Do Dems finally understand the collateral effects of taxing the "rich"?

Question

Ed. from Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ:

"Back in the hot summer of 1990, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell proudly engineered the infamous "luxury tax," a nasty little tithe on everything from furs to jewelry to yachts. Democrats were proud: Not only were they throwing new dollars at the Treasury, they'd done it by socking it to the rich. The wealthy, in the words of then-House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, would finally pay "their fair share."
Within a year, Mr. Mitchell was back in the Senate passionately demanding an end to the same dreaded luxury tax. The levy had devastated his home state of Maine's boat-building business, throwing yard workers, managers and salesmen out of jobs. The luxury tax was repealed by 1993..."

--Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

To read more:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id=110010422

Poor liberals, listen up: Taxing the rich always trickles down to you.

***Reply*** to justagrandma

Do a little research: It was boat building all over the country that sufferred. What happened? The rich still bought their boats...just from other countries, and they registered them in the Bahamas. And it was not just boats. This liberal tax devastated 1000s of jobs. Every "solution" the libs create to solve a "problem" backfire on the very people the libs claim they care so much about.

If you believe the libs have your welfare at heart, I've got some waterfront property in Florida I'll let you have at a good price.

**Response**

I find it amazing how some of you think, or don't think. If continuing education hasn't been ruled out by you altogether, buy and read "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. It may just open your eyes...and your minds!

Answer 1

1st - fairtax.org
2nd - the more disposable income the rich have, the more they spend. The more they spend, the more jobs are created for the less fortunate. very simple.
3rd - same with taxing businesses - no corporation is going to their board of directors to say sorry, no profits this year because there was a tax hike. they simply hike the prices on their products and services (which hit everyday people) to keep earnings on par.

Answer 2

So where are you trying to go with this? Do you think Fuld should pay more than $36M. in taxes? It seems like a lot to me already. Do you think he shouldn't get paid to bankrupt a company? I agree. Shame on the people that paid him, but if someone paid me $200M. to screw up, I'd cash the check and pay my taxes too. Are you advocating the re-distribution of wealth? In my book, that's stealing private property no matter how you accomplish it. Are you advocating a flat tax? That would leave the rich with lower taxes and not solve the basic problem, which is that the government spends too much money. I guess my point is that I don't have a problem with people being rich, as long as they came by their wealth honestly.

Answer 3

The facts: What neither the liberals nor the conservatives understand is that it isn't so much the tax rate that is important, it's what's being taxed. Modern governments and societies seem to think for some crazy reason that it's okay to tax income and sales, when this clearly harms a country's economy and citizens. The whole debate of how much income tax and asset tax to levy on rich people is really just all set up to keep people from thinking about the real issues of taxation.

Answer 4

Good example of an often misunderstood reality. However we can all understand that people want the world to be more fair. The gap between the rich and the poor is too great to be healthy. Your example shows that a direct fix (take from the rich and give to the poor) won't work. But that doesn't mean that we should be satisfied with the wide gap in wealth.
The American middle class is part of what makes us great and unique in the world. If we lose that, we will become more like a third world country, and that will also affect the wealthy. This is not a partisan issue. But definitely, the Dems tends to get votes by promising a quick Robin Hood kind of fix. As the middle class deteriorates further, we can expect that more people will be enticed by that approach and the Dems will become more popular.

Answer 5

I'm a liberal, but I don't believe in taxing the rich at a rate much higher than anyone else. And, come on, the rich pay accountants to find every possible loophole so that many of them pay less in actual taxes than the rest of us do. I have never understood why a flat tax wouldn't be fair to everyone. After all, 10% of the salary of a Walmart employee, for example, is going to be a hell of a lot lower than 10% of the income of someone like Donald Trump, right?
And, whether this luxury tax was right or wrong, this country had better do something to help the middle class while there still is one.

Answer 6

When will anyone understand that politics is nothing but a big game?

We end up pointing fingers at each other, This produces hatred towards each other when we should be making sure our leaders are transparent to us.

They are all to secretive and this present administration continually uses executive privilege so that those who get subpoenaed by congress don't have to answer any questions.

Every politician (democrat or republican) is to blame for the mess that our country is in. And, in reality, who do we have to blame for this. We, the people of the United States for not holding them accountable to us.

We have NAFTA, GATT, U.N., WTO, WHO who knows what else.

The luxury tax wasn't the only thing that caused Americans to buy overseas. It was the things mentioned above that caused the loss of American jobs as well.

All these things do is devastate our country and the American worker. Can't you see what's going on? We are being blinded by the very fact that politicians get us to look at each other rather than the real facts.

Here's a great example. People, for years, have cited conspiracy in the murder of JFK.

I have no doubts that there was a conspiracy, however; instead of trying to figure out who killed Kennedy, we should be asking WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY was he killed?

Once you answer that question, then you'll begin to see the true picture of what politics is all about.

One other thing to point out is that the Dow Jones (along with the Wall Street Journal) were just purchased by Rupert Murdoch.

He also owns Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News and 175 other newspaper publications in the U.S. What does that tell you? And who feeds Murdoch his information? Politicians.

Now, I realize he didn't own it when you pointed out your reference to it. He will now, however; influence Americans in a way that will cause great panic over the U.S.

Answer 7

I just read this; great piece.

It's true. Trickle-down is a reality, and it works both for the money that the evil rich people at the top make, as well as the money our gov't tries to take from them. Do libs really think the prices of goods AREN'T going to go up if punitive taxes are levied against certain goods or industries?

Corporations and businesses shouldn't have to pay taxes at all anyway. The individuals who profit from them should have to pay income tax and that's it. Why should a "corporation" pay an additional tax simply for being a corporation?

Answer 8

Someones ox always gets gored.
There is no perfect tax, I've seen people advocate a vat tax like they do in Europe, instead of a sales tax, but that would actually tax purchases, like boats.
What would you rather see taxed, a luxury item like a boat, or baby food? Could there have been another reason for the slowdown in the luxury boat building sector? How many were actually affected? Two hundred people? Fifty? Two thousand? All so rich people wouldn't have to pay for their toys? It would be interesting to know, since at the same time I remember there was a recession in the late eighties early nineties. Maybe that had more to do with it.

When you feel something trickling down on your head, its for sure someone above you is peeing.

Edit,
The horse whip people also had a fit when the automobile took over. Hundreds lost jobs. Ditto when the making of knives went overseas, in the early twentieth century.
You idea of catering to the rich just so some people can suck up to them, while our nation is spending ten billion a month on a war started by and for the rich shows me just how irrelevant your idea is.
If we all became slaves for the rich, think of how many yachts they could afford then.

Answer 9

Repealing the Bush tax cuts on those making over $250,000.00 a year and passing meaningful tax cuts for the poor and middle class will help. We should also remember that the US is the third lowest taxed country in the industrialized world. We've tried "trickle down" economics. It doesn't work. The rich get richer and the poor and middle class stay poor and middle class. The idea that you are going to fill the pockets of the already wealthy so much that it spills out and down to the middle class and working poor is an insult to all of those hard working Americans out there. If you give tax cuts to the middle class and poor while raising taxes on the rich, it will still create the opportunity for job growth. The poor and middle class are more likely to go and spend that money, which will create profits for companies, which will allow for job growth, business expansion and economic growth as well. The fact is that we've tried it the Republican way with the "trickle down" and it hasn't worked. Now let's try the Democratic way with "bubble up" economics and see how well that works. If our US government passed legislation to end Corporate Welfare, which in 2006 alone cost the US taxpayers $92 BILLION dollars, and closed tax loop holes that allowed for off shore tax shelters, and those who avoid paying their fair share of taxes, there would be no need to raise taxes, because the money would come rolling in from all of those sources. A true American PATRIOT once said, "Why shouldn't the American people take half of my money from me? I took all of it from them." That man was Edward Albert Filene (of Boston's Filene's Department Stores) who founded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to encourage businesses to contribute to the welfare of their communities. He eventually quit the organization, disappointed that it had become a bastion of right-wing conservatism and an anti-tax lobby.

Answer 10

how about a trickle up policy

give the money (the tax breaks) to the poorest and make industry compete and work to become efficient in order to gain it

give the breaks to the rich and they build a few mansions and buy a few limos, give it to the poor and they build thousands of houses and buy millions of cars...which benefits society the most?