Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Man’s Search for Meaning on Joe Biden’s Facebook Page
Joe Biden’s Facebook page is an endless scroll of passionate meaningless statements. For example, “It’s not enough just to build back to the way things were before the pandemic – it’s time to build back better.” And “Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are focusing on the challenges that hold the keys to our future.” And “We are committed to working with our partners and allies to build a more prosperous future for all people.” And I could go on and on. But you seem like nice people. So I won’t. You should be sure to not visit his page someday. It’s worse than you think. Yes, I know what you think. It’s worse than that.
But a recurring (…and recurring, and recurring, and recurring…) theme of his deep thoughts is that the wealthy do not pay enough taxes, and that he is going to fix that. I know that whoever writes the dreck on his website has no intention of anyone actually thinking about what he says Biden says. But just for fun (?), let’s look it up. I think we can agree that the top 10% of wage earners are wealthy. I would sit down and explain to Joe that they make more money than 90% of Americans, but I suspect that would be like explaining calculus to my cat. He wouldn’t understand, and he wouldn’t care. Anyway, those top 10% pay 71% of all income taxes. So when President Biden says, “Folks, I don’t want to punish anyone’s success. But those at the top have been getting a free ride for far too long. We’re going to change that.“, I wonder what, exactly, he intends to change it to?
If 71% of all income taxes is not enough, would 80% be enough? Heck, let’s just say 90%, for argument’s sake. Ok, that means that the lower 90% of all wage earners (whom I suspect Joe would lump into one group called ‘middle class working people’), would be paying the remaining 10% of all income taxes. This would present a problem when Joe says, “It’s time that working people in this country got the tax breaks for a change.”, how would he do that? How do you cut taxes of people who don’t pay them? Plus, well, um – look, I’m getting bored writing this, because it’s a stupid post. But it has to be, because it’s a stupid subject. This is absurd. Why am I wasting my time?
Because the left does. They never stop.
So we agree to let the top 10% of wage earners to pay 71% of all income taxes to placate the left. Ok, whatever. Now they’ll be satisfied. Right?
No. They’re never satisfied. How much is enough?
There is no limiting principle to leftism. This is why even hapless fools like Biden, AOC, Pelosi, et al can be so dangerous. It does not require towering intellect to understand the principles of leftism. The only principle is ‘MORE‘. More control. More money. More power.
Controlling man’s baser instincts, and thus controlling government, is a complex problem. How do you maximize human liberty and prosperity while maintaining a stable, just society? Many of the greatest minds in history have spent their lives pondering such questions. Joe Biden has not.
It does not require a great mind to understand the concept of, ‘MORE.’ Obviously.
And Margaret Thatcher’s ratchet effect keeps clicking along. After all, Joe’s just trying to help ‘working people’.
But not me.
He’s clearly not trying to help me. I thought that I had worked my way up from losing my family’s hog farm at the age of 16 to becoming a successful physician after a lifetime of sacrifice and hard work. I thought that such hard work should be rewarded. I thought I was part of Joe’s ‘working people.’ After all, I work harder than most.
But no. According to my President, I’ve “been getting a free ride for far too long.”
Normally, that would piss me off. But I don’t have time to stew about it.
I’ve got to go to work.
My next bumper sticker. :-) :-)
Don, good point about FICA.
The technical details are a bit trickier. FICA is only due on income from work, not on investment income. Also, while there is an income cutoff for the 6.2% Social Security portion of FICA, there is not an income cutoff for the 1.45% Medicare tax. (Those are just the employee percentages — the employer pays the same, and the self-employed pay both parts (which ends up being a bit over 14%, the way that the calculation is done).
The unfairness is the difference in wealth itself. If the tax is not high enough to reduce the rich taxpayer to the level of the average guy, then the tax is not fair enough.
The late Sen Bob Packwood used to endlessly repeat one of his favorite moments in the Senate as Chairman of the Finance Committee when he asked an assembled panel of experts from OMB, CBO etc if the income tax rate went to 100% would that actually result in the US Treasury receiving 100% of income or would there be some loss due to (a) destruction of pretty much all wealth-generating activities and (b) some serious non-compliance incentives. The experts candidly admitted that their models do not include any allowance for disincentives of any kind so yes, a 100% tax would actually achieve complete capture of all income according to their operant methods.
AOC and Bernie believe that there is an endless money pot connected to every boardroom and factory that can pay for everything without any adverse effects other than rich people being sad. The level of stupid in America is waist-deep and rising…
We owe it ourselves to look at just who the hell is handing out EDs in this country.
It’s mindnumbing drivel. Soaring BS.
Like I say they are going to talk to you “tactically”, not actually discussing policy in any practical way. Get into a discussion with them and try to stick to policy. If they don’t ask them why. If they get their facts wrong they have nowhere to go except messing up the rhetoric tactically.
It’s pretty shameful when the highly educated ones do this, but that’s how they gain ground.
“Here’s my promise to you: If I’m elected president, I will always choose to unite rather than divide. I’ll take responsibility instead of blaming others. I’ll never forget that the job isn’t about me — it’s about you.” He blew by all three of these in one Afghan statement alone.
Soaring rhetoric etc. It’s mostly just a distraction if you’re trying to figure things out, but people that are ostensibly smarter than me really get off on it.
You don’t know how much I appreciate that you told us the likely source of your information rather than telling us, “they say…” or “they are talking about…”
The super rich have tax payments to their name, but I’m not sure what it means. If income is over a billion what does it mean to pay taxes, what it does is fund other sources of influence. I’d fix it by reducing all taxes to no more than 15% and make everyone pay them, no deductions, no other taxes or fees, just income tax. We’d raise more funds from the super wealthy and less from the middle class and the poor. Can’t have that because tweeking the tax code is a major source of power and funds for the political class. We’d still have a massive deficit until the economy grows in response and we eliminate all the bureaucracy dedicated to exploiting the corruption the system produces.
How exactly do you “invest” in the middle class? Give them free stuff at one end while you tax the bejeezus out of them at the other?
Overhaul the health insurance system without forcing single-payer which will never happen.
Atomize the education system and start over, which will never happen.
Stop inflating the price of shelter which if it was measured properly would set the CPI at 11%, which will never happen. It’s the damnedest thing, but the government literally would go broke if the Fed wasn’t producing constant CPI and or asset inflation. (It’s actually worse than that but I don’t really understand how to explain it.)
Set up all policies so that we can handle the deflation from automation and globalized trade without screwing the poor and the middle class. This will never happen, see above.
Mostly they need to stop central planning, which will never happen.
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
Where do I send my campaign donation?
If you did one thing with health care, I’d really like to see health insurance sold across state lines like auto insurance. You see a ton of auto insurance commercials on TV, but not too many health care insurance adds unless it’s for Medicare supplemental insurance . . .
I’m not going to get into a big discussion about it, but they have to wipe out employer-based insurance. Medicare has screwed it up royally too and I don’t know what to do about that. It’s just a very thorny mess and the Democrats are trying to force single payer.
I’ve been banging this drum for at least ten years now.
Half the country pays no net income taxes.
Of the half of the country that does pay taxes, the top 50% of that group pays 97% of all income taxes collected.
This means half the country will be highly inclined to vote for politicians who promise to raise taxes, because they’re not paying any.
This means that even if you’re in that top half of the 50% that actually pays taxes, the tippy-tops of those groups (as Doc has pointed out) pay a highly disproportional amount of the overall tax bite.
In short, the rich pay a hideously unfair portion of the taxes collected. But even that is not a “fair share”, a phrase which, by definition, means literally nothing.
What all of this does is contribute to class separations, resentment, and more control for the gov’t, since they’ll a) get more votes, and b) collect more tax revenue.
Why anyone thinks this is the right thing to do is a hard thing for a rational person to understand. All this info is out there at the IRS.gov site, tax statistics, and they have detailed and summary table info that’s pretty easy to understand.
Also, Biden’s a liar and stupid.
Whatever incentivizes them to vote Democrat is the “investment”.
This.👆 People don’t realize it isn’t a tax on the rich but a hidden tax on them,. laundered money that prevents politicians from being blamed. For example, why do athletes make so much? Because they know they must earn $6 million to get $3 million for themselves. The government gets the other half. To cover the wages, the sports fans pay high prices for tickets and wonder why their cable bill keeps increasing. All those sports channels are costly. Ditto for CEOs. The left always pushes Scandinavian style social problems but don’t mention how they are paid for.
I have always wondered about all of the hidden regressive taxation we have in this country. When you tax business income, it comes out of other things besides profit most of the time. They frequently reduce something else like wages, the quality of the break room, reinvestment, training, benefits. They have no idea what that comes out of but usually it’s regressive.
Then there is this phenomenon of “cross subsidization”. A lot of Medicaid gets paid out of regular customer bills which means it gets paid out of insurance premiums. This is regressive. I think this stuff is everywhere and it’s forced by the government.
I really wish people would raise hell about this stuff.
Frankly, when these young socialists and grifters can’t afford bacon, I will have no sympathy.
UBI is a cancer that will destroy its host by reducing productivity and GDP.
https://freemanbeyondthewall.libsyn.com/episode-215
There is also a cap on what will be paid out.
And this is happening because the government and the financial system is set up all wrong for the wage deflation and job destruction that is coming from automation and globalized labor. We are decades past when this could be fixed without much grief.
I keep this handy and post it all the time on Twitter.
We don’t know that this is true.
Eventually, yes. But you have to start somewhere, and employers could go shopping nationwide . . .
Excellent. I’ve never heard it put that way for some reason. There is just no leadership on this stuff. It’s depressing.
They screwed up with employer-based insurance during World War II. Then when the VA got overwhelmed they allowed it to be deductible to take the pressure off the VA.
Don’t central plan anything unless you have no other option.
Have no fear. It’s happening. In part it’s large employers becoming less and less distinguishable from government. In part it’s employers being glad to get out from under it and turn it over to the govt.
Just having a highly industrialized society is going to contribute to class separations, resentment, and more control for the government.