Quote:
|
Originally Posted by 98MustGT
"Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that everyday, 10 men go to dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. If it was paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four men would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20. Now dinner for the 10 costs $80.
The first four are unaffected. They still eat for free. Can you figure out how to divvy up the $20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share? The men realize that $20 divided by six is $3.33, but if they subtract that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.
The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so, the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of $59. Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man pointing to the tenth, "and he got $7."
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"
"That's true," shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks."
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor."
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important: they were $52 short!
And that, boys and girls and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Switzerland and the Caribbean."
|
Interesting little story but not truly how it goes, old sport.
OK, you have someone who works and makes let's saythe median $37,000 a year. Now on that $37,000 let's say he pays 20% by the time fed, FICA, state city are taken out.
That leaves the man $29,600, now he pays sells tax on everything he buys and property taxes. So let's say that adds up to another $2,600.
That leaves him with $27,000 for the year. That's $2250 a month. Now he has a mortgage that is say cheap $600 a month.
Now he has $1650/month. Now he has 2 cars and the payments w/ insurance equal say $750 a month.
He now has $900. Which now goes to electric, health insurance, kids clothing, gas for the car, CC payments and groceries. How can that man save anything?
Now you look at a man that makes a million, if you tax him a flat rate of 40% in all taxes (state, city and Fed), he has $600,000 left.
You look at his mortgage, car payments and CC payments and multiply them by 10 over the other guy (26,000+ (6000*12=72,000)=98,000)
He still has $502,000. No matter how you slice it he is going to have way more money to save.
Now, who's child is going to be able to get into college because the parents can afford it? Who's child may get into college but will have to work hard and his education is determined by loans and grants? Which get cut when the rich get their taxes cut.
So who stays in the higher bracket and who has a very slim chance of having a better life than his parents?
As for leaving the country, the rich don't have to there is such a gap in who owns what here they don't need to move to a country that will tax them more. (OUR "rich" pay a hell of a lot less than any other industrialized country out there, especially in Europe.)
You want to fix it so the rich don't have to pay exuberant taxes then keep jobs here rebuild factories, rebuild a middle class, start taxing imports they way every other fucking country taxes our exports and put more money into schools so that people can make more money and have more oppurtunities. Tax companies that ship jobs overseas.
Because what we are looking at right now is this, no true manufacturing base to tax, payrolls that are bare minimum and a government going broke while every other country out there is buying up our debt as fast as they can. The tax base has to come from somewhere. You cut education and everything else to bare bone you increase poverty and crime because there is no advancement. You increase class warfare and eventually you will have a revolution or we will be a Mexico or worse. Is that truly how you want this country to be?
We once led in everything that was good and a country any man could advance in, since Reagan, we lead in infant death, illiteracy, crime and just about every negative category out there and we are in the bottom 50% in the positive among industrialized countries. What happened and why did we give up being the greatest? I take that back for the top 1% we still are the greatest, because they pay less taxes, get better tax breaks and can get away with anything.