Taxing The Rich

Posted on August 23, 2011 | 2 comments

There were 3,912,980 tax returns in 2009 that had a taxable income of $200,000 or more.  These 3,912,980 households combined for a total taxable income of $1,625,622,124,000.  That is $1.6 trillion.  A lot, right?

Well, in 2009 our deficit was $1.4 trillion.

Blink.  Blink.

Imagine if you were to raise the tax rate on our richest friends and neighbors to 100%.  Not marginal mind you.  Marginal is where an individual is taxed at one percentage for a certain amount of his income, then another higher percentage at the next set of income and then more yet again at the next set.

That is, say the marginal rates were something like this:

Low Boundary High Boundary Rate
$0.00 $20,000.00 10.00%
$21,000.00 $50,000.00 20.00%
$51,001.00 $100,000.00 30.00%
$100,001.00 on up 40.00%

And someone made $200,000.  She would be taxed 10% on her first $20,000 for a total of $2,000.  Next she would be taxed 20% on her next $30,000 for a total of $6,000.  Her next step is to be taxed 30% on her income from $50,000 to $100,000, or $50,000 for a total of $15,000.  Last is her income above $100,000.  Because she makes a total of $200,000, she is taxed 40% on the remaining $100,000, or $40,000.

So, adding her taxes up as she climbs the progressive tax system, her tax is $2,000+$6,000+$15,000+$40,000 for a grand total of $63,000.

Imagine making $200,000 and having to give $63,000 of that to the government.  Ugh!

Anyway.  That’s how the system works today, in general; I didn’t use real numbers.  So, in our NEW tax world, we REALLY hate the rich so we’re gonna tax ’em at 100% total tax.  That is, for every $1 they earn, we’re gonna tax ’em $1.

If they make $285,000 we’ll collect $285,000 from ’em.  Alex Rodriguez and his $22 million contract?  All ours.  All of it.

Every dime.

The United States government would bring in $1.6 trillion.  After paying off the deficit we would have $200 billion left.  Not enough to even dent our remaining debt.

But guess what happens when people work their freakin’ asses off and get no money?  They conduct a value analysis and conclude that they could work for a whole year and make zero dollars OR they could do NOTHING and and make ZERO dollars.  Actually, what they’d ‘prolly do is accept a salary of $199,999 and be allowed to keep at least some of it.  But…but they probably wouldn’t do as much work as they were doing when they were earning all that money before.

The point is this.  You can tax the wealthy at 100% REAL tax and it wouldn’t even make a difference.  Raising the rate by 4 points isn’t gonna make a difference either.

None.

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Posted in Economics, Government, Politics: National

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Surge In Solar Energy Technology

Posted on August 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

It appears that demand for rooftop solar panels is, ahem, heating up.  Even in Minnesota, hardly a, ahem, hotbed of solar innovation, the industry is seeing significant activity.

High demand for rooftop solar electric panels, especially for commercial buildings, has exhausted Xcel Energy’s Solar Rewards subsidy program for the year, shutting out other customers, solar industry officials said Monday.

“People are really excited about solar,” said Rebecca Lundberg, CEO of Powerfully Green.

Sounds great.  Right?

Maybe not.

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

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iPhone IV

Posted on August 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have acquired a new iPhone.  Perhaps I should have waited for the V, I just couldn’t stand the shattered screen and crummy call quality any longer.

So I have the IV.

I have discovered something that I think is a critical intersection.

  1. It’s a feature that is MASSIVELY useful and powerful.
  2. Not everyone knows about it.

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Posted in Technology

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Carp And Dolphin

Posted on August 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

So, we can’t help but catch the cute Flipper when we don’t wanna, but we CAN’T catch the ugly bastard ecosystem destroyer when we DO?

AFTON, Minn. (WCCO) — On a beautiful sun-splashed stretch of the St. Croix River, the search is on for an ugly and dangerous invader. Somewhat like looking for a needle in a haystack, finding evidence of Asian carp isn’t easy.

It’s an attempt to find the most prolific fish in the Asian carp family, the leaping silver carp. They’re the fish making quite a splash on YouTube videos, with spectacular scenes showing hundreds of carp leaping high over the water.

…

They are voracious filter feeders and essentially strip the waters bare of the tiny organisms that native aquatic species rely on.

Not only do they starve out our native fish, the Asian carp are a serious threat to boating safety. They shoot like rockets from the water with every passing motorboat.

The best part of the story is the “Minnesota nice”:

“These fish can get pretty big and silver carp are pretty jumpy and jump out of the water and hit people, hurt ‘em pretty good,” Stiras said. “Not something we want.”

I love Minnesota!

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Posted in Environment

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Capitalism Gone Wrong?

Posted on August 22, 2011 | 7 comments

6 months ago I was involved in a head on collision as I attempted to turn left onto  the Inter-State near where I live.   I suspect that the little college girl was texting right as she managed to miss the first car in front  of me turning left and hit me, the second car.  However, I can’t know for sure. I was lucky that night and walked away from the wreck.  Because I suffered no injuries and her insurance eventually covered my car I didn’t press charges or bring suit; I haven’t seen her since.  In fact, I’ve waited this 6 months to say anything about it on anything resembling “social-media” in the event some consequence of that accident made itself known.

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Posted in Economics

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A Critique Of The Right And The Left

Posted on August 22, 2011 | 5 comments

Aside from the very perplexing contradiction of folks on the Left claiming that they are not socialists but then supporting increased taxes on the rich in order to increase transfer payments to the poor, I think that most people on the Left and Right generally agree on some basic things:

  1. Do well in school
  2. Be kind to others
  3. Work hard
  4. Pay for what you take
  5. Return what you borrow

I suspect that I’m not unlike many other Liberal families that teach their kids these basic time tested tenants.  In fact, it’s parenting 101.  Much of it is taught without even being realized, and other, specifically taught on purpose.

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Posted in Politics: National, Raising Men

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We Were Better Then

Posted on August 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

We thought different and said different things.  While life is immeasurably better today, I certainly do wish we would talk like this:

If “all men are by nature equally free and independent,” [Virginia Declaration of Rights, art. 1] all men are to be considered as entering into Society on equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights. Above all are they to be considered as retaining an “equal title to the free exercise of Religion according to the dictates of Conscience.” [Virginia Declaration of Rights, art. 16] Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered.

Via Althouse

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Posted in Government

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To Be Fair: Greens Aren’t The Only Mean People

Posted on August 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’ve always suspected that the Left considers forcing me to contribute to their causes against my will, “charity” on their part.  For example, if the Liberati are able to pass a law that requires me to pay taxes for homeless relief, they are able to tell their other Liberal friends that they contributed to the relief of the homeless.

Hardly.

What they did was cause ME to contribute to the relief of the homeless.

So this should come as no surprise:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Now, to be fair, I don’t feel this relates only to the greenies.  I’m pretty sure it is applicable to all on the Left.

However, this is good stuff:

…those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

In the end, it would appear that the Left and I have more in common than I thought.  We both believe that it’s my responsibility to care for the less fortunate.

Who woulda thunk it?

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Posted in Government, Liberty

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Lessons From Yale

Posted on August 20, 2011 | 6 comments

From TaxProf Blog via Instapundit:

The untold story is that redistribution of income is, by and large, not designed to help the poor but to preserve social stability on behalf of the rich (or a portion of them). It’s like Guido Calabresi used to tell his students on the first day of classes at Yale. Are you in favor of high taxes? Yes. Are you in favor of high spending? Yes. Do you want to see your seats at Yale redistributed to people with lower test scores? Silence. Aha, he would say, you just want to redistribute other people’s advantages, not your own.

Freakin’ Liberal Leftists!

 

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Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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Taxes: Who Pays More And Who Pays Less

Posted on August 20, 2011 | 2 comments

Don’t let’em fool ya.  Don’t go down the road that says the rich don’t pay taxes.  Here’s a glimpse at who pays what.

First, all Federal Taxes:

That is a massive upward trend.  Take a look, the first 5 bars are the total of the United States broken into quintiles.  The last three represent the top 10, 5 and 1 percent respectively.  This is not “share” of taxes.  This is tax rate.

Second, the Federal Income Tax Rate:

You are seeing that correctly.  The first TWO quintiles of Americans, fully 40% of us, not only pay no federal income tax, we actually GET money back from the government.  Again, the last three bars continue to climb.  The rich are paying more and more.

Third we have the Federal Corporate Tax Rate:

While none of the quintiles is negative, the chart demonstrates how massive the corporate tax is on the wealthy.  Even through the 4th quintile, the tax rate is modest and stable.  But hit that 5th quintile?  The tax rate explodes.

Fourth is the Social Insurance Tax Rate.  This is the rate that will show an upside down view.  Because the FICA tax is capped at a maximum wage.  So while it’s true that the rate is lower, the top quintile still contributes 42.9% of all Social Insurance revenues.

Note, when all is said and done, that the claims that the “rich aren’t paying their fair share” are a lie.  An outright and absolute lie.  The rich are paying far more than “their fair share”.  This si what we would expect in a progressive system.  This is very clear:

So, when you hear this claim being thrown around, know that what they MEAN to say is:

While I acknowledge the rich already pay more than their fair share, I want them to pay more than they are already unfairly being forced to pay.  And I’m going to lie about it straight to your face.  And I’m going to do that because it’s the only way that I can convince enough people to vote for me.

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Posted in Politics: National

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