US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2841

On February 04 2016 06:14 oneofthem wrote:
give it another 5 years of high corp profits and anemic overall demand and it'll be a forerunning issue. then maybe the FTC and the antitrust courts would do something

On February 04 2016 06:18 Slaughter wrote:


Well it seems like eventually if you keep squeezing the majority of the populace and concentrating wealth into the few wouldn't it reach a point where those corp profits start to really hurt because the population can't afford to participate in the economy and buy the corporation's profits/services? Ofc the 1% will already have their wealth and won't have to worry but the system itself for new wealth creation seems like it would suffer and new people trying to start businesses can't because no one can afford to spend money to support it.

On February 04 2016 06:18 Slaughter wrote:


Well it seems like eventually if you keep squeezing the majority of the populace and concentrating wealth into the few wouldn't it reach a point where those corp profits start to really hurt because the population can't afford to participate in the economy and buy the corporation's profits/services? Ofc the 1% will already have their wealth and won't have to worry but the system itself for new wealth creation seems like it would suffer and new people trying to start businesses can't because no one can afford to spend money to support it.

On February 04 2016 06:23 KwarK wrote:
However consider the man at work who just had his tax rate cut from 15% to 0%. Is it possible he might work harder now he's keeping 100% of his paycheck?

On February 04 2016 06:41 Soap wrote:


Apparently inheritance tax is around 1% of UK tax revenue, and income tax is around 30%. I don't think the math checks out.

On February 04 2016 06:23 KwarK wrote:
@ Clutz

I absolutely maintain that the government does not have a planned budget of infinite money and universal tax rates of 100%. It has a planned budget of a finite amount of money and sets taxes accordingly. You cannot seriously maintain the alternative because it would literally mean that the government wants infinite money and will set taxes accordingly. That is the only possible reading.

Taxes are adjusted based around planned budgets. Tax cuts are offset with tax increases. Tax increases are offset with tax cuts. It is absolutely reasonable to assume that an increased estate tax could go hand in hand with a decreased income tax.

On February 04 2016 06:23 KwarK wrote:
Let us consider the amount of extra labour done to provide for grandchildren beyond the cutoff of inheritance taxes would reduce due to an additional tax burden which still left the grandkids materially better off the more you left them. You're telling me that maybe grandpa is working to file patents at 70 so that his grandkids get 60% of the money from them (after receiving their 5m tax free allowance) but if they only got 40% of the money (again, after their 5m) grandpa would say "fuck it" and off himself. Well, while it sounds unlikely it's certainly possible. So we'll assume some lost productivity there because grandpa doesn't want to help his grandkids if it means it also helps pay for schools.

However consider the man at work who just had his tax rate cut from 15% to 0%. Is it possible he might work harder now he's keeping 100% of his paycheck?

On February 04 2016 06:57 cLutZ wrote:


You have just argued that there is a greater incentive to go from keeping 85% of your money to 100% (a 17% increase) than going from 40% to 60% (a 50% increase).

On February 04 2016 07:04 KwarK wrote:

Let's be clear. I've argued that there is a greater incentive to go from keeping 85% of your money to 100% when you are working poor than there is to go from keeping X% of your money to X% your money because the estate tax is not an income tax. Grandpa doesn't get taxed at 40% or 60%. Try not to confuse the issue. I did not argue that a 17% tax decrease was a bigger incentive than a 50% tax increase was a disincentive. Grandpa's income tax did not increase one cent.

Where the 50% increase comes in is the estate tax. I think that if you are working to provide extra money for your grandkids then it comes down to the simple equation of "more money in = more money out". That's all. Now obviously there could be a hypothetical point where he says "fuck it" and doesn't work but a 50% increase (from 40% to 60%) doesn't fundamentally change the equation.

Furthermore, if you want to compare apples to oranges by comparing an income tax to an estate tax, grandpa gets a 5.4m tax free allowance, the working poor guy doesn't get to just not pay tax on the first 5.4m he earns (which is more than he'll ever earn).

Today, 99.8 percent of estates owe no estate tax at all, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.[3] Only the estates of the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans — roughly 2 out of every 1,000 people who die — owe any estate tax. (See Figure 1.) This is because of the tax’s high exemption amount, which has jumped from $650,000 per person in 2001 to $5.43 million per person in 2015.

The Sanders bill, a rewrite of a bill he introduced in 2010—the year the estate tax lapsed under the Bush tax cuts — would exempt the first $3.5 million on an individual’s estate from estate tax. (A married couple could shelter $7 million.) That’s a huge drop from current law, a “permanent” $5 million exemption, indexed for inflation, brokered effective Jan. 1, 2011. For 2015, the individual exemption is $5.43 million ($10.86 million for a married couple). Still just 3 out of every 1,000 people who die would be subject to estate tax under the Sanders bill, compared to 2 out of 1,000 now.

In 2012, nearly every GOP nominee for Congress signed the pledge which helped to make death tax repeal a top-tier issue in public debates. The pledge project attracted significant media attention with the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Hill all covering the project. This year, we will add to our number of signatories in Congress and begin to sign emerging 2016 Presidential candidates.

On February 04 2016 06:59 KwarK wrote:
Edit: Ran the numbers
Estate tax brought in 24b in 2013. Let's say we double that (lower the threshold, throw in a private residence exemption up to, say, 1m, increase %s to make it more progressive).
Income tax brought in 1.54t. Those first two groups, 45.9% of the population, brought in 1.7% of that.

So, 1,540b * 0.017 = 26.18b.

In short you could eliminate income taxes on 45% of the American population with estate taxes.

On February 04 2016 06:08 cLutZ wrote:


Look, I don't mind your social argument, I am just explaining that your proposal wouldn't do what you think (aside from freeing up some space for workers to live), and tangentially explaining that the reason they invest that way is because that is what the government has incentivized them to do (through taxes and other policies). So, you are basically saying "the government was wrong, we should incentivize them to keep money in other ways." Which is mostly correct, downtown lofts should not be a great investment, but governments like it because (as you said) its really easy to tax and control real estate.

On February 04 2016 10:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Tonight (Town Hall) and tomorrow (Debate) are going to be HEATED.

Shots Fired! (Hillary has been shooting for a while btw)

Context: Hillary called herself a progressive at her victory speech, Sanders crowd booed and called her a liar. Then the clip of her "pleading guilty" to being a moderate surfaced. CNN (I think) asked him if he thought Hillary was a progressive Bernie replied "some days" Hillary called it a personal attack and that she was disappointed Bernie responded with this.

+ Show Spoiler +

On February 04 2016 09:12 IgnE wrote:


I'm not sure what you thought he thought it would do, but freeing the city from real estate speculators is an important goal for the city and the people who live in it. "They will just put their money elsewhere" is kind of a dumb non sequitur.