The top 10% only make $3.3 trillion in AGI so for every 1% increase in their taxes you only get $33 billion… so raising rates back to the Clinton rates only nets about $100 billion a year. Of course that ignores the fact that many if not all of the top 10% would adjust their affairs to avoid most or all of the rate increase but just for argument, let’s use the $33 Billion figure.

Now a question for you Democrat/Socialists of “tax the rich” school. What is the annual interest on Obama’s $16 trillion deficit? OK I’ll tell you since I am sure you have no clue,it’s $400 Billion. Obama’s annual deficit is $1.2 Trillion.

So let’s do a little math, going back to the Clinton rates covers only 25% of Obama’s interest expense… so for “tax the rich to work, we really need an additional $1.2 trillion a year to cover the Democrat spending and the debt service. So he really has to raise rates by about 36% on those evil rich people in the top 10%.

You see the magic of Obama and the Socialist/Communists “Tax the Rich” plans is that they don’t work. Honesty is not one of Obama’s strong suits. You can now see how ridiculous any argument that relies on “taxing the rich” is. Spending has to be cut by well over a trillion dollars a year.

I can read them just fine, thanks, and I’m generally familiar with these figures and percentages. But they don’t explain why the solution is shrinking the circle on the right (expense) without dare touching the one on the left (revenue). The writer of the accompanying article kind of begs the question, I think unintentionally, when he notes something to the effect of, “Revenue is barely growing at all.”

Why do people keep insisting that there was a budget surplus during Clinton’s Presidency? It was close, but the last time the total debt of the federal government was lower than the previous year was 1957. Here is the debt and deficit from year-to-year: http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits. html And remember that he was working with a Republican Congress to achieve those declining deficits. Split rule is usually better for spending, which is the biggest factor in the deficit.

“The hyper-rich are paying less in taxes than they have in over 30 years. And they have tripled their wealth in the last 10 years, while everyone else has lost income.”

As a group, yes, but that group changes all the time. It’s not like everyone who was “hyper-rich” 20 years ago (or even last year) is still rich. There is always quite a bit of movement (especially upwards) so your statement is misleading.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/p rint/264296

From the article: “Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 — the top 1/100 of one percent — only 25 percent remained in the group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over the study period.” And “Of those who were in the poorest fifth in 1979, 85.8 percent had moved to a higher bracket by 1988, and 14.7 percent of them moved to the top bracket.”

‘“America’s debt problem is one of too much spending, not too little revenue.”

Is that a scientific fact, James? Sounds like blind ideology to me. If something else, please explain.’

Hi. Are you capable of reading charts, or would you like for us to send someone over to your house to help you out?

http://tinyurl.com/69zjrc9

The hyper-rich are paying less in taxes than they have in over 30 years. And they have tripled their wealth in the last 10 years, while everyone else has lost income.

Any responsible approach to the deficit problem requires both budget restrain and increase in revenue. Return to the Clinton era tax structure when the country had a yearly surplus.

And while I do find the OECD study on progressivity quite relevant to this discussion, I wonder how countries that tax less progressively than us stack up in terms of income distribution from the top to bottom of the scale. When the top earners make 100 or 200 times the average working stiff, of course their tax bill on average is proportionately quite a bit higher. Wonder how Norway ranks compared to us in that regard?

Bleedingheart: I’m not saying that we cannot raise taxes nor that our economy will tank if obama does raise taxes. What I am saying is that I prefer solving the deficit through actually dealing the cost of the welfare state over the next fifty years rather than simply raising taxes (though raising taxes is obviously a necessary part of the solution). I disagree more with Ryan’s method of cost control rather than his numbers.

They state unequivability that the United States has the most progressive tax system in the developed world. Why might someone ask – well, we don’t have a VAT that taxes everyone, our social security taxes are lower, and we pass more benefits percentage wise to lower income groups. This in fact confirms what James says – that the Obama way is that 2% of our people will pay for the other 98%. The OEDC study proves that is not the way the world works.

Returning to bleadingheart67′s chart he refers to, Norway is the top country in terms of government spending. In the OEDC study of progressively, Norway ranks 19th of 24 countries in terms of progressively, and the US ranks 1st. Moreover, Norway has a ratio of share of taxes paid for the top 10% to the income of the top 10% of 0.95 – that is, their top 10% pay less than their share of income. In the US according to this study, the ration is 1.35, that is, the top 10% pay much more of the taxes than as compared to their income.

So the next time a bleeding heart liberal, such as bleadinghear67 puts up data to influence anyone, remember that the countries they and Obama would have us emulate, tax their middle class far, far more than us, and far more proportionately too!