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joether -> RE: Romney Paid 13% ? How come I Pay 20% ? (9/24/2012 1:36:52 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: graceadieu
quote:
ORIGINAL: seekingOwnertoo
In the 1980's ... Mitt Romney would have paid 70% of his income in taxes, no questions asked.
Generally I agree with you, but in the 80s rich guys took lots of deductions too, so none of them really paid anywhere the top tax rate.
Actually, they STILL paid above the 50% mark in those days. The question is often asked to Republicans is:
Are you better off under the Obama administration with low taxes? Or the Reagan administration with high taxes?
Most people will point out that when taxes were high on the rich, the middle and poor classes advanced in many areas. In fact, it was easier to recover from recessions. Of course, the US debt was sigificantly lower than it is now, which allowed the goverment to create an artifical demand for products and services, which therefore led to tens of millions of Americans getting the nation out of a recession. Republicans for the last dozen years have jacked up the debt by 'spending high on the hog' while creating the actual deficit we 'enjoy' today. That prevents the goverment for the most part, of doing what it would before with recessions.
If you look at things objectively, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was the actual bill passed through Congress to create that artifical demand. At that time, the nation's economy was sinking faster than the Titanic into a really bad depression. Looking at the data does suggest that most of the industries operating in the USA either leveled off, or started to make actual gains at the end of the bill's time period. The bill, for information sake, was only to play out over two years (Republicans told their followers the bill's cost of $878 billion was for 1 year). Many economists suggested that if the USA had paid ANOTHER $500 billion, the economy would have been out of the recession. The information and data did point to this conclusion. HOWEVER, we have these people in our goverment called 'Republicans', that did anything and everything to undermine, hinder, and even stop actual progress. Cus their belief was "if the American people get out of the recession, they'll vote Democrat down the line in 2012". Hence, their attitudes on anything in Congress for the last three years would not surprise the objective observer.
The reason the '...rich guys...' as you call them can take so many deductions, is because they paid other people to lobby on their behalf in Congress to get those things in place. The much villified 'Bush Era Tax Cuts' from back in 2000-2004 are only the most well known of those tax changes. The Income Tax in the USA is set up for gradually increasing income tax brackets. Those that make higher amounts, pay higher amounts of taxes. On the flip side, those that made less, do not pay much if at all. The deductions are applied across the board (much like the tax code itself). Those that meet the minimal circumstances for the deduction, get them. Unfortunately, the Income Tax information really is complex, and only those that study its finer points, know which deductions apply to which circumstances. The 'rich guys' reason that even what they pay for tax accountants, they still pay less in taxes to the goverment. The problem here, is that the deductions were meant for the poor and middle classes; but yet, these groups can not afford a tax accountant usually.
And before you say it, a 'Flat Tax' system doesnt work. There are 29 different types I've seen over the years. With perhaps 100-200 'mutant' versions of those systems. They really dont work to well. The poor gets slammed even more than any other economic group. The rich, of course, push for many of these, since they stand to come out much more ahead. And as many have learned, money seems to be buying political favors. Bigger money, buys bigger favors, while keep the lesser money from buying much of anything.
That's not how a Republic or a Democracy works. We could argue all day whether the United States was set up as a 'Democratic Republic' or a 'Consitutional Republic'. When the goverment caters to a minority of very wealthy individuals, and NOT, to the whole of the population, it doesnt even remotely met the basic condition of a 'Republic' or 'Democracy'. They do however easily met the conditions for a 'plutocracy'. Conservatives are supporting (whether they realize it or not), this form of goverment taking over the nation. Many nations have done this in the past, with very bad results. The Founding Fathers warned about this very type of tyranny from taking hold in the nation. Unfortunately conservatives are either to stupid, foolish, or brain dead (along with immature attitudes), to realize they are giving the nation over to those that would be tyrants!
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