We MUST Raise Taxes on the Rich

Cut away!

We'll be Liberia in no time ... the teagagger's dream.

nah, tax the poor. they've already shown they can't manage their finances(tongue in cheek of course)

The problem is who are the rich? People who make $250,000 in NYC do not feel rich.

no one feels rich.

Its a silly discussion. The people who say, "tax the rich" just think they are hitting back.
More bread and circus instead of solving the real issue. job growth and insufficient savings.

what is your plan for job growth?

Tax them all -- if anyone thinks they're rich, get their money. Money of rich people can be used to grow jobs and to save sufficiently.

American companies are very busy growing jobs. they are harvesting them in china, India and brazil. they are busy, busy, busy employing people.

job growth in the us? without public infrastructure and serious r&d and incentives for a us presence it's not going to happen. so it's not going to happen.

or the government can just double the money supply and reduce the value of everyone's dollars.

No wait,, that's what we are doing.

so you think fiscal expansionary policy is a decent idea? infrastructure, r&d, green, etc? I do, but with the nut jobs in congress we have no chance in hell that will happen.

I'm not terribly fond of the fed, but I think they're doing what they can given the circumstances. and I don't know if I'd like to see what would happen if they just gave up.

it's easy to bitch about what's not or is being done. BarcaLounger quarterbacking.

I'm all for getting rid of the nut jobs, but Do you really want a congress staffed only with Independents, Libertarians and Republicans?

the only thing is...

getting rid of you.

what do you stand for?

rs has finally truly shown himself to be the partisan hack job we always knew he was.

so much for your "my thinking is a bit complex" meme. you're not only a tool, you're a simple one.

aboutready
about 1 hour ago
ignore this person
report abuse ..
I'm not terribly fond of the fed,

Really? What qualifies your opinion on the Fed? Your bachelors degree in psych from Yale? Or all of the income that is earned ... by your husband?

riversider, are you kidding?

Folks, the train has left the station. The United States government will no longer solely dictate global economic policy and it is increasingly loosing its credibility to manage domestic policy. The so called "rich" people will and should seek the best returns for use of their capital. It is no longer acceptable or sustainable to expect these folks - if for example you use the popular definition of "top 1%" - to pay 80% of tax revenue while the federal, state, and local governments continue to borrow hundreds of times more than they make (New York state for instance spent 207% of revenues over past 10 years). If you are paying attention, you will notice that there has recently been broad based bi-partisan support from two separate independent commissions, including one established by President Obama, to revise the entire tax code with three key objectives; 1. Lower top marginal rates (including corporate so we can compete more fairly internationally for corporate investment), 2. Eliminate the loopholes and deductions almost completely, and 3. Broaden the tax base with some kind of VAT or National Sales tax so the approx. 50% of earners who do not pay tax currently but use a disproportianate share of benefits (primarily via "entitlement" programs)begin to contribute a reasonable share to the government bank. Either we will hold our elected officials accountable to protect and improve our global leadership position by balancing our budget, paying down our debt, and reducing the vast bureucratic barriers to providing superior return on capital investment in this country, or we won't. If we continue to succomb to the trap of apathy as a result of sensational mis-informed egotistical partisan drivel, it will be the latter. I have my money on America. There are too many brilliant selfless people here. Our story is too compelling. Our history is too rich. Our purpose is to great. The stakes are too high. It was the great Thomas Paine who coined the phrase, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way". This is a time to head that advice.

aren't you the guy who was shilling for some condo?

aboutready... Please, this is a real-estate site. You really ought to stay on topic.

Americans are like screaming cry babies. Buying stuff on the cheap they couldn't afford based on cheap labor from China and when their jobs couldn't support that they cry currency manipulation by the Chinese, forgetting that the United States is the global reserve currency and it's us who manipulate it.

I agree with the prior opinion poster that the train has left the station. The public is really getting outraged over the failure to deal with the banks and the unprecedented printing of money by the fed, who has not a care in the world where the money goes, only that it hopes to prop up stock and home prices.

It's also true that we are in a global economy and that the rich are the most mobile of income groups and are most able to leave. This has been the case with Europe for some time and we've seen some that already in our own 50 states.

The one hope is that the Republicans have decided they won't be the party of No the next two years, and have decided they are going to attack gov't waste and cut spending, maybe this is forced upon them by the voters, or the tea party but who cares. its the right thing to do.

The calls to tax the wealthy are meant nothing more than to distract the general population from going after the politicians who as a class have outperformed the general population in income growth these past two years. Furthermore it's even more interesting that congress refuses to have a law prohibiting trading from inside information.

who do you speak for?

what is your expertise?

who are you?

answer: no one, nothing & no one.

mad0415, what you described is called the Ireland Plan. Works like a charm, every time.

alanhart, the United States is similar to Ireland?

I didn't know you were Irish

cc river speaks for many..

really?

who?

Including me?

So does Rich Little. Both creepy. Probably both ... Canadian!!!!!!!

As creepy as w67thstreet being nude around children?

I disagree fairly confidently that Bernanke's current monetary policy is predatory. I believe it is fairly routine, albeit unprecedented, policy. It will have the desired affect. It is necessary action under the current circumstances. I think it is astronomically dangerous to grant Congress more control over the Federal Reserve mandate. I believe all of this because we are still the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world, so it works. If we continue to lose our economic strength it will be a mute issue, we will do whatever our creditors tell us to do.

As far as insider trading, I think you should read the article by Holmend Jenkings Wednesdays WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704369304575632713972992740.html More legislation and regulation will continue to destroy an extremely efficient and fair system and facilitate corruption and abuse of power. Things will get much worse, not better. If you are not familiar with the "efficient market theory" I advise you review it. In my view, we are playing with fire here......kind of like the suggestion of giving Congress more oversight over the Federal Reserve Bank.

oh damn -- another mute issue.

mute or moot?

aboutready, please help us out.

time for you to moot it.

moot or boot?

Why would you even read articles from WSJ? Their editorials can be enlightening, but on the news side all you get is editorializing ... the same tired old right-wing propaganda we've been hearing for 30 years, with no insight.

efficient market theory? yes, know it. reject it.

eugene fama and uncle milty. damn, such damage caused by so few.

You reject it because you ...

My feeling is there's a great deal of confusion on Q.E 1 vs Q.E 2.

The first q.e. was necessary, and I give Bernanke his due. Credit markets seized up and in 2008 we did have a liquidity crisis. You could see it in multiple ways and the steps taken helped. Maybe they could've been done differently but the medicine had some relationship to the symptoms.

We don't have a liquidity crisis now. Arguably our largest banks are insolvent, but that's a solvency issue, not a liquidity one. The Fed should not be attempting to use monetary tools to fix a solvency issue. If the banks are broken nationalize and restructure them or shut them down. There are several ways of doing this, but dropping money out of helicopters, paying depositors zero while the banks earn Fed Funds rate for parking cash is absurd. And in some ways the banks are worse off than ever. Their duration of liabilities is shorter than ever. The large banks are totally dependent on short term deposits and face potentially dangerous risks if interest rates were to rise steeply.

how's your optionality doing?

How's your property in Columbia County?

how quickly you forget the rules.

No boy, YOU don't get to ask the questions.

but, of course, you get erased every day.

over and over.

erased.

But yet here I am.

And you are shriveled and grey and on autoignore unless opted in.

Can't resist, but studios in Manhattan go for far more than the median home price in Columbia County. You could in fact buy several.

but you do get to live on as the mighty and brilliant riversider and your fanclub of one....julia the stupid, ugly, large, fat, disgusting one.

enjoy.

Fanclub of just one?

cc, stop. now.

rs, who gives a crap what you think?

were deposit rates really doing so well during 2000-08? no. they weren't.

we needed a much larger stimulus package, one much more focused on infrastructure and development. rahm convinced the powers that be that is wasn't possible to sell to the public despite the shit ton of money that was provided to the financial world, and now the administration is stuck defending a piss poor stimulus plan that did something (although hard to quantify) but not nearly enough for the dollars spent.

How much is a "shit ton"?

For educated people I don't suspect there is confusion between "QE1" and "QE2". QE is QE. The Fed Mandate is the Fed Mandate. Under the circumstances, with a broken Congress, there are few if any better alternatives to attempt to avoid another serious downturn. I do agree with you about the banking issues - which are residual from the real estate collapse and current instability. The insolvency is a product of declining real estate values due to lack of lending because of the insolvency. Classic catch 22. The question is how do you mitigate the issue to avoid a deeper longer recession? The only practical immediate answer is QE.

I would restructure more debt. Bank America is trading below book. It's debt holders should take a hit. and see forced debt conversion to equity. If we did to the banks what we did to G.M. we'd be in a far better place right now. Current monetary policy is "unprecedented" and we won't know the ramifications for years to come.

Sign the petition!

If $787Billion is not a "shit ton" than I don't know what is. The CBO has determined this "stimulus" is more than the cost of the war in Iraq. Needless to say, when Obama signed this bill, unemployment was 8.2%. By November 2, 2010, it had grown to 9.6%. Always remember this ladies and gents, people may lie but numbers don't.

So this was the change? This is not something I can believe in.

alanhart's petition can be found here: www.alanhart.net

So your conclusion is that the stimulus caused the rise in unemployment or that the stimulus was too small relative to the overall size of the economy?

Bu seriously, monetary policy is not the way, and throwing money at zombie banks is not the way either. The solution is(and not in any order)
1) Free trade(India, South Korea, etc)
2) restructure the banks
3) Fiscal policy, but only when it builds needed infrastructure where the public can see the project and
it builds future economic growth(i.e. power grids, transit, bridges, tunnels)
4) Reduce red tape and promote Nuclear
5) Increase interest rates to the point where money has value(maybe 1% fed funds for now)

How about a nuclear plant in manhattan? Good idea?

Columbiacounty, who knew you were a fan of Buchanan after all.

mad0415

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k7ob438hk0&feature=player_embedded#!

Thanks for sharing RS. Creative and provocative. To be honest, I have to review my Hayek.

mad0415, maybe you should look at where the "stimulus" money went. most of it went to tax cuts and aid to states who were losing an ass ton (my phrase, my bad) of revenue to retain basic public services.

very little of it was of a "stimulus" nature (maybe $100 million or so, and there not necessarily well-targeted). it was plugging some holes, and not much more than that.

you really think that obama could have prevented the increase in unemployment? wow, that would have been impressive. the future unemployment rate had been called by numerous people prior to the election.

aboutready, why are you so afraid to use the word stimulus? Why the need for quotation marks? Is stimulus a top off limits at home with the husband?

"The CBO has determined this "stimulus" is more than the cost of the war in Iraq."

Not true:

"The costs are still adding up. Although the last combat troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, there are still 49,700 troops on the ground conducting security patrols and training Iraqis. And troops are expected to remain until the end of December 2011. Harrison noted that the president’s 2011 budget includes an additional $43.4 billion for Iraq, and "even if the withdrawal continues as planned, we are likely to see a request of $10 billion-$5 billion in the 2012 budget."

And the number could be much higher depending how broadly you define the cost of the war. Some experts believe you should include the continuing costs of disability compensation and medical care for Iraqi war veterans -- costs that will last for decades.

Linda Bilmes, senior lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of the Three Trillion Dollar War, argues that official government estimates of the war’s costs are too low because they do not take into account costs such as higher combat pay and recruiting costs, Social Security disability payments for veterans who can no longer work, the cost of restoring the military to its pre-war strength (replacing the bullets and bombs that have been used). She and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist at Columbia University, argue that the "true" cost of Iraq will be several trillion dollars."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/25/mark-tapscott/did-stimulus-cost-more-war-iraq/

"1) Free trade(India, South Korea, etc)"

How does free trade create jobs in the U.S.? NAFTA was a complee failure.

The stimulus was Obama's way of pumping up the unions. In one sense it did more harm than good because it delayed much needed state and local reform of union costs.
Riversider is right, if the stimulus actually was spent on infrastructure that would have provided long-term economic benefits along with short-term jobs, it may have had some positive effect. Obama politicized it and the stimulus wound up being damaging to the long-term economy.

We should not be taking on more debt to throw more money away on similar future stimulus plans. We need to reform labor costs, reduce spending, be tax competitive globally, and reform social security, medicaid and medicare. Get government out of the function of planning and controlling the economy and we will have economic growth and job growth here in the U.S.

The number one problem with the states are over-generous pensions, that would be unheard of in the private sector. And NAFTA was not a failure, but a success. Interesting how the jobs are lost to China which does NOT HAVE A FREE TRADE PACT with the U.S., but the unions complain about Mexico and Canada?

The anti-NAFTA rhetoric is just that hypberole/rhetoric. The Chinese cost us far more jobs, but not because of the cheap wages, but because they exact a technology transfer every time they do business with a U.S. or European company. See how China leap-frogged the Europeans and Japanese in high speed trains.. This wasn't cheap labor or exchange rates, but technology transfer agreemetns.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704693104575638402644710436.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Obama is selling out U.S. business to cater to the AFL-CIO. His position on the Columbia trade agreement is ridiculous.

"Obama is selling out U.S. business to cater to the AFL-CIO."

Obama must have a very funny way of catering to the AFL CIO by completely pissing them off by freezing pay of federal workers:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/unions-progressive-blast-_n_789293.html

"over-generous pensions, that would be unheard of in the private sector"

Didn't generous pensions begin in the private sector, and weren't they very recently a given? Big huge corporations, union and non-union alike, providing de facto lifetime employment and extremely comfortable pensions, not to mention free healthcare? Yes.

By expecting government and unions to follow the cuts/elimination of those benefits, and of decent pay for all levels of employees, you're demanding that our nation reduce itself to lowest common denominator status, rather than strive for and achieve prosperous stability and middle-class confidence. [By "you" I mean all Dirty Republicans, of course.]

> and weren't they very recently a given?

No, actually.

> rather than strive for and achieve prosperous stability and middle-class confidence

I still find it amusing that folks somehow think that the government "creating" high paying jobs by overpaying for government employees is a sustainable strategy. Its right out of the alpo book of genius.

And business isn't the lowest common denominator; government is. How about the government follow Google's approach? Fire the sucky employees, give higher pay to the good ones, and not guarantee anyone lifetime income.

Yes, actually. ... until employers started referring employees to 401K plans, which were explicitly intended to supplement traditional pensions ... and that is why it's nearly impossible for any but the highest earners to save adequately for retirement using 401Ks, even in combination with IRAs.

Do you really think that in a big place like google they efficiently identify the "sucky" employees? More likely they promote the "suck-up" employees who, 1950s-style, compliment the boss's nonexistent business-casual ties on a regular basis. Performance management ain't a science.

Great, raise them on the rich, not on those trying to get rich. You'll need to work for 4000 years at $250K in order to have earned $1 billion.

Socialist - this excerpt was taken from the article you provided;

"At first glance, the numbers look pretty close. The most recent figures from the Congressional Budget Office, released in August 2010, put the total cost for the stimulus -- from February 2009 through 2019 -- at $814 billion. Estimated funding for the war in Iraq totals $709 billion from 2003 to 2010, according to the same CBO report.

But note the different time periods. The stimulus costs are projected through 2019. But the war spending is calculated only to the end of this year."

I believe if you do your homework, you will find that Obama approved $787Billion in spending in February of 2009, over 70% of which has already been committed. By nearly any measure, it is a matter of fact that Obama's stimulus bill alone will cost more than the Iraq war.

With all due respect, the problem with socialists is that they simply have a hard time accepting the facts. The real numbers, not the pie in the sky hypothetical spin numbers. Hard red Washington apples to hard red Washington apples, picked from the same tree on the same day in the same week, month, and year Socialist.

Furthermore, we haven't even gotten into the additional costs of the expanding government based on the current administrations Health Care bill and other budget increases.

Remember too, perhaps Stiglitz has something to say, but many a "nobel prize winning" economist's would strongly disagree with him. I suspect he is more wrong than he is right, considering he is being referenced by a self proclaimed Socialist! :)

"And business isn't the lowest common denominator; government is."

What about Enron, Worldcom, Lehman, Tyco, and Bear Stearns?

"Fire the sucky employees, give higher pay to the good ones,"

Please tell us how you plan to identify the sucky and good employees in the world's largest entity, the U.S. federal government? Does sleeping with the boss make you a good employee?

"What about Enron, Worldcom, Lehman, Tyco, and Bear Stearns?" paul krugman was a paid advisor to enron. Did you know that?

Liberals have the wackiest views of the world. They think companies and businesses are evil, and that an all powerful government should redistribute wealth and overpay workers, and this will make us a strong country economically. And they don't even see how foolish that is. They don't believe in individual freedom and liberty. They believe is government control. Sad.

If someone invests $5000 per year and gets a company match to $7500, and makes 8% average annual return, after 30 years they will have $850k saved. If they get their total contribution to $10,000 then after 30 years they will have over $1.1 million. And their employer will be paying for a worker, not for someone who retired after 20 years and gets paid for the rest of their life.

Liberals think people should just be handed money for doing nothing. Crazy.

"If someone invests $5000 per year and gets a company match to $7500, and makes 8% average annual return, after 30 years they will have $850k saved."

Thanks to Wall St., the only 8% return many people are getting is -8%. And your assumption assumes the person HAS A JOB.

Basically all we learned is that the President has an ax to grind against those who are more successful in life than him. We need more rich people, not less.

In society, do you want more or fewer people pulling the government wagon?

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Do Warrenn Buffett and Bill Gates have an ax to grind against those whoa re more successfl than them. They support raising taxes on the rich, as do 45 other millionaires:

http://www.fiscalstrength.com/

Warren Buffet has become a bit two faced these days. He's not the good Samaritan he's made out to be. Bill Gates is richer than g-d. How about stop talking about people ready to die or outliers and discuss successful medium sized business leaders making 300k to 1,000,000 who are run small businesses, hire and looking to grow.

Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.

rs, you're so full of it. show us some, will you?

"How about stop talking about people ready to die or outliers and discuss successful medium sized business leaders making 300k to 1,000,000 who are run small businesses, hire and looking to grow."

Many of those same people signed the petition I linked to above.

And only 3% of small bsuinesses make over $250,000.

I think it’s not unreasonable to speculate that more than a few of Israel’s deluded leaders would welcome a Palin presidency if that was the alternative to a second-term Obama. They must have been delighted with the answer she gave a year ago when Barbara Walters asked her what she thought about the (illegal) West Bank settlements.

Eric Cantor says expiration of Bush tax cuts will raise small business taxes

About 272,000 Americans in the highest income tax bracket report more than half of their earnings come from business profits. Their average business income is $718,827, according to the Tax Policy Center, whose figures Cantor sometimes uses. That hardly sounds like a corner shop owner, whose image Cantor seems to invoke when he says Democrats are trying to raise taxes on small businesses.

We rate the claim Barely True.

http://politifact.com/virginia/statements/2010/nov/26/eric-cantor/eric-cantor-says-expiration-bush-tax-cuts-will-rai/

It's true. Many small business owners do not file corporate tax returns.

Pres throws these wrong facts around and shows he's just a partisan hack.

Get government out of the way and the jobs will grow. Liberals still think they can tax, borrow and spend their way to prosperity. Dumb.

Funny... Keynes was discredited during stagflation 70's. Suddenly he's back..just long enough to be discredited by Hayek followers.

Liberal politicians will always harken to Keynes. He gives them cover to expand government even when doing so is following bad policy.

Even Keynes would have admitted , it's only ok to spend in bad times if you save in good times. Somehow Krugman forgot the second part.

LICcomm/RS: the most un-American thing in the country today

riversider .. I admire you tremendously. But you're wasting your time with the moochers. Once they get a government check they're lost forever.

> Even Keynes would have admitted , it's only ok to spend in bad times if you save in good times. Somehow Krugman forgot the second part.

Krugman is an idiot. Keynes would be ashamed that he uses his name each time he's trying to sell his "spend baby spend" unhappy ideas. you have to read Keynes in context, gov spending was a lentil size in comparison to what it is nowadays, much closer to the point in which it's limiting the private sector. that was a non-issue during pre-WWII Keynes era. only wars will bring public spending to that point.

krugman was also a paid advisor to enron.