How is it that a rising market raises all boats when most corporations pay no taxes?

Rat

Bla, bla, bla – government bad – bla, bla, bla – regulating the wealthy is bad - bla, bla, bla – democracy is a sham - bla, bla, bla – it’s a conspiracy - bla, bla, bla….

Yes Rat, we know Rat, I think we’ve all heard your agenda’s bullet points by now.

But what are your solutions?

I mean you’ve already refused, point blank, to say what you would do about the lobby problem (accept seemingly to allow it to continue).

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=314393

But what is clearly shown in that thread (as in this one) is your seemingly desperate desire to derail any discussion on ways of actually deal with the power of the elite by once again ranting on about your pro-wealth agenda.

Oh I know, you claim you’re not pushing a pro-wealth agenda, but if not why do you refused to address the charges levelled at you?

Why is it that you run away when asked to explain why the things you push for don’t favour the rich, when they so clearly seem to?

Rat you seem to me like a farmer who claims loudly to be selling a horse but the animal he is actually selling looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.

**

 

Gardener

Thanks for your support the only problem is that it doesn’t seem to get on the political agenda.

In a US (and to a lesser not still large degree in the UK) were wealth screams and other voices are drowned out I can only hope that discussions like these on forums like these might start getting people to look at such matters.

 

So Rat you are an anarchist? You always have an argument against any solution, but you provide none.

Laws and regulations are necessary to protect the societal good, but of course that can be manipulated if those that vote choose not to question. They are the only reason to have a government of any type.

I question, my friends question. We don't stand aside and throw our hands up saying the sky is falling but we can't do anything about it. We vote our conscience time and time again. Yes many times we fail, but we have had our votes counted.

We've tried to educate and spread the facts, we haven't idly stood by why offenses were carried out. We've stood up to abuses and wrongs. Perhaps we haven't always prevailed, but then we haven't been just observers, or uninvolved participants either.

And the only way we can do that with today's corporations is to reign them in with regulation designed for the public good, and to make them pay their fair share. I for one am tired of putting the drunken market first, and then paying for their hangover cure.

 

It's not a free market if people are not taxed fairly. The correlation of a rising market and the average height of all boats is proportional to how free the market is.

A "market tax system" would aim to make people pay for what they use. If they have a lot of wealth that needs protecting they must pay more for police protection to guard all that property and the law enforcement needed to ensure they do not use it to break the law.

 

Press rat is right about regulations but misses out on a major point, regulation can be good or bad.

You could have a regulation that barely restricts the businesses involved but increases the efficiency of law enforcement considerably.

Then there are regulations which are arbitrary and impede the free flow of capital and the free command businesses have over their property.

A textbook example is protectionism. Businesses obviously have more political influence than their foreign competitors and can easily drum up arguments to tax imports, usually to keep jobs in the country and because other countries are doing the same. The drawbacks outweigh the benefits however, if the land across the border is better for growing oranges protectionism will result in resources unnecessarily diverted to growing oranges in the poorer domestic climate.

 

Democratic politicians are not talking about taxing wealth, they want to tax income. There is a diference, the truly wealthy will get by without a big hit whlile people in the middle will pay.

I'm offended at all this blah blah class warfare while the solutions offered do not address the real issue.

If Democrats really went after wealth they would find thier campagain abandoned and bankrupted.

 

.........................................................................................................

Would the implementation of a goverment health care system then require more tax from the population as a whole?

 

What exactly is it the Republican's tax? For without taxes coming in there can be no government. I hear them say they don't want to raise taxes on the rich, they don't want to tax inheritance, where do they hope to generate income, when they appear to be all about protecting and allowing corporations to shift their financials offshore. So who will pay under the Republican plan?

 

..............................................................................................

Hay Gardner:

I havent heard anything about Republicans boosting revenue.

The previous years, Rebublican naritives were all about growing the economy and then letting this bigger economy throw off more tax revenue.

I think that Goverment revenue in 2007 was the highest figure ever recorded.
Even with Bush's lower rates, the economy has thrown off more revenue than with Clinton's tax rates.

Republican theory holds that punative taxation will cause economic activity to shrink producing a smaller gross revenue stream even with higher rates of taxation in place.

Of course Republicans are not contemplating the Goverment health care system that everybody is speaking about.

My personal feeling is that wealthy people have too many tax shelters. Its not about tax rate at all. In fact the wealty are all too happy to speak about adding a percentage point here and there because it diverts attention from just how really sheltered thier wealth is. The wealthy can just go to their portfolio manager or CPA and adjust the holdings to insulate them from such an increase.

Meanwhile, Mr. & Mrs. Johnny paycheck with their IRA and 401 K the two jobs get whacked.

Taxes should not be about "punishing" anybody. I am not jealous about people who have more than me its bad karma.

It seems that just recently Congress gave a tax break to people complaining about paying tooo much with the Alternative Minimum Tax. and a Democratic Congress for that matter! So what gives?

The paradox of this political season is that most of the wealthy people of America are concentrated in Democrat states, places like California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachutces, Maryland their Representatives fought against the Alt Min Tax.
Sure Texas is rich, and Florida, but just who do these people think will pay these proposed higher taxes?

I would like to see less write off for real estate taxes and mortgage interest deduction. Our decisions about housing are being goverened by its role as a tax shelter not as a domicile. We would have less McMansions.

If all Americans want to have a goverment health plan than all Americans should expect some increase in taxation. Thats fair.

We could certainly do with less goverment spending and subsidy and those huge defense contracts for grossly expensive military toys.
But restraint of Congressional spending does not seem to be a part of our current discusion.

 

Everyone would get treatment, but would have to pay for their treatment after they recovered if the injury they sustained was not someone else's fault, of course if they have insurance the insurance company will pay. This would generate more issues concerning the law, but not significantly more than with a private or nationalised healthcare system. The state healthcare system would have to compete with private healthcare since private hospitals would get paid the same for treatment as state hospitals.

This would reduce the incentive to perform dangerous activities, smoke and become obese along with the increased costs of insurance in the private sector. People would pay less tax and spend on insurance and private healthcare instead, since the private sector is competing with the national sector it will either be more efficient than the national sector or go out of business so it should have a higher cost/quality ratio.

On the other hand the medical costs of people who die or who can't pay will still have to be picked up by the tax payer.