Also, wouldn’t it be that Gammy gave you $11, so your parents took $0.70 from the $1 that was over $10…?
ETA: plus, your parents also know that this is blatant nepotism, and that you actually suck at raking leaves. I mean, You’re far worse than the black kid down the street who Gammy refuses to hire to rake the leaves. Also remember that weekend that Gammy had your sister rake the leaves, and even though she worked twice as hard, AND helps take care of your baby brother after, Gammy only paid her $7.90?
A very poor metaphor, since the probability of a household making $10-million+ is far more minuscule than the probability of one being bullied in one’s lifetime, and since the former situation is less of a hardship than the latter.
This wold be true if the purpose of the metaphor was to comment on the likelihood of an event. Since my metaphor was to point out that not wanting something bad to happen to others regardless of the likelihood of it happening to you is not a sign of delusion…
I am still furious at how my high school economics teacher (incorrectly) explained progressive taxation, stating that it could disincentivize workers to accept higher-paying jobs because they’d bring home less money overall if meant being in a higher tax bracket.
I had the same BS explanation. They don’t teach you that the “initial” income is taxed at the same rate and only the additional income is taxed at the higher rate.
If nothing more comes out of this at least I probably won’t have to explain the marginal tax brackets in your progressive income tax to 9 out of 10 people I discuss tax rates with anymore.
The probability of the event happening goes directly to the question of delusion. The severity of the event, which goes to the question of sympathy and empathy, is another matter.
For example, a Galtian giant of industry (like so many Libertarian pundits) might make $11-million/annum in salary and only be left with approx. $6.4-million after federal taxes under this scheme (assuming other tax brackets remain as-is). However, one won’t get the same sympathy for that as one might for having been bullied by the jocks and cool kids when one was in the HS debate club (which, co-incidently, is how a lot of Libertarian pundits got their start).
So yes, however you look at it, it remains a poor metaphor.
This is a great point, but I’d add to it that we know from the Panama Papers (and many other sources) that they are already doing everything they can to avoid paying the current tax rate. There isn’t actually any reason to believe that they’d be more evasive if the rate were higher.
I don’t think people feelings taxes are unfair correlates to taxation levels. I’d wager a good $100 that the people of Sweden believe taxes are more fair than the people of the USA.
The returns from capital gains don’t “do nothing”. The investor took a risk investing their own money in something. Building a factory, developing a new technology, constructing something.We would like an economy where people are willing to take risks, start new businesses, where they must part with their money for a period of time to launch new enterprises which require capital up front. So it makes sense to give some kind of incentive, say a tax break, to people who do so.
For most middle class Americans, those capital gains going towards retirement would be accruing in tax-advantaged accounts like IRAs and 401(k)s and therefore are tax-exempt.
Depends how you define “middle class” I suppose. You might not include people in that moniker who invest in excess (or instead of) of their tax-deferred or tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Also, I don’t know how many people there are like that. Especially since the current wisdom is that most people aren’t saving for retirement.
So… As I said. I’m not going to make any sweeping statements on who is hurt most by reform without knowing all the numbers. It might be allllllmost nobody who’s not already rich, or it might be a bigger share of the middle class than you might think.
OK BoingBoing contributors, so your photo montages are sometimes dull, sometimes disturbing (mouths where the eyes should be) but this pic, with a smiling AOC photobombing the Monopoly guy from the upper right corner really nails it
As a Democrat, I hope the Democrats don’t lead with that argument, because it is misleading and we ought to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Sure, it’s true in a vacuum, but it ignores the historical factors, including where the rate started and where it ended up (see below). Similar to how Republicans love pointing out how Lincoln was a Republican and Democrats were once the party of segregation. It represents the worst sort of disingenuous gotcha politics that leaves us all none the wiser.
The real tax crime of the Reagan years is it started the supply-side gospel that taxes most always be cut, never raised, forever and ever.
I really don’t understand how it’s misleading. If you took it to mean that Reagan raised taxes to that level then, yes, that would be wrong. But that’s not the point being misleading, that would be listeners making up their own points and substituting them for what’s being said.
Pointing out that in history, under both democratic and republican presidents, top marginal tax rates were much higher than they were today isn’t a gotcha thing, it’s just a reminder that this isn’t some crazy idea that no one has ever tried before.
