One of the proposals to pay for healthcare reform was to impose an income tax surcharge on families earning more than $350,000. Under pressure from congress, that number has now gone up to $1,000,000 for families and $500,000 for individuals. But does it stand a chance against the conservatives’ anti-tax fantasy? Today Rep. MAXINE WATERS, Columbia Business School Professor ERIC SCHOENBERG and others on why taxing the wealthy might be good for our health.
GRITtv Live at Noon: Is Taxing The Wealthy Good For Our Health?
| By: GRITtv Wednesday July 29, 2009 12:00 pm |
11 Responses to “GRITtv Live at Noon: Is Taxing The Wealthy Good For Our Health?”
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Some background.
From TPM.
Open Secrets: Wealthy House Democrats Spar Over Health Care Tax Hike
From The Hill:
Infighting among House Democrats has led to an impasse at the Energy and Commerce Committee that is expected to prevent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from meeting her deadline of completing work before the August recess.
And on Tuesday it prompted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to hint that more liberal members of the party should consider challenging centrist Blue Dogs in next year’s primaries.
I don’t know about you, but it could very well lower my blood pressure a bit if we were to return to the tax brackets that existed during the reign of St. Ronnie.
The Blue Dog argument they are trying to hold on to their seats to keep a Democratic majority is a joke because they are working against the majority!
How about going back to the rates under Eisenhower: Throughout Ike’s Presidency, the top tax rate on income over $400,000 stood at 91 percent.
Good ole class warfare is also very good for our health.
Doesn’t 91% strike anyone as confiscatory? Besides, if you lived in California with a 10% rate then it would mean for every $100 you earned you’d owe at least $101 in tax.
Also, back then people could deduct a lot more than they can now a days (I’m a return preparer) so simply looking at rates doesn’t make sense.
No one should have to pay more than 50% (combined fed and state).
Remember it is the people who subsidize the government…not the other way round.
Of course the politicians would have you believe otherwise.
I keep having to point out, the republicans have redistributed tax burden from leaning heavily on the middle class to now leaning even more heavily on the middle class
bush gave the wealthiest people on the planet middle class assets in the form of lowered taxes, in the mean time he reduced services and increased tax burden on the middle and lower class through raised usage, local and sales tax forced on everyone due to these gifts to the wealthy from the bank accounts of the middle class
reclaiming those assets is NOT taxing the wealthy, it’s “re-evaluating VERY bad investments”
we MUST stop using the term ‘tax the wealthy” and we NUTS use the term “rescind tax gifts that demonstrate miserable return” and framing like that
this is the ONLY way we can get our point across
Here is a link to a listing of tax rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I…..ted_States
The link will explain about tax brackets and why 91% and 10% do not add up to 101%.
here’s the REAL deal on “tax rates”
the wealthy only spend a fraction of their income, the middle class and lower class spend almost all of it
because of payrol sales tax, local tax, useage tax, school tax, licensing tax that the upper class never sees, the real rate for the upper class is around 25 percent, the real rate for the middle class around 50 percent and the real rate for the lower class even higher
that’s the real talking point democrats need to juse