was I on the right track in my reply? (income taxes)

[Syrinx]

I left out my second paragraph where I was touting a particular candidate. I haven't decided for sure who I like best, but it doesn't matter, because our primary isn't till June.

> You know what really, really bothers me, about the increasing taxes,
> health
> care, and all this mess? Historically, the US has been one of the few
> countries where there is a middle class. Lots of countries only have
> the two, the rich, and the poor. You know? The middle class has been
> the primary class in our country from the time of it's success. And
> it would be so easy now, for it to become extinct. There are people
> who are marginal, you know, and with the additional taxes and health
> care costs, they could so easily be pushed back, and become
> impoverished. Those people who make one or two hundred, a year, are
> also middle class, albeit upper middle. then they become lower
> middle. And the middle-middle, and lower middle of today, become the
> poor. You know, if things continue to go the way they are going now,
> this will happen. The US will have two classes. And you know what?
> It could happen in our life time. I am a good little democrat, and I
> am not greedy. But I have and will continue to oppose all this shit,
> because honestly to God I see this coming. If I am out scrapping up
> money every year to try to pay my taxes, there will be no money for
> anything else. Scott, you wouldn't believe what I pay already. It's a
> fragile balance. And the Republicans have come up with all this
> shit.....they want....wars, and spaceships, and taking over the world,
> and have apparently convinced a lot of people they want too, but in
> the end, it's just the sucker middle class financing what the rich
> want, until they drain us dry, and we cease to exist. That's my story
> and I sticking to it.

Well the Republicans do in fact want to destroy the middle class. But
if you're talking of federal income taxes, the top marginal rates are
quite low historically speaking. I think the top federal income tax
rate was as high as 94% shortly after World War II. JFK pushed through
tax cuts that reduced the top rate from 91% to 70%, and today I believe
it's around 35%. The 9% sales tax we have in Alabama on food is a tax I
find particularly egregious. I think the Scandinavian countries have
the right idea. Their income taxes are significantly higher than they
are here, but they actually get important, tangible social services for
the money, instead of subsidizing huge corporations and building
empires.

[bfusco]

1. sounds right and some additional thoughts

I think you hit on exactly what the Bush administration is trying to do. As an Alabama resident, you see first had the blue print for what the Bush model for radically remaking our tax structure. Alabama's tax structure leans heavily on consumption and disproportionately burdens the lower incomes. It is so unfair that even a Republican governor has opposed it and unsuccessfully tried to change it. Bush's claims of cutting taxes as an economic stimulus is total bull. All one has to look at is where they are going to see the game that is being played. First step is greatly reducing percentage taxed on upper incomes and reducing capital gains (this even got greater priority then homeland security/counter terrorism). Then comes dividends, repealing the inheritance tax (which only taxed very large estates). At the same time, the president's annual economic report, submitted to Congress suggests eliminating income taxes and implementing consumption taxes, i.e. a national sales tax. As you know from living in Alabama, such taxes put a much greater burden on lower and middle incomes because they spend a much greater percent of what they earn on consumption then someone who is wealthy. Wealthier individuals are also able to save and invest much easier and such a tax structure would enable them to earn huge sums of income without taxation. Sounds like a form of class warfare to me.

The crumbs I got from shrub in a 500 dollar a check were a slap in the face and demonstrate what is happening nationally. In the meantime, I lost my home state rebate (700 dollars a year) because of my state's budget shortfall, bridge tolls went up a dollar (200 dollars extra a year because I commute and this was done to cover underfunding homeland security needs/city budget shortfalls), state sales and homeland security fees seem to be in all sorts of goods and services and my property taxes went up 2,000 dollars a year because of the combination underfunded "No Child Left Behind" and dropping state revenues. So, Bush's policies are actually indirectly/directly increasing my taxes. The same is true of all middle and lower class individuals nationally. It is the same game Ronald Reagan played by greatly cutting taxes on upper incomes and then implementing all sorts of tax increases on the middle class and calling them "revenue enhancements".

The astonishing thing is that every time a new set of taxes is proposed bu this administration, our corporate whore media doesn't point out what the real agenda behind it is. Just like going to war with Iraq, hysteria and direct threats dominated the discussion and the whole neo-con pipe dream and the real agendas for the war were brushed under the rug.

Here a few links detailing what the real agenda behind Bush and Co's real goal with cutting taxes.


http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/030210/72/376og.html

http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?NavMenuID=24&template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=8281


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54460-2003Feb10?language=printer

[T Roosevelt]

2. Also keep in mind about JFK

while he cut the top rate, he also closed a number of personal and business loopholes that allowed people to avoid paying the ~90%

[cryofan]

3. Yes yes yes yes

You wrote:


But
if you're talking of federal income taxes, the top marginal rates are
quite low historically speaking. I think the top federal income tax
rate was as high as 94% shortly after World War II. JFK pushed through
tax cuts that reduced the top rate from 91% to 70%, and today I believe
it's around 35%. The 9% sales tax we have in Alabama on food is a tax I
find particularly egregious. I think the Scandinavian countries have
the right idea. Their income taxes are significantly higher than they
are here, but they actually get important, tangible social services for
the money, instead of subsidizing huge corporations and building
empires.


And if you are listening to Kerry and Edwards on the stump, they are singing a populist, class war tune as well. BUt they have not yet gotten down to specifics. We Democrats need to push them into specifics. We should demand that America return to PROGRESSIVE TAXATION.