Top 3% of Taxpayers paid majority of income taxes in 2016.

Well what's the unemployment rate?

Well we used to have hundreds of thousands of telephone operators, then the telephone system was automated.


What happened?

And Amazon employees over half a million jobs just in their company, then there are all the logistical jobs down the chain, internet systems people who maintain the internet they use, box manufacturers to supply boxes, the people who build and sell the sortation equipment and parts, LIKE ME, then you have to maintain that equipment and on and on and on

Yes and they pay more and are better jobs. Again we have free automation and robotics training in my state. I agree we need to figure out a way to get public K-12 standards back to where they were when I went to school where you actually learn Reading, Writing and Arithmetic and history and civics instead of all the social indoctrination and coddling that goes on. But if you want to learn it it out there and manufacturers are BEGGING for workers with trained specialities and they already do their own training for basic jobs. Drive by the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, the building between the main plant and I-65 is their training center. No expericence they will train you. Same with the Mercedes plant near Tuscaloosa. And they will start you out at over $20 and hour with very rapid increases the longer you stay.

What you fear is eliminated by one thing, a free and open and vibrant market and economy where capital formation is possible and rewarding and not taxed away by the government to be distributed to people who then don't have to work as hard.

 

Personally I favor only one tax: a $500 per citizen poll tax. Don't vote, don't have to pay it.

If government can't get by on $500 per voter they shouldn't be in power. That's 80 billion a year.

 

WAIT A MINUTE..................

It used to take hundreds of field hands to run that farm and you bought equipment to do those jobs????? How dare you!!!! Agriculture used to be the biggest labor requirement in the country, now it is a rounding error. Did all that available labor go to waste never to be used again?

 

Which citizens the workers which are merely an to the company and in the economy or those who put their capital at risk to form a business.

Do you think the whole point of citizens are engaged in when they combine their capital into an investment and putting it at risk is the prosperity of other citizens because they want to pay them a lot of money to make them prosperous?

The economy we have which is created by certain laws and regulations and practices is only a system, a facilitator, it doesn't have a "point". It's the people engaged in it to decide what will be that point for them and then go out and grab it.

 

History shows that to be incorrect. The American work force adapts and learns. A hundred years ago over 80% of this country worked on farms. Machines came along and they became machinist and factory workers. Computers replaced secretaries and life went on. Cars replaced horses. Diesel replaced steam. Gas stations are self service now. Air conditioners replaced fans. There are hundreds of examples. The American work force not only survives but flourishes with change.

 

They don't care about fair. They could take 100% of the wealth and they would want more. Look at what happened in China when Mao's regime took over.

 

Yeah, saying that it's not a problem that 75% of the wealth is paying 70% is really stupid… If you can't argue, don't bother answering.

 

The whole point of this country’s founding is the protection, prosperity, and freedom of the individual. This latest statement of yours comes closer to that fact, but the original part I quoted was straight up collectivism.

Unless a business is set up within a commune or is a true cooperative the “point” must be profit for the business (owner). It’s a fact of economics. World history is replete with real world demonstrations of this reality.

 

We are discussing the income tax, not some imaginary "wealth tax".
Please try to stay in the real world.

 

The main reason why the top 1%/5%/10% earners pay most income taxes is because over 50% of households pay no federal income tax, and a majority of said 50% has a negative liability, DUH!

 

What's really unfair to all citizens is structural.

Examples;

a. U.S. K-12 education spending tops global list due to the fact our funding system is inequitable

b. "Essential Care For All" would save most employers/employees and the unemployed a whole lot of money

 

Wealth isn't what is taxed, income is what is taxed.

 

I see protection and freedom as only a means to an end for prosperity because being safe and free but poor isn't much of a life at all. But protection and freedom are what create the right environment for prosperity to flourish. Collectivism and communism don't work because they don't value freedom and don't value free markets and so do not provide prosperity and this is why I oppose them.

Yes, business and free markets by their nature have to be selfish, thats how free markets work. You don't win in business by being altrustic, you win by fighting for your own success. Most of the time this selfishness actually helps create success for everyone, but other times it results in a lower quality of life for most people. I believe that common sense regulation and taxes are needed to help smooth out the problems with the free market and we have already been doing this since the late 1800s.

For example, employers will naturally try to outsource their labor to get lower costs, but this will result in job losses and lower pay for workers so we need tariffs to help correct that. Some industries are natural monopolies or demand is inelastic to prices so we will need regulations to protect consumers from unreasonable prices. For example electric utility companies are natural monopolies because you can't have 10 sets of electric lines everywhere and its best to have just one provider who is regulated by the government, and thats what we already have. In the same way, sometimes the free market gives most of the growth to employers, and we can use taxes to help correct that issue as well, and that is what we kind of already doing with progressive taxation.

 

Yes, so far automation hasn't really created the massive unemployment that was predicted and even now with computers we have a tight labor market. But in China for example, its really easy to find a job because so much less has been automated and there are just so many jobs in factory work and farming available. In the US, most of these jobs have been automated, and the jobs available either are so low pay that they don't keep up with costs, or they are so high skill that they require years of education and experience, and employers are very selective.

Also, job growth hasn't kept up with population growth since 2000 which corresponds to the technology boom. The percent of the population employed today is actually lower than it was when computers were not dominant. Also, we now have a very large skills gap where high skill jobs have a tough time finding qualified candidates and most people have a tough time finding jobs because they don't have the skills. Most people who graduate college, have a non-marketable degree, even when its common knowledge these majors aren't very good. Even in places like China, the vast majority of the population aren't high skill.

 

With your clarifications it seems we agree more than disagree on facts of economics. I still am 100% opposed to any kind of redistribution from property confiscation to progressive (regressive) taxation. It’s fundamentally wrong on many levels.

 

I'm also discussing income tax, that's why I used the t70% figure. That 70% is about income tax, like it was said by the poster I was quoting, tAnd the 75% is in the real world, I've put a link to show the information. So your argument doesn't work.

The more wealth you have, the more income taxes you will pay. How can anyone claim that it's imaginary?

 

Because wealth and income aren't the same thing. Wealth isn't taxed. Income is.

 

Your mistake is equating wealth with income.

They are two completely different things.

 

So you have a problem when I use % of wealth instead of % of income to talk about tax fairness, but you have no problem when someone uses % of people? Funny considering that wealth is more correlated to income. I agree with you, income is what is taxed, therefore using people and saying 10% are paying 70% is the wrong way to argue about fairness, which was my original point. Thank you for agreeing with me.

It would be a long discussion that I don't feel like getting into, but I think that wealth is a better indicator of how rich you are than income. The problem with income as a measurement is all the loopholes existing so your taxable income is inferior to how much you really gained in wealth in a given year.

 

Yes, income is taxed, therefore equating 10% to 70% is a false equivalency when talking about "fair share". Thank you for arguing my point. It's really funny that comparing 75% to 70% bothers you, but you had no problem with what OP was saying.

 

Are these the same Democrats in liberal states fighting to make sure the rich can deduct their state taxes from their federal taxes, and not limit deductions on their million dollar homes?

 

I go much further than the OP. Our republic was founded on the concept of equality, not fairness. Equality means government should treat people the same. It is an objective concept. Fairness means government should treat people differently based on what someone considers something to be the right thing to do. It is subjective and unmanageable. There is no fair share. There is an equal share, however. Fairness should be stricken from political discourse completely. It isn't fair.

 

Well DUH if you are going to talk federal income taxation it has nothing to do with wealth other than the miniscule inheritence tax. And yes it is the way time tak about the lefts calls for tax "fairness". Who pays what share.

Again we don't tax people based on their "richness". Income and wealth are to entirely different matters. How do you propose taxing someones wealth to satisfy this apparent envy of them being wealthy?

 

+1

 

A middle aged very successful working person makes lots of income but has little wealth yet. The retired older person has little income anymore but has accumulated lots of wealth.