[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86NjlHoABPc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Yet another reason to pass Initiative 1098. If the billionaires and multimillionaires funding the No campaign have enough money to waste on stupid ads like this, they definitely have too much money.
Hell No on I 1098 x 4 in my hosehold
Yeah … and the ad does not even mention the S&H charges.
The only people against 1098 are the people who don’t want the millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.
These people prefer to let the state education system rot due to lack of funding and hire workers from overseas – because other countries realize the value of a good education.
cnr–
Don’t be a fool!
The tax is NOT on Rich people.
Bill Gates, the richest man in world, only takes a salary of approx $660,000 and is married with 2 kids. You do the math. And to make matters worse, Gates gets a 20% credit on the State portion of his property tax bill…more than the income tax he will pay.
If the richest man in the world is a winner under his Daddy’s plan, how can you claim it is about taxing Rich people??
Great article by John Stossel about the Progressive attitude toward taxes. You KLOWNS seem to feel tax decreases are like the government GIVING people something.
Read this–
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion.....ald-trump/
You KLOWNS have been duped by the Gates boys.
And riddle me this–
How does increasing taxes on small business, job creators help you keep your job or get a job?
Ask YLB..it’s tough out there. He hasn’t had a real job in over 5 years. Yet he wants to tax the job-creators more??
A reasonable person would conclude YLB doesn’t want a job!!
@ 3
This is because they can hire foreign nationals at less than 1/4 of the salary they would give to a US citizen, and hold the threat of deportation over their heads if they get too uppity. This means, companies that hire such individuals are likely committing felonies. The best way to hide felonious enterprise is to have workers held under threat of having the law sicced on them if they ask too many questions. Such employees are often unaware of labor laws and relevant business laws, and wouldn’t question why all that xylene and hexavelant chromium is being dumped into the river, or the fact that the big cheese is able to chisel off huge chunks of their paychecks to pay for his sailboat/antique Porsche collection.
Mandatory kickbacks to employers from workers is very common amongst H1b and H1b1 workers. They are often required to pay for 100% of any benefits package, are ineligible for 401k accounts and retirement packages, and are often required to surrender their passports to their employer for “safekeeping”.
A chemist or engineer born and educated in India, Brazil, Taiwan or Korea, can get an H1B1 visa to work in the United States and can work in an open ended contract, that can be canceled at any time by the employer. At that point they are required to leave the country at their own expense within 30 days.
U.S. Companies love that idea.
Cynical @4,
Are you an idiot or a liar?
We’ve already been through this before. Apart from his salary, Gates must realize tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxable income from dividends, interest, capital gains etc., just to support his lavish lifestyle.
Honestly… is your brand of Republicanism completely predicated on everybody else being stupid?
re 1: ‘hosehold’??? heh
re 4: Well, according to what you’ve said before, anyone making under $50,000 per year pays no federal tax whatsoever, so they can afford a little state tax.
You say whatever will support your point at the time that you are making it and never remember the garbage that you’ve said before — garbage in — garbage out — the story of your life
By the by — I’m looking at last years tax tables, and the federal income tax owed by a person making $49,950 a year was required to pay from $7,556 to $8,838 on that income.
How does that translate to ‘nothing’ in Wingnutville?
boycott amazon dot bomb
@6 Yes Mr. Cynical is both dumb and a liar. He lies (like about Obama having his entire life paid for by the government) and is dumb (doesn’t understand the initiative he supposedly is against). Typical Republican. Both lie and be stupid. Maybe their magic and “belief” will override reality and fact someday (not).
Even IF he was right (and he’s not) the idiot is still arguing two opposing points at the same time. LOL LOL. He argues that Bill Gates “only takes a salary of approx $660,000” and won’t really pay anything…then he argues (article link) that this tax would DRIVE out rich people because of how much we make them pay.
Both can’t be true…they’re opposites. Unless you use magical fantasy Republican “belief” (like Obama is a secret Kenyan here to outlaw Christianity). How does ANYONE take anti-intellectual liars like Republicans seriously now a days? They gave up being fiscally responsible and using logic and reason around 1979 when they started exclusively courting the religious right. They sold their souls and this is what the result is. Not William F. Buckley Jr., but Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Christine O’Donnell.
@ 6
He’s both. The original intent of the income tax was specifically to draw revenue from unearned income, from that of stock holdings and trades. There were millions of people working 12-14 hour days to support the lifestyles of the Carnegies, the Roths, the Duponts, and the Fords, while they were living in company owned tenements with no running water or heat. It wasnt all that long ago that a company Representative could search your home at will to enforce company rules on personal ethics, and those companies employed people specifically for the purpose.
This is what the GOP and the modern conservative movement wants to return to. The early 1900’s were a GOP paradise, and Theodore Roosevelt knew that.
What the GOP/Conservative movement has tried to do over the last 30 years:
Open national and state parks to mining, logging and hotel/resort businesses.
Eliminate child labor laws.
Eliminate workplace safety rules and inspections.
Eliminate the clean water/air acts.
Eliminate banking regulations.
Eliminate taxation on stock holdings and securities trading and regulations of such trades.
Eliminate education funding at all levels.
Eliminate public usage requirements on eminent domain laws, and turn enforcement of such laws over to the banks, mining and real estate companies for at-will need.
What the GOP/teabagger/neoliberal corportists want is the return to the economic model (or lack thereof) of the 1850’s. But with trillion-dollar international and foreign corporations running the show.
They’ve already sold off our entire industrial base to the Chinese, and other interests including the Saudis and the Germans and the Russians.
If we have to fight a real war, say with the Chinese, how are we going to fight it if we have no industrial capacity to build our own weapons? We are already importing most if not all of our basic hardware, castings, fasteners, forgings and machined parts from China and other foreign nations.
Are we going to try to import manufactured, military specific hardware from the Chinese while they’re bombing us?
The GOP is a party of foreign banking and industrial interests, and have weakened the US beyond its ability to repair and defend itself.
The GOP/Conservative paradigm is treason, and they know it.
Goldy,
Yeah the for ads are so stupid. Almost like dumping a rich guy in a dunk tank to make your point.
Bill Sr. is a fathead who wants to control everything…that means an income tax on everyone. If you cannot see that you are blind.
You KLOWNS seem to believe the Government taking money from job-creators will somehow magically create more jobs?
You seem to think that the original revenue projections which were based on current income levels won’t change?? That rich folks like Gates won’t do whatever they can to AVOID these taxes???
My God Goldy, Gates Sr. Law Firm made a fortune helping “rich” folks avoid paying taxes.
This State Income Tax is a boon for tax planning attorneys & CPA’s. The hidden cost of this tax is the cost of citizens to comply and to plan to AVOID it.
Grow up Goldy.
Class warfare you promote has undesirable consequences for folks looking for jobs.
Do you really, truly believe the Revenue objectives of Gates Plan will be met???
Of course not…and the shortfall will be filled by lowering the threshold or increasing Property Tax.
This is a real bad idea.
An income tax on “everyone”!
GASP!!!!!
Like in 43 other states!!!
In Canada there’s an “income tax on everyone”..
In Australia there’s an “income tax on everyone”..
Those people of those countries are weathering the downturn much better than people here who are losing homes and becoming bankrupt left and right.
re 12:
How does the State of Washington taxing the rich put Bill Gates Sr. in control?
You might want tocheck the girth of your own noggin.
In principle, I’m very much for i-1098, but what is the answer for this issue raised by some SMBs, which are S-corporations, partnership or sole proprietorships?
http://seattle.bizjournals.com.....rial2.html
Bartell claims that the cost of moving his retail company’s profits off his own 1040 tax form would drive him out of business.
re 13: We gave OUR tax money to the ‘job creators’ in the form of a bailout.
Seems that they are hanging on to the capital and not creating any jobs. In a case like that, the government must take the money in the form of taxes and invest it in infrastructure — thereby creating jobs.
Nirvana is not around the corner if you give rich people more to spend. They are lazy and just waste it all on expensive boats and vacations, and such.
You have to tax their income so that they will have an inducement to invest their money in captal investments in their businesses (right here in the good old US of A).
Don’t forget when you start blathering about the ‘global economy’ that America is also on the globe.
Plus, if the U.S. has a strong and prosperous middle class, wouldn’t the prosperity ‘trickle down’ to the third world?
@6 Goldy
WADR,
I suspect that Bill pays a LOT less taxes than you suggest.
First, other than his token salary from MS. Bill has complete control of HIW he gets paid. There are numerous ways wealthy people can get access to money not only w/o earning taxable dollars but even reducing their taxes.
Some examples …
secured loans on capital … if Gates has a lot of capital, rather than depleting it he can take loans against it. That money, aka cash flow, not only is not taxable the interest is a tax deduction.
deferred income .. income is only taxable when it is realized. This is a major dodge used by sports heroes.
Gifts … capital can be transferred as gifts w/o ever being realized. The value of the gifts can also be deductible.
business related expenses … at Gates level, you want to be that his manse is NOT partly deducted? His bud Allen has one of the world’s largest fleets of megayachts .. wnat to bet theta Allen does NOT deduct a lot of this as business expenses?
depreciation … investments that allow depreciation, even while their capital value increase (eg as lot of real estate, radio stations,sport teams) “earn” tax deductions that can reduce other income.
Foundations … the M&B Gates Foundation is a worthy cause BUT it comes out of the taxes Bill and Melinda would otherwise have to pay. To be crude, curing malaria is for Bill a hobby but WE pay for his hobby.
One reason civilized countries have gone to VAT is because that does tax life style rather than income.
re 16: Then I guess he’s not competitive in the free market and deserves to go out of business.
Adapt or die.
SJ–
We need to go into the tax planning business!
However, most “rich” folks already have a plan if this passes. You have hit on a number of the options available.
In addition, the fools that think they are taxing the rich have to get over some serious Constitutional hurdles. When a liberal former Supreme Court Judge questions the Constitutionality, you really need to take a step back and consider his points.
You can read it here–
http://www.washingtonpolicy.or.....e-1098.pdf
Interesting that the SEIU is the biggest contributor by far. How is this going to help create private sector jobs? Answer, it’s not. It’s all about saving Government Jobs and creating another bloated bureaucracy.
‘3. correctnotright farts:
The only people against 1098 are the people who don’t want the millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.’
No, a lot of us know that once it starts, it’ll sooner or later trickle downward to lower tax brackets. Once you give them the key, it’ll most certainly happen in the future.
Bill Gates and his fellow gazillionaires are free to send whatever amount of cash they wish to the State right this minute. What is stopping them? Just sayin.’
Most of the H.A. Happy Hooligans here that have their panties in a wad over this pay little or no taxes currently whatsoever, and/or are unemployed and living off the gov’t cheese.
It’s also about voracious jealously over those that are successful and affluent, and the idea of socking it too them by those that are the opposite. Goldy is a fine example of that, living off his little bullshit “fund drive” income, refusing to get a real job, and being chronically unemployed for years now. Ridiculous.
If this thing is defeated, which it most likely will be, it’ll be fun to watch all your little heads explode. :)
Good day all.
@19: Okay, fine, but if we take Bartell at his word, do we really want to crush local companies who employ many local folk?
S-corporation status is very confusing to me. Is Bartell and others’ arguments just self-serving rich folk arguments, or would a high earner’s income tax become a high cost of doing business in Washington for some SMBs (broadly defined), compared to what it is in other states?
Here is ImamObaMao’s Chicago neighbor’s take on what is rich and impact of taxes. A leftist Law Professor with a Doctor Wife telling us $400k/year is not wealthy.
Have a good laugh..
What exactly is “rich”??
Here is a “lefty’s” viewpoint–
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....oundation/
Cynical, you still haven’t acknowledged or corrected to the numerous flaws that others have pointed out in your original comment @4. Before you continue making asinine assertions, don’t you think that you should at least clean up the trail of garbage you have left behind yourself?
Cynical
Are you the same guy who posts as God here? You both seem given to shallow truisms.
First. in re the cost in jobs. As you agree that the investments the rich use to avoid income will remain intact, taxing their excess income should have no negative effect in jobs.
Second, in re how it helps jobs .. just look at our competitors .. China, Germany, Canada ..
They use tax moneys to educate, build infrastructure, fund research, …… unless we invest in these, how the hell do you, unless your are God, think we are going to compete in THIS world?
Let me put it to you another way. Imagine I run some big Chinese company that wants an American branch. What will I look for in choosing the site? Low taxes ??? Not if this is more than a shell. I would look for the infrastructure that would support my effort. I would look for an educated work force, a good police force, roads, internet, schools my employees will want to send THEIR kids to.
For that matter, any really rich executive is smart enough to keep his income away from wherever he pays his taxes!
While I am at it …
Lets just assume that we need money for these services but agree that taxes take money out of the economy.
WHICH money do you want to take out of the economy? You sure do not want to tax the poor ..they spend 100% of what they earn .. putting that money back into the economy. Their expenditures ARE VERY PRODUCTIVE.
The people who have the
Trickle down has had 30 years to work. It ain’t workin’. You are a chump if you think it ever will.
Just ask Nobel prizewinning economist, Paul Krugman.
@25
SJ, you moron. China isn’t an example to be emulated.
China steals intellectual property as a matter of national policy. Infrastructure and development are as corrupt as anything anywhere. Poor people in the way? Who cares, the dam/road/new shopping center will be built regardless, especially if the developer is related to, or buddies with, the right People Liberation Army general.
They have also fouled their country. I’d rather drink a gallon of the Mississippi than swim in the Yangtze.
“Poor people in the way? Who cares, the dam/road/new shopping center will be built regardless, especially if the developer is related to, or buddies with, the right People Liberation Army general”
And just how this is different than America?
@21 Mark
Umm, first off I work and pay plenty of taxes and I have for many years. Second, in order to increase income taxes (extend them to the rest of us) there would need to be at least a majority or supermajority of the Washington legislators – and they could be voted out of office if they did that. Look how meek they are now about raising any taxes – not likely at all.
So your scenario is at best unlikely.
aslo, I was unaware that people could volutarily pay a tax they are not assessed. I don’t think the state accepts private donations without strings, wither.
So Mark, your first two arguments are wrong and bogus.
And I am not jealous of those who have been “succesful” – since I know most people got rich by having rich parents or by being lucky. No – it is only fair for the rich to pay their fiar share – and they are not doing that right now.
I just wonder why Mark has to lie so much to defend the rich?
To all the unenlightened in this thread who seem to think that taxing the rich at a greater rate than the poor is not fair, is based on jealousy, or think it will cause our economy to crumble; I give you the following quote by Adam Smith, one of the intellectual founders of the free market:
The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with taxing the rich at a greater rate than the general populace. Those who are leading you to believe otherwise are charlatans.
@12
I actually thought the ad with Bill Sr. is pretty good. It is positive and upbeat, says that I-1098 is good for our children (something that probably gives a warm and fuzzy to anyone who hasn’t decided how to vote yet), and Bill Sr. doesn’t come off as a ‘fathead’ at all, but rather as a friendly Granddad.
I personally don’t give much credence to political ads, but I thought that this was a better one. It certainly beats the hell out of all the negative attack ads I keep seeing, like the one linked at the top of this post.
How meek the state government has been at raising taxes? Ha ha ha ha ha…gee didn’t they once again go after and gut the 2/3 tax rule that has been voted in by the people of this state?
Trust them with the 4th largest income tax in the nation, to hold the line…ha ha ha you have got to be kidding.
And the damn tax is not even deductable on your fed forms
Hell no
28. delbert spews:
@25
Read the effin post grasshopper.
If you can spell irony, then you might understand sarcasm.
re 34: You weren’t being ironic. You were being sardonic.
Big difference.
HL
Must admit, I never dis understand those words.
There are other pairs of words in English that confuse me ..
slander vs libel
hanged vs hung
conservative vs insanity
Tx
@1 You like a tax system that makes poor families pay 5 1/2 times as much of their income to state/local governments as rich households pay? What a prick.
The American ideology of capitalist materialism argues that the rich deserve their money because they create new jobs, products, and services that benefit everyone. That’s horseshit. The U.S. economy has become a zero-sum game in which the rich have been getting richer by taking from the poor and middle class. Wealth isn’t being created; it’s simply being transferred from most of us into the pockets of a very few who already have so much they don’t know what to do with it. And they don’t get it from us by working for it; they get it by manipulating the political system to their own advantage. Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of pandering to the wealthy interests. It’s time for a major housecleaning in Washington, D.C.! Elect progressives.
re 38
No. The American ideology of capitalist materialism argues that the rich deserve their money because they earned it. Or because they inherited it from someone who did. In any case it is private property, not yours to steal on imaginary grounds of fairness.
They take nothing from anybody that isn’t given. Don’t like the policies of a store and how it compensates exectives? Don’t buy there. Your dislike doesn’t translate into your right to confiscate the property of the store owner of management though.
Want to know who manipulates the political system for personal gains? That would be unions.
It’s time for a major housecleaning in Washington DC. Elect Republicans and restore basic property rights to American citizens.
re 37
These poor people have a choice. Make good decisions, work hard and do better financially. The tax burden they bear is self imposed, not imposed by the wealthy.
@34
“Second, in re how it helps jobs .. just look at our competitors .. China, Germany, Canada ..
They use tax moneys to educate, build infrastructure, fund research, …… unless we invest in these, how the hell do you, unless your are God, think we are going to compete in THIS world?”
These are your words, on this point neither sarcastic nor sardonic. Nor correct, with respect to China. Dumbass.
@35, Spoken by an Ayn Rand enthusiast and 9/11 Truther!Just ask TEH HA DATABAZE KEEPA ylb!
What a moron!
@37
Boo-hoo. Your hypothetical poor person pays 5.5 times (an unsourced/uncited number likely pulled out of thin air) as much in taxes as a percentage of income, not in absolute terms. 2% of $500,000 is $10,000. 11% of $40,000 is $4,400. Still less than half the tax burden for the same services: police, fire, schools, et al. Except at $40k, your hypothetical poor person is likely on the dole for medical insurance, utility assistance, SNAP, etc. Plus the guy at $40k isn’t paying a dime in Federal taxes and the guy at $500k is getting raped. Not rich enough to avoid them like the Gates’.
Delbert
Are you smoking pot as you type or is it something more effective?
My point was (and is) that we, the Americans, are in a competition with dem other guys. They are investing in things that make them more productive. If we don’t do this, we will go the way of previous empires that imagined they could live off their hoards of useless.
As for whether I am a dumbass, I guess I am .. amongst my people, that is humans, our intelligence is in our heads. I am perfectly happy to agree that my ass is likely less intelligent than yours.
In the meantime, as God said to Adam and Eve, “Go Forth and Procreate Thyself”
@43 Delbert …”Not rich enough to avoid them like the Gates’.”
By gosh, you are getting the point! We have a regressive tax system.
If you want to focus on the State, who do you suppose pays a bigger percent of her taxes in WA .. Melinda G or some hourly Susan making 30k yr??
As whether the 30K person is “paying taxes” FWIW I agree. Everyone should pay a minimum tax if only to teach folks about responsibility. Best way to do that? Be effin honest and recognize FICA as a tax rather than as an “investment.”
On the other hand the ability of richer folks to avoid taxes is progressive .. that is the richer you are the LOWER you taxable percentage. That is goofy.
Another regressive tax… education.
Education consumes a HUGE part of the costs of middle class and below. In effect we offer a negative incentive as people become poorer by taxing them for something they will need to succeed in this century.
Why is education essentially free for Gate’s rug rats and not free for my grand daughter?If we are really a society devoted to individual opportunity and do not want to penalize Gates III, then shouldn’t we AS A SOCIETY do our best to offer all kids the best education they can compete for?
Or do you reject modern genetics and think the parents’ wealth makes the kids brighter?
@39 LSIBlather
I assume you do realize that the entire American economy is based on a credit system run by and controlled by the US govt? or do you think federal reserve notes are pumped out of the ground?
If you do not like govt just stop using govt issued money! AND, while you are at it, lets fix the economy by not printing any more dollars!
There may be some problems with this scenario.If we Americans rely on our work ethic and hard commodities, how will you have us buy rhodium or oil? .
seems like a great idea!
Fantastic idea SJ. Let’s go back to a local bartering system where a local economy can thrive and there are less taxes all around. Each person can set their threshold for their goods and services and the rest can determine if their prices are good or not. Caveat Emptor!
Mr Cynical @ 13
Who, precisely, are the job creators in your narrative?
I-1098 lowers property taxes. Once itpasses, mine go down about $200. Woot!
Which must explain why is the norm nationwide.
Riddle me this, Mr Cynical: If income taxes are such a bad idea, why aren’t you working to eliminate them in your home state of Montana?
I don’t understand the debate @38,@39, @40. A progressive tax system, taxing the rich at a higher rate than the middle class and poor, so that our government can function and provide for the commonwealth is right because it is part of the fundamental theory of a free market, capitalist society (see my post @31). It is part of what makes it work. Ie. if you have a free market, you need to do this.
The fundamental principle has nothing to do with whether the rich are creating jobs, whether the poor are lazy or not, etc. Those are all things that are debatable, of course, but are really side issues for another topic of debate. The rich may deserve their money, but in order for our society to function well, they must also pay a higher percentage of this money in taxes than the poor. If you don’t want to take my word for it, read Adam Smith, the guy who invented the invisible hand of the free market.
You sir just proved beyond any reasonable doubt that you have no fucking clue. You simply have not put in the work to even make an arguement supporting your inane blatherings.
QUIT LISTENEING TO DORI FUCKING MONSON.
@39
Lost, if this is truly what you think that capitalism is about, I’m not sure you should actually be voting. Of course, you have the right to vote, but a Democratic society also needs its voters to be educated and informed.
At it’s heart, Capitalism is an economic theory designed to get resources into the hands of those who will use them the best. It has little to do with ‘who deserves what’
39. lostinaseaofblue spews:
The American ideology of capitalist materialism argues that the rich deserve their money because they earned it. Or because they inherited it from someone who did.
So, out of the top 500 richest people in the world, how many have earned their money? what percentage inherited it?
They take nothing from anybody that isn’t given. Don’t like the policies of a store and how it compensates exectives? Don’t buy there.
Yep, because all “non-rich” are land owners and craftsmen that don’t have to worry about conglomerations, monopolies, cartels, and other barriers to being rugged individualists.
Want to know who manipulates the political system for personal gains? That would be unions.
Hmmm… I seem to have mistakenly understood that corporations funnel Billions of dollars to politicians, media, and 527 groups every year because those bullying Unions with their collective barganing power keep corporations from being profitable and syphoning multi-Billion dollar bonuses from CEO’s that bankrupt their companies and loot their pensions (if they still exist) and 401k’s with their manipulation of political systems to gain a stagnent wage and broken labor contract.
What exactly is a billionaire’s “fair share?” Is it anything over $100? Anything over $1 billion?
I hear you Neo-socialists bitching all the time about this “fair share” shit, yet nobody ever defines what it means. I suspect what it truly means is total surrender of all wealth to government, but that won’t play very well in places like Enumclaw.
Just fucking admit it: what you “progressives” want it total wealth re-distribution carried-out by government.
@54
When it comes to the tax system, I want a progressive tax system (in line with the principles of a Free Market, Capitalist society, see 31) that supports the common needs of our society, with the intent of allowing our country as a whole to meet a high level of economic prosperity. Show me one example, throughout history, of an economically prosperous society that did not raise taxes.
What you posted @54 is commonly called a ‘straw man’ argument. If you actually want to have an informed debate, you can’t use those.
I don’t really think you have anything to worry about us ‘progressives’ edging the rich in this state out of their fortunes any time soon, just take a drive through Medina, Mercer Island, Montlake, Laurelhurst, etc. Why are you mentioning Enumclaw? How many multi-millionaires live there?
@54
One more thing, you are a strange man to consider Adam Smith a neo-socialist, as in his writings he advocates a progressive tax system as well.
If your conscience is bothering you, send the Department of Revenue a fucking check, moron.
The only tax system that is “fair” is a flat-rate system, easy to compute, easy to pay, and has harsh penalties for cheating. The system we have now only benefits tax cheats, the tax prep business, and fucking attorneys. We’ve allowed this tax system to grow into a monster. We are no longer the masters of government – government is now our master. This was done through the “progressive” tax system.
What is it that you want, masaba? Do you want government to seize all wealth so that your “support of common needs of society” schtick makes you feel self-righteous? If so, why don’t you and the rest of the elitist “Swell People” of Seattle and King County just make a massive transfer of wealth from yourselves to government. Go ahead – I can’t wait to see how “wonderful” it’s going to be once government has everything.
@57
“Do you want government to seize all wealth so that your “support of common needs of society” schtick makes you feel self-righteous?” Another straw man.
Furthermore, you provide absolutely zero evidence for anything in the second paragraph of your post.
And for that matter, how is supporting the common needs of society self righteous, what do you think that the purpose of our taxes is? Is the police department not a common need of the society, the fire department? How is thinking that we need a fire department self-righteous?
How about instead of blubbering mindless drivel, you answer the most basic question possible that I posed @56. Why do you think that Adam Smith, founder of free market capitalism, is a neo-socialist?
Your a retard if you vote yes on I-1098
@59
Care to back that up with a fact?
The main point the anti-I-1098 folks seem to have is that if I-1098 passes the state legislature could make the income tax cover everyone two years later. The state legislature can pass a state income tax for everyone regardless of what happens with I-1098.
Karl Marx made some good points in a generally untenable economic theory.
Why do you assume that Adam Smith did not also err in some of his details?
So he supported progressive taxation. Whoop de doo. This doesn’t mean I have to do so as well because I think he was 95% right.
When you expropriate private property on bare principles of expediency you risk the entire social contract. At it’s heart lie personal security and the security of property. All of the rest, civil rights, rights of expression and so on, flow from the basic assumption that we engage in society to protect ourselves and our property. If society decides my property isn’t worth protecting because I have ‘too much’ of it, why the hell should I care about the society which robs me, or seek for the welfare of my fellows who want only my harm?
Masaba,
At the core of progressive thought is a good intention. By elevating the weakest among us, we elevate society as a whole. This is commendable, but not workable in the real world. It ignores basic human motivators which while ugly in nature are more or less ineradicable in fact. Greed is a motivator, like it or not. If I know for a fact that my discipline and hard work, my financial acument or industrial innovation or my simple good luck are viewed as reasons for stealing the fruit of my labor, why would I innnovate? Why would I work hard or practice good economic choices so that my lazy or profligate neighbor can steal my money using the IRS as his extortion muscle? This is the fundamental flaw in progressive theory, and the reason why, while well intentioned, it will never work.
@61
Frankly, you can support whatever you want. My only point with bringing up Adam Smith is that the founder of our idea of capitalism thought progressive taxation was a good idea. The bullshit that is littering this thread saying that progressive taxation is ‘socialist,’ anti-capitalist, or whatever is just not true. The man who invented the idea thought it was a good idea. Before we can even debate, people must understand the difference between truth and fiction.
And by the way, speaking of self-righteous, who are you to arbitrarily dismiss the ideas of the man who invented capitalism: an idea which has stood the test of time for over 200 years. If you want me to believe that what Adam Smith wrote on economic theory is bogus, it is going to take a little more than just your ridiculous Karl Marx statement.
Masaba,
“And by the way, speaking of self-righteous,” Actually, I wasn’t speaking of self righteous.
“If you want me to believe that what Adam Smith wrote on economic theory is bogus..”
I want you to believe whatever your experience of the world and your native intelligence lead you to believe. All of which is your business, not mine. So, more accurately, you have the right, and maybe the duty, to follow your beliefs. You have the right to accept or deny philosophies in whole or in part as those beliefs and your analysis of them dictates. And I have the same right.
While I’m interested in how clearly intelligent, thoughtful and well educated people could believe in progressive notions nothing I’ve seen written here will change my mind, as yet.
I don’t believe anything I write could change yours.
“Greed is a motivator, like it or not.” So is compassion. But you’d never think of that, as you never display any.
Lost, I am receptive to intelligent, thought out arguments. You have yet to present one.
You do realize that most of what you have written is nullified by the fact that we have had a progressive tax system throughout most of the recent history in America.
Here were the marginal tax rates under Clinton:
$0 – $42K 15%
$42- $105 28%
$102 – $155 30.5%
$155 – $278 36%
>278 39.6%
Oh my God! According to you, the 90s must have been a horrible era. The wealthy in this country must not have wanted to innovate. Since no one’s hard work would pay off, everyone must have just gone on welfare. Unemployment must have been rampant because no one wanted to hire anyone, their efforts were just being stolen by the Government.
Oh, but wait, that’s not what happened at all. It was an era of prosperity in this country. We had a technology boom in many industries including communications, computers, the internet, and mobile telephony. Smart, rich people were investing their money and pushing technology forward.
Furthermore, we were paying down our national debt, building roads, educating our kids, providing for the common defense, enforcing copyright laws, policing our streets, and all of the other things that those taxes were paying for. That, oh bye the way, in a large part contribute to making America a great place for innovation in the first place.
When quantifiable, verifiable facts in recent history dispute everything that you are trying to get me to believe (and you provide no evidence other than a few anecdotes for your arguments), then why should I believe it?
@60
No, they can’t. It’s a state constitution issue. Not actionable by the legislature.
@66
We had a Republican Congress starting in 1994. Congress holds the purse strings. Also suggests why the economy went off the rails after the 2006 elections when the Democrats took over.
Masaba,
“When quantifiable, verifiable facts in recent history dispute everything that you are trying to get me to believe…”
When your fairly simple interpretation of complex historical data support everything you believe that’s fine with me. Again, not trying to get you to believe anything. You just present one point of view, and I another. One quick question though. How do you account for the rise of the United States as an economic force prior to the introduction of the income tax? And is your only answer to the manifest injustice of theft from some to support others practicality? If it works it’s moral, is that it?
@67
Um… You got any proof?
@67
Let me help you out. See, before I posted this:
I did about 2 minutes worth of research and found this:
This:
And I did a word search for “income tax” in the state constitution which only came up with one match:
And I just found an old post of Goldy’s on that very topic:
http://horsesass.org/?p=23170
So lets have the state ledg enact a 1% income tax!
@68
Lost, as they say, you can’t have a battle of wits with the unarmed, and you truly seem unarmed. Instead of providing one piece of verifiable evidence to support your statements throughout this post, you have decided to instead completely change the topic and have asked my opinion on unrelated things. And then you have supposed that you can guess what I might say on top of that.
And what misinterpretation of historical events am I responsible of? You’re the one who continues to say that people won’t innovate if we have a progressive tax (providing no evidence to support this claim, by the way). I gave a period in history in which we had a progressive tax system, and we also had great innovation. Was there not a progressive tax in the 90s?
You could have saved yourself time and asked TEH HA DATABAZE KEEPA ylb. He’ll help out a fellow Donk!
Goldy, Puddy will pay you the same amount of $$$ as before if we don’t have an attempt to impose a WA State income tax by 2013. You will buy Puddy dinner at DL that night when they try.
Deal?
@74 “You could have saved yourself time and asked TEH HA DATABAZE KEEPA ylb. He’ll help out a fellow Donk!”
I’m sure YLB would be willing to help you as well. For example, if you ever wanted to find that thread where you were having that strange conversation with your sockpuppet, Mikewebbsucks, about your dick, I’m sure YLB could help you out with that.
Let’s, please, keep that one hidden away.
Churchill, who was generally guarded when criticizing New Deal policies, could not hold back. “The disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts,” he noted in “Great Contemporaries” (1939), is “a very attractive sport.” But “confidence is shaken and enterprise chilled, and the unemployed queue up at the soup kitchens or march out to the public works with ever growing expense to the taxpayer and nothing more appetizing to take home to their families than the leg or wing of what was once a millionaire. . . It is indispensable to the wealth of nations and to the wage and life standards of labour, that capital and credit should be honoured and cherished partners in the economic system. . . .”
One of the fathers of free-market capitalism, Freidrich Hayek, was against progressive taxation. Karl Marx, a communist, was for it.
A central question that I think hasn’t been brought up here is what is “private property”? Does property include labor or money? Do we own our own labor? Do we own the money in our bank accounts? Do we own our own creations?
Maybe these are ideals that can’t work in today’s USA, but I find this an interesting perspective:
Link to article
@79
You misrepresent Freidrich Hayek when you say that he ‘was against progressive taxation.’ Your link leads to another person’s interpretation of what Hayek wrote. You should really read his own writings on the subject, which you can find here:
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~gr.....ation.html
He discusses quite a bit the rationale for and against progression on income taxes. However, his final proposal is found here:
‘What is needed is a principle that will limit the maximum rate of direct taxation in some relation to the total burden of taxation. The most reasonable rule of the kind would seem to be one that fixed the maximum admissible (marginal) rate of direct taxation at that percentage of the total national income which the government takes in taxation. This would mean that if the government took 25 per cent of the national income, 25 per cent would also be the maximum rate of direct taxation of any part of individual incomes. If a national emergency made it necessary to raise this proportion, the maximum admissible rate would be raised to the same figure; and it would be correspondingly reduced when the over-all tax burden was reduced. This would still leave taxation somewhat progressive, since those paying the maxmum rate on their incomes would also pay some indirect taxes which could bring their total proportional burden above the national average. Adherence to this principle would have the salutary consequence that every budget would have to be prefaced by an estimate of the share of national income which the government proposed to take as taxes. This percentage would provide the standard rate of direct taxation of incomes which, for the lower incomes, would be reduced in proportion as they were taxed indirectly. The net result would be a slight over-all progression in which, however, the marginal rate of taxation of the largest incomes could never exceed the rate at which incomes were taxed on the average by more than the amount of indirect taxation.’
(emphasis mine)
So, he still seems in favor of a slightly progressive income tax that is capped at a rate proportional to the total US tax burden. He doesn’t define what slight is, which is probably the trickiest part of any of this.
Personally, I would be fine with Hayek’s proposal. The problem is that currently in America the poor pay a much larger percentage of their incomes in indirect taxes due to the sales tax, car fees, the current low rates on capital gains, etc. This goes in counter to what Hayek proposed.
Thanks for providing the link. I’m not sure we can conclude that he seemed to be in favor – i think the quote you provided states how he thought taxes should be structured so that “progressiveness” would not be severe. But I’ve only skimmed it for lack of time.
Based on this comment by Hayek in the link you provided. It appears he views progressive taxes as unfair:
I’ve certainly not read “The Constitution of Liberty”, but I’m intrigued and considering ordering it at Amazon to expand my knowledge on the subject.
Again, thanks for the link.
If you vote for this your retarded the state will lower the threshold to include everyone!