is a dirty, underhanded, oppressive trick. It characterizes the worst of democracy. They burden a monied minority nit out of any actual principle of fairness but merely so as not to lose elections for spending like drunjen sailors. I’d much prefer we have none but consumption taxes.
Well, okay, maybe they think it’s fair. The successful owe the less successful simply because they are more successful. I don’t get it, but let’s say they do. Still the practical reason for its implementation was to get away with spending more. Much like the creation of the federal reserve, only that hit poor people right from the get-go.
It remains unclear whether you bring up the original argument for historical curiosity, or do you side with the pitchfork gang?
I just thought there was so irony in the complaints surrounding the income tax. As far as siding with mobs, that's usually a bad idea regardless of the merits of the mob's underlying motives.\
As far as tax policy goes, I don't think there's any such thing as a good one, much less a perfect one. Unfortunately, "no tax policy" doesn't really work either. Prior to the institution of the income tax, the government was able to run on duties and user fees. The economy changed, so tax policy changed with it. I would also prefer to have nothing but consumption taxes. Unfortunately, not only are such taxes regressive, but they're also a drag on aggregate demand which is pretty must the worst possible thing we could do to our economy right now.
BTW, I love your screen name.
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