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On October 17 2011 00:33 Chargelot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 00:29 redmarine wrote:
9%... Seriously? Here in the Faroe Islands we pay around 50% taxes, and as a result everything is pretty much free of charge. How hard is it to read Plexa's post? It's all highlighted and covered in waffles and such. Even if we had 99% taxation, we still wouldn't get half of the crap Europeans get from their government. We still have $14.2T to pay off.
You think Europeans don't have debt too?
This is the modern world man. You aren't supposed to actually pay off your debt. You are supposed to be as irresponsible as possible so that your situation becomes hopeless and eventually someone will be forced to bail you out and pay for your stupidity and selfishness. And afterwards when you have little or no income you can be rewarded even more for your stupidity and irresponsibility by having your home and your food and your health care and your education all paid for at the expense of those who are responsible and productive. Creating a moral utopia where we all feel warm and fuzzy for our good intentions is more important than a practical or functional system.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On October 17 2011 00:33 Chargelot wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 00:29 redmarine wrote:
9%... Seriously? Here in the Faroe Islands we pay around 50% taxes, and as a result everything is pretty much free of charge. How hard is it to read Plexa's post? It's all highlighted and covered in waffles and such. Even if we had 99% taxation, we still wouldn't get half of the crap Europeans get from their government. We still have $14.2T to pay off.
That's not my point. My point is that taxation is viewed fundamentally differently between EU/US so it's unfair to draw a comparison of taxes.
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9% is a steal as far as I can see.
In the Netherlands, taxes start at ~30% and goes up to ~50% depending on income. There are some ways to deduct from that (for example, mortgage payments can be subtracted from income) and additional charges (for medical care etc.). For modal incomes, that's at least about 3x more then 9%.
We already have 9% taxes on essentials (food etc), everything else is 19%. There are additional charges to stuff as tobacco and petrol, which combine to more then 100% (example, US gas prices are about $3.25/gallon, which is ~$1/litre. Here, we pay E1.7 for a litre, which is $2.33 Notice that assuming no taxes on gas in the US, we pay about 133% ADDITIONAL taxes compared to the US). Clearly, this is again WAY more than 9%.
Conclusion, this 9-9-9 thing seems like a steal to me  Many people in the EU feel that the US citizens are sitting on a timebomb with the low taxes, high personal debts, low house prices and HUGE government debt (which US government increases again and again). Perhaps more taxes so government debt may be decreased is a good idea (or at least, reduced debt increment). Consider seeing more taxes as an investment in not having your country forfeit 
Still, I'm considering getting work in the US after I finish my education, and I would greatly love to live in a country that's not about to implode on debt, so I wouldn't mind paying a lot higher taxes in the US if it'd help realize that, but I can see that people already living there don't like to see taxes increased. Even 20-20-20 would seem cheap for me as I come in form the EU
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It's taxes. If we had taxed instead of borrowing money from China we could spend all we want and it would be fine. We would be in a semi-euro state.
The real problem now is that 40 cents on every dollar goes to pay our loans. If we hadn't got into this situation during the Reagan era, we could tax less.
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On October 17 2011 00:51 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +
It's taxes. If we had taxed instead of borrowing money from China we could spend all we want and it would be fine. We would be in a semi-euro state.
The real problem now is that 40 cents on every dollar goes to pay our loans. If we hadn't got into this situation during the Reagan era, we could tax less.
I'm curious where you heard this because I'm pretty sure it's more like 5-6 cents on every dollar
edit: just googled and realized what you mean is that we're borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend
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The 40 cents on every dollar expression has been going around for many weeks. Where have you not heard this?
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You guys really aren't understanding the plan...
It's not a flat 9% tax rate... it's 9% sales tax + 9% corporate tax + 9% individual flat tax.
That means the average dollar is taxed much more than 9%, and that doesn't even include state and local taxes.
The purpose of it is to broaden the tax base and to reduce the complexity. Our tax code is already over 60,000 pages long. Cutting down the complexity alone would probably result in millions of dollars saved.
People also need to realize that as long as the government is bringing in the same total revenue, people are being taxed the same rate. If you think that you, the consumer, are not ultimately paying for corporate taxes, you are naive. Just because it's not directly coming from your paycheck doesn't mean you aren't still paying the tax.
We need to fix the problem of half our country not paying federal income taxes. You cannot have half of a nation making financial decisions that they are exempt from. When people see directly how much they are paying and what they are getting for it the country will reverse these populist trends.
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On October 17 2011 00:48 MLMNL wrote:Conclusion, this 9-9-9 thing seems like a steal to me Many people in the EU feel that the US citizens are sitting on a timebomb with the low taxes, high personal debts, low house prices and HUGE government debt (which US government increases again and again). Perhaps more taxes so government debt may be decreased is a good idea (or at least, reduced debt increment). Consider seeing more taxes as an investment in not having your country forfeit
We do need some tax overhaul, but the 9-9-9 plan is not a deal, and the whole American system is quite the opposite of the European system. You pay high taxes and get a lot out of them (healthcare, free university, ect).
We pay lower taxes, but also have to pay for our own healthcare and higher education.
We had a point where the government was generating a surplus, where we had the first years of a balance budgets in decades. That point was the year 2000, when the government had a surplus under Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton balanced the budget when George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan could not, despite their "conservative" labels.
But then George W. Bush was then elected and sent the surplus back to the people in the form of $200 dollar checks and ramped up sending due to war, while cutting taxes ( who cuts taxes during a war?). So here we are again.
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On October 17 2011 00:47 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 00:33 Chargelot wrote:On October 17 2011 00:29 redmarine wrote:
9%... Seriously? Here in the Faroe Islands we pay around 50% taxes, and as a result everything is pretty much free of charge. How hard is it to read Plexa's post? It's all highlighted and covered in waffles and such. Even if we had 99% taxation, we still wouldn't get half of the crap Europeans get from their government. We still have $14.2T to pay off. That's not my point. My point is that taxation is viewed fundamentally differently between EU/US so it's unfair to draw a comparison of taxes.
I didn't say that was your point. That was my own point. I was just pointing him/her to your point before I made my point.
I never want to say point that many times again. I'm not even sure it's a real word now.
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On October 17 2011 00:56 jdseemoreglass wrote:
You guys really aren't understanding the plan...
It's not a flat 9% tax rate... it's 9% sales tax + 9% corporate tax + 9% individual flat tax.
That means the average dollar is taxed much more than 9%, and that doesn't even include state and local taxes.
The purpose of it is to broaden the tax base and to reduce the complexity. Our tax code is already over 60,000 pages long. Cutting down the complexity alone would probably result in millions of dollars saved.
People also need to realize that as long as the government is bringing in the same total revenue, people are being taxed the same rate. If you think that you, the consumer, are not ultimately paying for corporate taxes, you are naive. Just because it's not directly coming from your paycheck doesn't mean you aren't still paying the tax.
We need to fix the problem of half our country not paying federal income taxes. You cannot have half of a nation making financial decisions that they are exempt from. When people see directly how much they are paying and what they are getting for it the country will reverse these populist trends.
People as in the whole society sure. But how the tax burden is divided among the individual who make up "people" is a totally different.
I would pay a lot more under Herman Cain, as would the average American who makes less than $100,000 (who depends on multiple exemptions and deductions in the current code). Edward Kleinbard, a professor of tax law at University of Southern California, has calculated that a family of four with an income of $50,000 could face a tax hike of more than $5,000.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1941800
People who make a lot of money on investments (like Herman Cain) would save a lot of money due to no capital games tax. Those people generally make over $100,000 a year.
Herman Cain himself would save a massive amount of money, since he makes millions a year on capital gains.
So sure, as a society we would have the same amount of cash generated. And the people generating that cash for the government would be the same people, but the how much each person pays would change, the rich pay less, the middle class and poor, more.
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On October 17 2011 01:02 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 00:56 jdseemoreglass wrote:
People also need to realize that as long as the government is bringing in the same total revenue, people are being taxed the same rate. People as in the whole society sure. But how the tax burden is divided among the individual who make up "people" is a totally different. I would pay a lot more under Herman Cain, as would the average American who makes less than 100,000 (who depends on multiple exemptions and deductions in the current code). People who make a lot of money on investments (like Herman Cain) would save a lot of money due to no capital games tax.
Ultimately you are going to have to pay more. It's going to be a necessity to raise taxes on all americans to prevent a complete government default.
And people keep repeating this argument about capital gains... it's been going for months now. That's a simple problem to fix: If this was a 7-7-7-7 plan would you be satisfied? No, because you are still paying more and the rich still have more money than you, right?
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On October 17 2011 00:58 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 00:48 MLMNL wrote:Conclusion, this 9-9-9 thing seems like a steal to me Many people in the EU feel that the US citizens are sitting on a timebomb with the low taxes, high personal debts, low house prices and HUGE government debt (which US government increases again and again). Perhaps more taxes so government debt may be decreased is a good idea (or at least, reduced debt increment). Consider seeing more taxes as an investment in not having your country forfeit We do need some tax overhaul, but the 9-9-9 plan is not a deal, and the whole American system is quite the opposite of the European system. You pay high taxes and get a lot out of them (healthcare, free university, ect). We pay lower taxes, but also have to pay for our own healthcare and higher education. We had a point where the government was generating a surplus, where we had the first years of a balance budgets in decades. That point was the year 2000, when the government had a surplus under Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton balanced the budget when George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan could not, despite their "conservative" labels. But then George W. Bush was then elected and sent the surplus back to the people in the form of $200 dollar checks and ramped up sending due to war, while cutting taxes ( who cuts taxes during a war?). So here we are again.
Congress controls budgetary measures, the president does not. Bill Clinton did little to nothing to change the budget because he actually has no power at all to do anything, except propose a budget, which can be passed, tweaked, or rejected by Congress. Taxing and spending is a function of the congress so blaming any president is disingenuous.
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On October 17 2011 01:06 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 01:02 BronzeKnee wrote:On October 17 2011 00:56 jdseemoreglass wrote:
People also need to realize that as long as the government is bringing in the same total revenue, people are being taxed the same rate. People as in the whole society sure. But how the tax burden is divided among the individual who make up "people" is a totally different. I would pay a lot more under Herman Cain, as would the average American who makes less than 100,000 (who depends on multiple exemptions and deductions in the current code). People who make a lot of money on investments (like Herman Cain) would save a lot of money due to no capital games tax. Ultimately you are going to have to pay more. It's going to be a necessity to raise taxes on all americans to prevent a complete government default. And people keep repeating this argument about capital gains... it's been going for months now. That's a simple problem to fix: If this was a 7-7-7-7 plan would you be satisfied? No, because you are still paying more and the rich still have more money than you, right?
I have no problem paying more, but everyone should pay more. I shouldn't pay $6,000 more per year while Herman Cain saves millions.
We can all agree on that.
Or if you don't agree, are you arguing that everyone should pay the same percentage regardless? If so, please tell me.
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On October 17 2011 01:07 Jacobine wrote:
Congress controls budgetary measures, the president does not. Bill Clinton did little to nothing to change the budget because he actually has no power at all to do anything, except propose a budget, which can be passed, tweaked, or rejected by Congress. Taxing and spending is a function of the congress so blaming any president is disingenuous.
In theory, sure. But you simply don't understand how politics in this country works at all. Herman Cain proposing this plan, and other candidates proposing theirs show how much power the President alone has in these issues.
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On October 17 2011 01:10 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 01:07 Jacobine wrote:
Congress controls budgetary measures, the president does not. Bill Clinton did little to nothing to change the budget because he actually has no power at all to do anything, except propose a budget, which can be passed, tweaked, or rejected by Congress. Taxing and spending is a function of the congress so blaming any president is disingenuous.
In theory, sure. But you simply don't understand how politics in this country works at all. Herman Cain proposing this plan, and other candidates proposing theirs show how much power the President alone has in these issues.
Which congress would then have to pass. All it takes to get rid of this plan is to have a democratic majority in one house of the congress to stop this (see the last two years). Another example, President Obama has yet to have a single budget of his passed, congress has been the one spending the money. It's all nice that a candidate like Cain proposes a plan, but that does not matter at all under divided government, which is likely to continue even if a Republican is elected in 2012.
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On October 17 2011 01:13 Jacobine wrote:
Which congress would then have to pass. All it takes to get rid of this plan is to have a democratic majority in one house of the congress to stop this (see the last two years). Another example, President Obama has yet to have a single budget of his passed, congress has been the one spending the money. It's all nice that a candidate like Cain proposes a plan, but that does not matter at all under divided government, which is likely to continue even if a Republican is elected in 2012.
Do you really forget that just a few years ago Bush had a majority in Congress and the Senate and literally passed whatever he wanted completely ignoring Democrats? And then Obama had a majority in both too, and the Democrats in Congress wanted to return the favor, but Obama didn't let them and proposed compromise with Republicans only to have it blow up in his face?
Sure under a divided government what you say is true, but we've had more years under a unified government than divided recently, if you kept up with current events. You're arguing on a theoretical basis and ignoring current and recent events.
It is very ignorant, just like your former statement that the President has nothing to do with taxation. Well then why does every candidate propose a plan?
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lulz, let's make the people who can afford it the least pay the most...
Income taxes are there for a reason, and whilst I do agree that tax revenues need a fairly steep increase, this is most certainly not the way to go about it.
Taxing day trading should definitely be implemented, as day trading is not good for the market stability, and wouldn't really exist if there weren't errors in the way the stock market functions.
Looking any any functioning goverment (such as Sweden), you will start to realize how stupid some people in the US government are...
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I think the original post doesn't appear to represent all the details of the plan (e.g., payroll taxes are embedded in the 9% income tax so the OP isn't counting an incremental 6.2% SS/Medicare). It's obviously highly situational whether the 9-9-9 plan is better or worse for your individual situation.
I don't support the plan either but that's primarily due to the fact that it doesn't appear to be revenue neutral (or rather relies heavily on economic growth based on corporations translating tax savings as salary increases to workers / pricing cuts to consumers, which seems like a bad bet to make)
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On October 17 2011 01:20 Hold-Lurker wrote:
It's obviously highly situational whether the 9-9-9 plan is better or worse for your individual situation.
Read the article I linked to above. The vast majority of Americans who make less than $100,000 per year will pay more to the federal government.
But everyone should calculate for their own situation.
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On October 17 2011 01:17 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 01:13 Jacobine wrote:
Which congress would then have to pass. All it takes to get rid of this plan is to have a democratic majority in one house of the congress to stop this (see the last two years). Another example, President Obama has yet to have a single budget of his passed, congress has been the one spending the money. It's all nice that a candidate like Cain proposes a plan, but that does not matter at all under divided government, which is likely to continue even if a Republican is elected in 2012. Do you really forget that just a few years ago Bush had a majority in Congress and the Senate and literally passed whatever he wanted completely ignoring Democrats? And then Obama had a majority in both too, and the Democrats in Congress wanted to return the favor, but Obama didn't let them and proposed compromise with Republicans only to have it blow up in his face? Sure under a divided government, but we've had more years under a unified government than divided recently, if you kept up with current events. You're arguing on a theoretical basis and ignoring current and recent events. It is very ignorant.
Current events meaning the last 10 years?? Look at the 90s... only 2 years had unified government. Last decade 6 out 10 years unfiied Government. Last 20 years 8 out of 20 years unified government......
Also, what do you call the healthcare law passed by Obama??? It had less than a majority of public support, yet the democrats passed it through by using a BUDGETARY measure so it would pass the senate. President Obama has compromised very little, but instead had no political capital for his other major policy initiatives, and thus proposed to work with the republicans so that he could pander to the center.
I'm stunned by your willingness do pay attention to 4 years of Obama and think that you can generalize about how the entire system works, plus insultingly talk down to someone making a point. You can continue to look at the political system in your way, however you are ignoring everything about government EXCEPT the presidential system. Go your way thinking you have won the debate, I'm now going to enjoy my day
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EPT
