The Whining Rich
If you believe conservative commentators, liberals are a bunch of whining, carping, envious wimps, always complaining about some puffed up abuse of indigents or some other lefty lament. But believe me when I say that no group whines, moans, beats its heads against the wall in torment about a perceived injustice more than the very rich or their champions.
Take the 5.4 percent surtax that is part of the House of Representatives’ health care reform measure, a surtax that would be imposed on those making $1 million a year or more. This 5.4 percent would come out to $54,000 for every million dollars of a high earners’ income.
To hear the anguished cries issuing from the usual defenders of the victimized rich, this additional tax burden in itself is akin to the worst horrors inflicted during the Red Guard era in China. But bad as it is in itself, combined with other tax rates in some parts of the country, the consequences for our own national economy would be devastating. Add this 5.4 percent surcharge to existing highest earner taxes in New York, California or New Jersey, for example, and it adds up to than 47 percent of total income.
This 47 percent assumes, of course, that folks making more than a million a year aren’t smart enough to hire an accountant to do their taxes, or take deductions for things like home interest payments. But let’s forget that for the moment (conservative whiners always do) and work with their numbers instead. You would be left with just $946,000 a year to live on after a 5.4 percent exaction on a million dollars, and in the above mentioned high tax states would have a mere $476,000.
Dear God! Could you live on $476,000 a year? Could I? Could anyone we know? Could we hire that second nanny for our second child? Could we even afford 10 days in the Hamptons? And what about the way this crushing added burden would affect our plans to open a new factory in Duluth that would employ thousands? Or that new DOS system we were about to introduce, but have now decided against doing so because that 5.4 surtax makes it seem not worth the trouble?
Such, in essence, are the arguments against this proposed surtax, and indeed, all new taxes on those who can actually still afford to pay new taxes. The rich, we are told endlessly, have different basic needs than the rest of us, and respond in very different ways to tax stress, We worry about not having a job, or unpaid furloughs from a job we still have. They and their spokespeople worry about personal nanny deficits, lost days in the Hamptons, and diminished incentives to do exactly what they would have done anyway. They also don’t see an increased payment to the government that makes possible health coverage to their less fortunate fellow Americans as something that more than offsets their own crimped spending power.
But hey. I don’t want to seem cruel here. Especially to wealthy unfortunates. So let me make an alternative tax suggestion to this health care surtax. I suggest we simply apply the same Social Security 6.2 percent tax on income paid by all those making $106,800 or less to those making a million or more—while capping maximum Social Security payouts at current levels for these new payers inasmuch as they won’t be forced to live on Social Security in the future anyway.
This isn’t a new tax. It’s also not one of those awful progressive taxes where rich pay more than poor. Everyone would pay the same rate. A kind of flat tax. What could be fairer than that?
If those now whining about a 5.4 percent health care surtax accept this offer, I think we can deal.
27 Responses to “The Whining Rich”
Oh, No! That would be stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Rank Socilaism, communism…
Enter: The French Revolution.
If the rich keep denying basic human rights [affordable health care] to the poor, heads will roll. I'm not sure if this has occured to the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies or not but profitting off human suffering, illness, addiction and death is what lands you in Hell when you die. Y'all got rich off of the demise of the working poor. You raped this nation and sold her out to the highest offshore bidder. Now you want sympathy, you damned traitors..
People lose sight of this. I'm not even a christian or of any other faith but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there not only is awareness after death but that it is where the final tally and consequences are waiting for all of us. Good luck with that Big Insurance and Big Pharmaceuticals and Big-Whoever-Else who grabbed and ran; not even luck will save you at the end of your days.
Phew, great to be here in this whining-free zone.
Interestingly enough, over the first six months of the Obama administration, the pissing and moaning of conservatives sounds an awful lot like the liberal pissing and moaning during the eight years of the Bush administration.
I think it has much more to do with being out of power than anything else…
No, it has to do with taxes. I believe that, in fairness, everyone should be taxed at the same rate. Why should a person who is more successful sacrifice a greater percentage of his/her income just because of his/her financial success? Answer, they shouldn't. This is especially true when one considers the notion of 'fairness'. It is more unfair when one considers that the 'rich' are being asked to pay an increased amount of taxes for a service from which they will not likely benefit.
If enacted for 2010, the surtax would likely not apply to me. However, I am optimistic that it would in 2011. If you are like me and still hold the notion of the 'American Dream' in your heart, you will understand. If your 'American Dream' is already dead, I understand why you support this wrong-headed notion. If your 'American Dream' has died and you're reading this at work, knock it off, you're wasting your bosses money!
I love the “Middle” everything is equal; pissing and moaning. Please get an idea.
I'm a true moderate, but in no way mushy about it, particularly on a political forum(!).
Silhouette, you're among those who are obviously wrong, and the correcting of whom has long become tiresome. [sigh] Health care is not a “right” [sic] of any kind, much less a “human” right, no matter what radicals like Physicians For a National Health Plan or any other parties may still dishonestly claim.
I have already explained that progressive taxation is inherently unjust, and the whining here no doubt is accompanied once again by envy and resentment even if you're unwilling to stop whining and admit it.
Plenty of people have noticed this re-emergence out of the darkness of envy-based progressivity in taxes (not merely an amoral utilitarian revenue grab or larger-scale version of a robbery, or out of a dishonest sense of superiority, echoing Hitler's “living space” motives for conquering Europe to the Urals). I have said before, to illustrate progressive taxation, “What if the price of _everything_ were based on a proportion of one's income?” and at least one other person currently has put this principle into print:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090716/OPINION…
Finley is refreshing here in Michigan, a fabulous state insofar as natural amenities and decent people are concerned, but which suffers from horribly stupid and self-destructive dinosaur-liberal politics and misconduct by government (not just Detroit's City Council and other Detroit agencies, but in the state and down to police misconduct — Cyanide Nation ingloriously on display for all to witness). As with other non-liberal, non-deluded people here, Finley provides good viewpoints, including one thing that Michigan can do that other Rust Belt states (with inferior natural amenities) cannot. (Are there that few of us that view the northern part of the Eastern USA as future summer if not full-time homes for people once so many have relocated to the Southeast primarily, or to the desert Southwest as “snowbirds” in winter?)
http://www.michiganfuture.org/Articles/DetNews0…
“I love the “Middle” everything is equal; pissing and moaning. Please get an idea.”
I'm a true moderate, but in no way mushy about it, particularly on a political forum(!).
(Mr. Vanilla, U.S. Standard Center-Right, with an _attitude_, you could say.)
Only known three really really rich people in my life. The first one would go out barhopping with me and then always say “I've only got a hundred dollar bill, could you get this round of drinks?”
The next one was the biggest fence on the west coast. Bragged to me that he had never paid a dime in taxes and deliberately lived in state that did not have sales tax.
The next one had somewhere between 300 and 500 stores selling low priced items. No business license, no payroll registration, no sales slips. Always was signing up to lease new stores. When anyone at all questioned one of his businesses, he had a couple of crews that could strip an existing store and move the merchandise to another new store in three days.
You stupid enough to believe that these people pay taxes? You're as silly as a texas congresscritter. Saw a note on a british blog, unable to verify but it is believable, that 20 to 40 per cent of all american transactions are black market. Having hung around lowlifes for almost 20 years, I find it very believable.
Your story is implausible – except for the part about you having hung around lowlifes for 20 years.
“You wanna lie like a dog, you're gonna wake up with fleas…” Al Jourgensen
@DLS: “I have already explained that progressive taxation is inherently unjust, and the whining here no doubt is accompanied once again by envy and resentment even if you're unwilling to stop whining and admit it.”
Ah yes, should anyone disagree with you, it must be because you are just so, so awesome, and everyone else is so, so jealous. Anyway, considering the fact that taxes on “stuff” in general (sales tax, bridge toll, gas taxes, etc — everything but income tax) are inherently REgressive, poorer people often end up spending just as large a percentage of their income on taxes as the rich, even with the progressive taxes we have in place. Regardless, during discussions about taxes like this, I so often get the feeling that those who are rich have some sort of moralistic high-horse, like they think they are rich while others are poor because of some sort of moral failing on the part of the poor people (see PWT's first comment). It's rather nauseating.
@@others are poor because of some sort of moral failing on the part of the poor people@@
No, not moral failing, but I certainly question their inate abilities, ambition and perseverance.
Everything I have “accumulated” I can attribute back to one of these as I have never received one dime of public assistance.
What….simply because I was white and handsome, people gave me jobs, promotions and salary??increases
“Everything I have “accumulated” I can attribute back to one of these as I have never received one dime of public assistance.”
Hmmm…except that you have. Like the roads you use to get to work, like the public health system that keeps you from contracting the mumps (and therefore keeps that handsome face intact), like the interstate and international trade systems that bring you most of what you eat, wear, sleep on, and live in, perhaps like the public school system that educated you (better than it educated those living in poorer areas, I might add), like the public safety systems (police, criminal justice, etc) that have kept you from being killed or beaten up, perhaps like a public university. Among a thousand other things, of course.
“What….simply because I was white and handsome, people gave me jobs, promotions and salary increases??”
Naw…I've never heard of white handsome dude getting a job, promotion, or salary increase over an equally qualified person who does not share any or all such traits. That's CRAZY talk!
And this: “No, not moral failing, but I certainly question their inate abilities, ambition and perseverance.”
Why? I mean, there are a lot of people out there doing poorly financially because they are dumb, lazy, or quitters, but there are not only lots of poor people who share none of those qualities, but also plenty of rich ones that do. There are lots of reasons that people are in the financial situations they are; inate ability, ambition, and perseverance are only 3 of them. Assuming poor people are poor because they lack one or more of those qualities certainly seems like a moral and dismissive judgment on not just a particular person who is poor, but on poor people in general. That's exactly what I was saying with my earlier comment.
I'm a true moderate ~ DLS
Does that mean you had a conversion right after invoking the Hitler comparison?
Why does every developed nation on the planet, (and some not so developed), seem to have absolutely no problem with national healthcare, but we can't afford it?
How else would the rich get richer if they could not foreclose on your property for not being able to pay for that which you must have to survive? The rich that feed off the misfortunes of other Americans are indeed the very “world class” American healthcare system that no other country wants.
Healthcare should be Nationalized and not allowed to continue sucking our nation dry.
“Why does every developed nation on the planet, (and some not so developed), seem to have absolutely no problem with national healthcare, but we can't afford it?”
Just refer back to all those we-spend-twice-as-much-on-healthcare graphs leftists keep thumping, and perhaps an answer will occur to you.
“How else would the rich get richer if they could not foreclose on your property for not being able to pay for that which you must have to survive?”
By working harder. Or smarter. Or both. And in the statistics roro was citing yesterday, simply by being more numerous.
The rich are not whiners, the liberals are. Nobody should have to shoulder a burden for which they gain no direct benefit. Frankly, if a couple chooses to not have children, they should not have to pay for schools. If I am healthy, I should not have to pay for some sick person's health care. If I am rich, I should not be mandated to pay for the care of the poor. There should be no obligation other than moral to provide for the poor or the sick or the uneducated. The Government should not require that those who have should provide for those who do not have. The poor are owed nothing other than life, liberty, and property that they can acquire. They are not owed education, or health-care, or even food or clothing.
If the poor are owed life, then shouldn't we pay for the insurance that can keep then alive?
Everything I have “accumulated” I can attribute back to one of these as I have never received one dime of public assistance.
Did you go to a public school?
“Everything I have “accumulated” I can attribute back to one of these as I have never received one dime of public assistance.”
I guess you don't count as public assistance the cost of having the brave military who have kept you safe and free so you can brag that you have never received a dime of public assistance
I never attended a publicly funded school. I have a PH from my lottery stint with the 196th IB, Vietnam, 1972.
As for traveling on interstates or benefitting from any other publicly funded service, do you presume I don't provide a tidy sum of checks to the US Treasury and local government units each year?
If you need to find something I got for nothing, keep on trying.
It never ceases to amaze me how much the rich are willing to pay to campaign's to ensure that the poor stay as poor as possible. If the war of independence taught me anything its that noone feels more enslaved than a slave owner.
casual — do you presume that those who are collecting unemployment now haven't spent their whole lives sending in their tidy sums of checks to the US Treasury as well?
The point was not to show that you got something for nothing, the point was to show that you got “public assistance”, of which you said you never got a dime. The government takes money from the citizens in the form of taxes, and then it does things with that money that it considers in the public interest. That includes both roads and welfare, and some people benefit from one but not the other, but it comes out of the same pile of money. This isn't a tough concept.
One was a french ski champion named Jean Claude Killey (spellings?) he and I hung around in Aspen in the early 70s. He attracted women like a magnet so I put up with his $100 bill. Wealth can be verified wherever his estate was probated. He was killed by a woman whose husband was a famous singer.
Two, can be found if you want to dig into publicly available paperwork. He was Japanese who went into the interment camps in the second world war. His family died there of inadequate medical care. He was released when he was 14. Given the hoohah a couple of years ago about the mistreatment he will be listed there.
He can also be located by checking an FBI sting in the early 1980s when he hijacked a double trailer load of personal computers. The man with him was a PHD from India. The Indian took all responsibility and served either 5 or 10 years in federal prison for $15000 a year for each year served. This should be able to be located by searching the Oregonian and Oregon Journal papers for the first couple of years in the 1980s. If you have connections in Portland OR, have them go up on the highest hill in Portland that you can see the Columbia River from and look for the largest houseboat on the river. He used to live there. If they want to make some money, they can fly me to Portland and I can find my way to a house up in the hills above Beaverton. The house was built around 8 or 10 stolen antique cars that would be worth millions now. I helped build the house.
3 was an enormously fat fellow. When he died, whoever got control of his possessions converted them to legal and started the chain now known as Dollar Stores.
PS my sympathies in the Killey killing were entirely with the woman who shot him. He was a flaming asshole around women.
The woman who killed Killey had my full sympathy he was a violent asshole with women.
The Japanese had my sympathy because they tossed him out of the interment camp with the clothes on his back and no resources, his family had planned on him becoming a pharmacist and had saved and scrimped to have the money to send him to college. All gone. Not all criminals woke up one morning and thought, “Gee, I'll be a career criminal.”
One was a french ski champion named Jean Claude Killey (spellings?) he and I hung around in Aspen in the early 70s. He attracted women like a magnet so I put up with his $100 bill. Wealth can be verified wherever his estate was probated. He was killed by a woman whose husband was a famous singer.
I think you're mixing up Killy with Spider Sabich, who was killed by Claudine Longet, former wife of Andy Williams. Killy is still alive.
Actually, no, we do not owe insurance to keep the poor alive. We merely owe them protection from murderers whenever possible, and not depriving them of the right to life without due process of law. In other words, we don't have to provide the means to live, just that we cannot directly take their lives from them.