Bill Kristol tells GOP to come back to the table.

Nomad wrote:

It would effectively be a salary cap.

And Steve Jobs and other CEOs taking one dollar a year, that's not effectively a salary cap either? Because it's used as a way to avoid paying taxes, pure and simple. Their income comes from investments instead, which are taxed at a much lower rate than their salary would be.

In other words, just the ordinary income taxes you and I pay are enough to make some of these guys opt out of salaries altogether. You and I can't, of course. But that's part of the worldview you're protecting here.

Tanglebones wrote:

O.o

Do the people saying this ever live in NYC? Seriously - $300k, and I'd be beyond well-off, and into pure luxury in the outer boroughs, or super-comfy middle class in Manhattan.

Yes, they do. Two Internet famous examples were Todd Henderson, who blogged that he'd have to sell his house to pay for taxes because he and his wife only managed to have a "few hundred dollars in discretionary income a month" off of their $400,000 family income, and Andrew Schiff, a Wall Street veteran who lamented that the $350,000 he makes isn't enough once you subtract private schools, a summer rental home in Connecticut, and other "necessities".

Of course the real problem is that they're trying to compete with the lifestyles of people making vastly more money, which makes them feel like they're barely treading water instead of realizing they make more money than virtually every person in the country.

In the first hundred years our nation got around 45% of it's money from Corporate taxes. Now it's somewhere around 15% if I remember correctly. I've got a pdf I can look for at home tonight.

I barely have enough money after building this year's Hunger Games arena to keep my fleet of invisible death choppers fueled and armed. Time for another tax cut to help out me, the real victim.

Yonder wrote:

I barely have enough money after building this year's Hunger Games arena to keep my fleet of invisible death choppers fueled and armed. Time for another tax cut to help out me, the real victim.

All I heard was "Yonder is a perfect job creator." Keep up the good work, Yonder.

Seth wrote:

At one point I saw a chart showing how big taxes on corporate profits encouraged self investment, since money used for infrastructure improvements, retaining talent (I.e., paying workers more), etc, wasn't taxed. I know that corporations continually whine about the US's tax policy vs Europe, but I certainly don't think GE paying negative taxes is a good thing.

As an aside, I've been mulling over the concept of setting a high base tax rate for employers, and lowering the rate based on how far above minimum wage/poverty level/median income/something the average non-managerial employee is payed/compensated. So Wal-Mart would get hit with a higher tax rate than Costco, for example, which in turn helps cover the cost of increased use of public services by those who make near-poverty wages. There are a lot of gaps in the idea yet, but I think the concept at least might be worth consideration.

OG_slinger wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

O.o

Do the people saying this ever live in NYC? Seriously - $300k, and I'd be beyond well-off, and into pure luxury in the outer boroughs, or super-comfy middle class in Manhattan.

Yes, they do. Two Internet famous examples were Todd Henderson, who blogged that he'd have to sell his house to pay for taxes because he and his wife only managed to have a "few hundred dollars in discretionary income a month" off of their $400,000 family income, and Andrew Schiff, a Wall Street veteran who lamented that the $350,000 he makes isn't enough once you subtract private schools, a summer rental home in Connecticut, and other "necessities".

Of course the real problem is that they're trying to compete with the lifestyles of people making vastly more money, which makes them feel like they're barely treading water instead of realizing they make more money than virtually every person in the country.

So what if I only make $100K a year? I should be able to live on Park Avenue! What would you liberals have me do, sell one of my yachts?

Kraint wrote:
Seth wrote:

At one point I saw a chart showing how big taxes on corporate profits encouraged self investment, since money used for infrastructure improvements, retaining talent (I.e., paying workers more), etc, wasn't taxed. I know that corporations continually whine about the US's tax policy vs Europe, but I certainly don't think GE paying negative taxes is a good thing.

As an aside, I've been mulling over the concept of setting a high base tax rate for employers, and lowering the rate based on how far above minimum wage/poverty level/median income/something the average non-managerial employee is payed/compensated. So Wal-Mart would get hit with a higher tax rate than Costco, for example, which in turn helps cover the cost of increased use of public services by those who make near-poverty wages. There are a lot of gaps in the idea yet, but I think the concept at least might be worth consideration.

Hmm, my first thought was that was dumb because some companies, say Boeing, have much higher paid people than, say, McDonalds. Then I realized that that may not matter, Boeing doesn't compete with them, they compete with Lockheed Martin, Pantheon, and other companies with similar employee wages.

It seems like the idea is similar in motivation and side effects to the minimum wage law (trying to increase wages with the downside of increased unemployment) but does so more elegantly and scalable across the entire income spectrum.

You'd have to have it cap somewhere though, like $300k or so, so they CEO can't give his company a tax break by paying himself hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yonder wrote:

You'd have to have it cap somewhere though, like $300k or so, so they CEO can't give his company a tax break by paying himself hundreds of millions of dollars.

Any competent statistician, of which I assume the IRS has many, can create a structure to eliminate those deviations from the mean.

There was just about one thing our founding fathers agreed upon entirely-the US should not set up another aristocracy. I am certain that they would have very negative feelings about how the Hiltons and other ilk have acquired and maintained vast wealth, property, business holdings over generations. To talk of a system that allows this to continue at the sickly levels current is flat out unpatriotic.

You do this either with estate taxes or higher income taxes at the highest income levels. You then incentivize the super rich to move that around with life and posthumous gifts, charitable works. The system is not so borked as it was in 1907 when truly 5 men controlled the vast majority of wealth and industry in the US, but we are headed there,

Robear wrote:

Alabama has no gridlock because it has a Republican Senate, a Republican House, and a Republican governor. That's, um, a bit different from the Federal situation, don't you agree? :-)

Gridlock doesn't matter even if it existed in Alabama because it does not take a new budget control act to control the budget. The cuts are automatic.

The cuts are equal across the board (departments). The departments have some discretion. Just like the Federal government would. I am sure that the Federal Department of Education would not have been required to cut 10% of its workforce, 10% of its pencils, and 10% of its staplers. There would be some discretion.

Further, I'm looking at "useful and well-run" in terms of what it offers citizens as a service, and how much it costs. What the sponsoring Senator thinks of it is immaterial in an audit situation. That's not an accurate judge of whether something is well-run.

I agree with your definition. However, your definition does not take into account political reality. These programs exist because someone thinks they are useful. Unless we have a budget czar or give the President a line item veto (which I support), there is not one decision maker, and the current problem is that the government cannot prioritize.

Also, Congress decided on sequestration as the most painful way to cut, not as part of normal operations. You know this - it was intended by both sides to force action before the end of 2012, under the belief that no one would be so irresponsible as to not give ground to meet in the middle. So I'm unsure why you want to present this as business as usual. It wasn't.

It was business as usual. Congress passed a budget control act. They sold it to the public as a poisoned pill, but they did make it the law of the land. They had to be willing to live with it or else it would never have passed.

The messaging it screwed up, but the normal process was followed. We do not pass a foreign aid bill that we are going to bomb France unless we fix the Foreign Aid bill in the next 12 months. They passed the poison pill because they needed to justify ignoring their own deficit commission report and needed to look tough.

Everyone wimped out. Taxes were barely raised and spending will barely be cut. Malor will continue to talk about impending fiscal doom .

OG_slinger wrote:
Greg wrote:

That would require that the Democrats let the Bush Tax Cuts expire instead of propping them up for 98% of the country. Democrats just whiffed on their opportunity to teach the Republicans.

Yes, let's send our weak economy back into a recession and drive the unemployment rate back over 9% to teach the Republicans a lesson...

But I thought we agreed that we needed to pay for our government?

I agree with that radical conservative Howard Dean, you need to pay more taxes.

Greg wrote:

But I thought we agreed that we needed to pay for our government?

I agree with that radical conservative Howard Dean, you need to pay more taxes.

We do and maybe Congress does, but they and the several Presidents can't agree on how, even with the Jan 1 law, so it remains undone.

I think one of the things that goes missing is that taxing the rich isn't just about fairness, it's about future revenues. Conservatives often talk about 'broadening the base' but all that sounds like to Liberals is pushing more people down from the middle class to the lower class, which means you have to further broaden the base, which means more people pushed down, yadda yadda yadda negative feedback loop.

I think part of the Liberal agenda here is to broaden the base not by moving down the economic ladder to tax more and more people, but to broaden it by moving more and more people up into those middle-class rungs? If we have to tax the rich more heavily now to make that happen, that's not class warfare. That's just asking the people with the means to do it to pay for a more robust distribution of people up and down the ladder: a far cry from pulling the ladder down. The thing is, the more robust that middle class, the more the middle class can shoulder the costs of government and the rich in the future could pay less. I feel like that's a part of the argument that doesn't get enough attention.

Greg wrote:

But I thought we agreed that we needed to pay for our government?

OG_slinger[/url]]We already know we have to pay for our government. What we're arguing over is *who* has to pay for it. The wealthy--who benefited massively from the Bush era tax cuts, who were barely affected by the recession, and who've been sucking up nearly all income growth since the 70s--or the middle class--who got a grand or so from the Bush tax cuts, were hammered by the recession, and whose wages have been stagnate for decades?

We're also arguing over how quickly we need to move to eliminate the deficit. There's no one here who thinks that we can continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have every year.

What we do know is that our economy has come nowhere near recovering from the recession and our creditors aren't hounding us for repayment, so calls for higher taxes on the middle class and deep spending cuts right now seem out of place. Really out of place when those middle class tax increases would tip us back over into a recession and when we look at how well Europe's handling their austerity measures. Additionally, the need for deep spending cuts could go away if we focused on getting our economy growing again. That would mean millions of people paying taxes again as well as the government having to spend less on everything from unemployment insurance to food stamps.

Greg wrote:

Unless we have a budget czar or give the President a line item veto (which I support), there is not one decision maker, and the current problem is that the government cannot prioritize.

A government where there is one decision maker is a dictatorship, not a democracy. Our current budget problems are a reflection of our population's differing priorities.

You clearly seem proud of Alabama's hard edged approach to balancing it's budget and think it could be an example of how things could (should) work at the federal level.

I, on the other hand, would argue that Alabama is an example of absolute failure for a government. The state's in the top ten for poverty and teenage pregnancy, the bottom ten for median income, and the state's economy is generating mostly low-paying McJobs. And, instead of investing in things like education that could improve the future for its citizens, Alabama has slashed it's education funding by 21.7% since 2008.

Yeah, as a resident of a federal taxation net-positive state, Alabama is my strongest argument for much stronger states' rights.

Greg wrote:

The cuts are equal across the board (departments). The departments have some discretion. Just like the Federal government would. I am sure that the Federal Department of Education would not have been required to cut 10% of its workforce, 10% of its pencils, and 10% of its staplers. There would be some discretion.

Nope. The relevant rule comes from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997:

‘‘(4) UNIFORM PERCENTAGE RATE OF REDUCTION AND OTHER
LIMITATIONS.—All reductions described in paragraph (2) which
are required to be made in connection with an order issued
under section 254 with respect to a fiscal year shall be made
so as to ensure that outlays for each program, project, activity,
or account involved are reduced by a percentage rate that
is uniform for all such programs, projects, activities, and
accounts
, and may not be made so as to achieve a percentage
rate of reduction in any such item exceeding the rate specified
in the order.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-10...

Search for Sequestration and look for the mods near the end of the document. Again, that was the whole point, to be painful, not rational. It would not have worked the way you thought. They actually passed something that would be bad for the country, knowing it would be, in order to force their future selves to the table. And in that limited sense, it worked. Sort of. Partly. Not very well. But it *did* force an agreement.

Robear wrote:

Nope. The relevant rule comes from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997:

‘‘(4) UNIFORM PERCENTAGE RATE OF REDUCTION AND OTHER
LIMITATIONS.—All reductions described in paragraph (2) which
are required to be made in connection with an order issued
under section 254 with respect to a fiscal year shall be made
so as to ensure that outlays for each program, project, activity,
or account involved are reduced by a percentage rate that
is uniform for all such programs, projects, activities, and
accounts
, and may not be made so as to achieve a percentage
rate of reduction in any such item exceeding the rate specified
in the order.

Having lived through it twice, I can tell you that you are reading it too broadly. Yes, whether an appropriation was called a program, project, or activity, they all took an equal cut. How each program, project, or activity prioritized the remaining money was done with discretion.

I give up. My direct experience counts for nothing.

Put capital gains tax at 35% and tax income over 500,000 at 50%. Done.

And eliminate those ridiculous loopholes jdzappa linked. The tax code is way too complicated and it lets crap like that get in due to its complexity.

I was chatting in the steam room again. I have yet to be attacked with a knife, so all is well.

Something I was tossing around was the idea of congress giving the IRS powers over taxation and tax rates similar to those given to the EPA over air quality, discharge of pollutants, etc.

Don't they already have that? Treasury recommends changes in tax policies, which Congress can accept or reject. Then IRS enforces them.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

O.o

Do the people saying this ever live in NYC? Seriously - $300k, and I'd be beyond well-off, and into pure luxury in the outer boroughs, or super-comfy middle class in Manhattan.

Yes, they do. Two Internet famous examples were Todd Henderson, who blogged that he'd have to sell his house to pay for taxes because he and his wife only managed to have a "few hundred dollars in discretionary income a month" off of their $400,000 family income, and Andrew Schiff, a Wall Street veteran who lamented that the $350,000 he makes isn't enough once you subtract private schools, a summer rental home in Connecticut, and other "necessities".

Of course the real problem is that they're trying to compete with the lifestyles of people making vastly more money, which makes them feel like they're barely treading water instead of realizing they make more money than virtually every person in the country.

So what if I only make $100K a year? I should be able to live on Park Avenue! What would you liberals have me do, sell one of my yachts?

I lived in the Ft. Greene section of Brooklyn from 2000 to 2003. My partner at the time and I had the full top floor of an old Brownstone (approx. 1100 sq. ft.) which included a full-sized bathroom (and full-sized tub) and a large dining room, living room, and decent sized bedroom. We were within a 10-minute walk to six subway lines, and a 15-minute walk to the famed Junior's Cheesecake Restaurant. We were no more than two stops from being in Manhattan. The picture windows in our apartment overlooked Ft. Greene park and the Twin Towers and you could, during the winter, see New York Harbor.

Our rent was $890 a month.

Our friends were envious with the size of our apartment, the beauty of a majestic Brownstone, and the killer view. However, we were in Brooklyn, which many of our friends thought was some horrible destopian pit despite the beautiful park and everything else. They could never fathom the idea of living anywhere in NYC but a posh area of Manhattan. One friend had two roommates and lived in a 450 sq. ft. apartment on the Upper West Side and shelled out nearly $2300 a month in rent.

But the interesting part was that our combined incomes totaled approximately $75,000. We were able to pay our rent and utilities, have good food, eat our on weekends, attend a Broadway show every now and then and could afford two trips to Europe over three years.

Most of the people who say, "Well, you can't live in NYC on $100,000/yr" are usually the people who could would never think of living in the outer boroughs.

I mean a more direct approach. The EPA controls fuel efficiency standards, emissions, etc. independent of a vote.

Greg wrote:

Having lived through it twice, I can tell you that you are reading it too broadly. Yes, whether an appropriation was called a program, project, or activity, they all took an equal cut. How each program, project, or activity prioritized the remaining money was done with discretion.

I give up. My direct experience counts for nothing.

Forgive me, your direct experience with the US Congress budget sequestration process? Or the Alabama one? It seems to me the Alabama one puts the decisions at the department leadership level, while the Federal one goes a level lower and does not give discretion to exempt arbitrary projects, activities or the like. Did I miss something there?

I have direct experience of this at the Federal level, since the programs I work with were looking at forced cuts without the option of being protected by patronage or anything else higher in the Department. That's not what you described in Alabama, as I read it.

Edit - Greg, I'm not trying to piss you off or be pedantic. I didn't know you had first-hand experience, I'd have asked you more about it to be clear I was not screwing it up. But I have first-hand Federal government experience, working for it or with it for 32 years if you include summer jobs. That's where I'm coming from. I had no way of knowing your background (and still don't, actually, but I'm willing to believe you).

But can Congress give one of it's enumerated powers to an Executive Branch Department?

Robear wrote:

But can Congress give one of it's enumerated powers to an Executive Branch Department?

Given strictures of the act, congress can and has. Patents and Trademarks are handled by the department of commerce, the department of transportation deals with roads, the lending of money is handled by the treasury which also regulates its value.

These are all enumerated legislative powers handled by executive agencies.

Come to think of it, that's the interesting thing about taxation. You could bump my taxes up 10%. That would run me... eh... another $200-$300 a month. I'd be fine. I would respond by making spending cuts though.

The first thing to go would be eating out. I'd have to re-evaluate some of the kids extra curricular activities like music lessons, taekwondo, etc. I tend to buy a new vehicle every 5 to 6 years, I'd likely make that stretch longer as well.

I'd be fine, but the people who would suffer if taxes went way up on people like me would be the music teachers, the waiters and waitresses, etc.

$100k... wealthy.

My gross income is just north of that in the midwest. I mean, I guess you could call me wealthy? Since I have house and car payments my net worth is like -$250,000 (that's negative). I live in a modest ranch house ~1800 sq ft. I don't worry about having money to buy basic goods, and I have a few hundred a month in disposable income, but with two kids that tends to go to them.

I've never owned a vehicle for more than $19k. I'm by no means poor, but I struggle to see how $100k is considered wealthy. I feel like my lifestyle is solidly middle class. If I lived in a high cost area like NY or CA, I'd probably be solidly middle class. In the midwest I feel like this income allows to be upper middle.

$100k is a crapton of money if you're single though... Though I would like to point out that with a family, insurance, home, etc that even at $100k most the people I associate with that have families at that income level live check to check. I'm a bit more conservative with my money, but even I couldn't go without working for more than 6 months without going bankrupt.

Even with the payroll tax change this year my wife and I figure we'll be out an extra ~$2,000 over the course of the year. We won't make up that spending. We can't. Congress doesn't know what they're doing by taking money out of the hands of people who can actually afford to spend.

This map lets you see range of incomes in your neighborhood. http://t.co/523ixM7q