Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Top 400 US taxpayers: $16.1b, Bottom 50%: $19.5b

The poorest don't have much because the government gives them just enough to get them by without having to work for anything. Take away the handouts and people would get off their asses, get a job, become a tax payer and start contributing for a change.

and if you ever sat and watched what a hell of alot of those on the bottom waste their money on you wouldnt be so quick to write off they cant afford anything....around here a hell of alot of the kids in the lowest rungs are running around in designer shirts and jeans that cost $80 while im right at the 50% mark and i hit the Army-Navy surplus shop to buy $3 shirts for work.....

I hope they buy yachts by the dozen - that means jobs. If they don't buy yachts they invest - that means jobs.

You seem to think that government confiscation is a better alternative.

In Washington state a family of 4 on food stamps gets roughly 800 dollars a month from .gov to purchase their food and such, their cart is full of frozen pizzas, twinkies, cookies, steaks, etc...

My family of 4 is on a food budget of 600 per month (including laundary soap, cleaning supplies, etc...), we buy very little if any junk food, make all of our meals at home, and rarely eat a beef steak or eat out. Why should someone who doesn't work for a living get to live better than I do working full time?

It's the only way. The law of the land even states everyone treated equally under the law why aren't we there. Can you say vote buying? Penis envey is Obama number one weapon.

I do not believe they should be forced to pay more to support the nation.

Anyone who feels they personally should pay more is free to do it.

There is a problem when people begin to decide what I owe for the same services (or less) than the next person.



Snake

bullschitt everyone pays their fair share....flat tax is the way to go.

BOTTOM LINE IS THE FUGGIN GOOBERMINT NEEDS TO CUT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!

ITS called free enterprise. That means if you have the guts to actually take a chance you may become rich in this country. Sit on yer ass and not much chance of it happening. Doesn't matter how many yachts they need if they come by the money honestly. FREE ENTERPRISE!!! Its their money. If you don't like this system go to a communist country and have a good time. ED K

I disagree, and rather favor the Fair Tax concept as it is rooted in consumption.

DJS,

That's been tried before too. From PBS, no less. Class envy is a job killer.

"The theory behind the luxury tax sounded simple enough. Congress believed anyone willing to spend $100,000 or more on a new boat surely would be willing to pay an additional 10 percent to the federal government. But that didn't happen. Rather than pay the tax, many people in the market to buy a boat either didn't buy one, or bought one overseas. As a result, the luxury tax didn't bring in much money at all, and the customers' reluctance to buy put the boat-building business, particularly here in Rhode Island, out of business. We first visited Rhode Island in June of 1992. The luxury tax had been in effect for 18 months. Tens of thousands of jobs had been lost across the country, thousands in Rhode Island alone."

Kwame Holman looks at how a 1990 bu...e a luxury tax it instituted, back fired

sales tax??

Djs: You are living in bizarro land if you think the bottom 50% of wage earners in this country today are paying 19.5% of their income to the Feds in income taxes every year!
Do you even live in this country (United States of America!)?
And you make no sense what so ever with your "0.0001%" contention either.
Like ejh mentions the only fair tax (remember the equal justice under the law doctrine?) is a flat tax that applies to EVERY wage earner, not excluding hussein oblamer voters like is the norm today!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

djs' theory is the standard liberal class-envy angle. I mean how many times does one have to show the data indicating "the poor" pay ZERO income tax and the rest of us pay the lion's share, and even if we were to confiscate then entire wealth of "the rich" it wouldn't even begin to pay for all the entitlements for these no loads?

If it went that way the income tax wouldn't go away. When was the last time you saw a tax eliminated. So we'd be still paying a income tax and say a 20% comsumption tax you need to be careful what you ask for.

why should a person just because they earn more pay a higher % of their income to the government?

ML

+1000000000

ML

That has been pointed out to him over and over but he refuses to acknowledge his ignorance on the subject. Pretty much renders all his arguments worthless. Eh?

The numbers are not mine; I took them directly from the initial posting and offer no opinion as to their veracity. The initial posting said: "2. In 2009, the bottom 50% of taxpayers, a group totaling 69 million, earned collectively more than $1 trillion and paid $19.5 billion in federal income taxes (see chart above).�

"And you make no sense what so ever with your "0.0001%" contention either." Yes, I did just make up the ""0.0001%". I don't know what the actual number is but 400 taxpayers out of 131,113,969 tax returns is a small percentage -- you do the math. see: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_pay_taxes_each_year_in_the_US

The median income of US households is $46,326 (see: http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-does...income-numbers/ ). I pay almost twice that in income taxes each year, so I'd certainly benefit from lower taxes; I am talking about equity in tax policy. If we want a strong military, solid Social Security and Medicare Programs (very popular among elderly conservatives), etc. the money has to come from somewhere.

1. They are better able to pay to support the nation.
2. they have more freedom (choice is often derived from the ability to pay, so they have greater freedom of choice)
3. They derive a greater benefit in terms of protection, rights, living standards and, health (they can afford broccoli, fresh vegetables and excellent medical care).
4. They get more and better tax breaks than others. E.G., if I wasn't able to write off a number of deductions, my tax bill would be about $45-48,000 HIGHER each year. Thank God for those deductions; I'll use them all I can, realizing that I get something many don't!

It is interesting that many here keep defending the wealthier when in fact, they are not there and probably never will be. If a magic fairy gave everyone $2,000,000, then there would still be a top 1.5% and they wouldn�t be in it, according to the laws of statistics.

As I said previously, I just used the numbers posted by Steve (first posting). Not my numbers.