http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:07, ken hanly <northsunm at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Isn't it the Laugher curve?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Sean Andrews <cultstud76 at gmail.com>
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Sent: Tue, March 29, 2011 10:53:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Comments on WSJ article "The Price of Taxing the
> Rich"
>
> Here's a portion of my response to a similar argument, which was in
> response
> to this little piece written by Charles Kocj in the WSJ:
>
> "Here's where my problem with Mr. Koch and your own little description of
> how the world works seems to run aground. The top tier are the titans and
> the Most Important People in Society (in so far as society exists) because
> you make money then use that money to employ others ("thousands" of others,
> by both your counts--which is no small potatoes in a country of 300
> million.
> or...). On this count lowering the tax burden would be the best idea
> because
> then more of that money could be used productively, pumped back into the
> economy, more people go to work etc. Then the 95% of people who don't pay
> taxes would. The alternative, raising taxes, reduces economic activities,
> taxes, the power of these titans to lift all boats by trickle down
> economics, etc. Not to mention it is just plainly against the Objectivist
> ethic (all praise Ayn Rand).
>
> "This is such a blinkered understanding of how things work. For one thing,
> it takes the Laffer curve as an absolute sort of value--raising taxes
> ALWAYS
> reduces tax receipts. But the curve, in case you or Koch has forgotten *is
> a
> fucking curve.* There is a point where it actually makes more sense to tax
> the rich since they aren't really doing much with the money they've managed
> to squeeze out of the collective and aren't actually doing much productive
> with it. In other words, there are times when taxing makes some sense, as
> Reagan's own tax guru has recently said in response to this line of
> rhetoric:
>
> http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/reagan-anniversary-david-stockman
>
> All of this is compounded by the fact that much of this money does
> absolutely nothing productive except gather interest in offshore bank
> accounts. When the average worker's wages are stagnant--when the median
> wage
> is almost identical in inflation adjusted dollars from the late 1970s to
> today--yet we have seen healthy economic growth and rising worker
> productivity, it is not some crazy marxian observation to point out that,
> while productive work is being done by many people, some people are able to
> take more of the rewards for themselves. If the condition of your and
> Koch's
> employment solution--let the rich people and only the rich people hire
> you--is that your PRODUCTIVE labor is rewarded at less than those above you
> this is hardly fair. And it makes the argument that people with more wealth
> are wealthy because they are more productive a circular argument. People
> with money are able to take advantage of a structural inequality to capture
> more money from other productive workers who don't happen to have money or
> said structural power. This is not a case of productive vs. unproductive
> workers, but people who claim they are productive because they have money
> and people who do a great deal of productive work but have not received
> much
> money. The cold hard fact is that, in this country, in the past 30 years,
> it is people like Koch at the very very top that have received ALL of the
> benefits of growth.
>
>
> http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/pages/interactive#/?start=1978&end=2008
>
> This despite the fact that worker productivity has been rising at a steady
> pace throughout.
>
> "Here your account of the tax burden problem really reverses the issue--as
> I've said several times before in our interchanges. The real issue is that,
> in the current economic distribution a relative handful receive the
> greatest
> share of the rewards for their labor--did you actually look at the graph I
> cited: ALL of the economic growth of the past 30 years has gone to the top
> 10%--and your complaint is that this means they pay proportionally more
> taxes! This is like robbing someone and then expecting them to sympathize
> with the burden you have to bear carting off their TV: "You may have been
> robbed, but man this thing is heavy! My back is killing me!"
>
> "Many many people in this country work very very hard and can barely scrape
> by. The problem to my mind isn't that 95% of people pay only 40% of the
> taxes, its that they only earn enough relative to the amount of money
> floating about out there to fall in the tax brackets in this way. So I'd
> much rather not have taxes be the primary means of redistribution. I'd much
> rather have a distribution of income and the benefits to labor that would
> alter the basic structure of society. I'd rather have 95% of the population
> pay 95% of the taxes because they make 95% of the money off 95% of the
> work.
> In the end it is only an illusion of the automatic superiority of the rich
> and a degradation and hate for working people that can allow objectivist
> fantasies to prevail. I don't believe you really believe this."
>
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 09:53, Bryan Atinsky <bryan at alt-info.org> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704604704576220491592684626.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
> >d
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I would be interested on critiques of the argument and data presented in
> > this article.
> >
> > "Nearly half of California's income taxes before the recession came from
> > the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year.
> > High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomes—their
> earnings
> > fell by more than twice as much as the rest of the population's during
> the
> > recession. When they crashed, they took California's finances down with
> > them. Mr. Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state, spent
> more
> > than a decade warning state leaders about California's over-dependence on
> > the rich. "We created a revenue cliff," he said. "We built a large part
> of
> > our government on the state's most unstable income group." View Full
> Image
> > New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois—states that are the most
> > heavily reliant on the taxes of the wealthy—are now among those with the
> > biggest budget holes. A large population of rich residents was a blessing
> > during the boom, showering states with billions in tax revenue. But it
> > became a curse as their incomes collapsed with financial markets.
> Arriving
> > at a time of greatly increased public spending, this reversal highlights
> the
> > dependence of the states on the outsize incomes of the wealthy. The
> result
> > for state finances and budgets has been extreme volatility. In New York
> > before the recession, the top 1% of earners, who made more than $580,000
> a
> > year, paid 41% of the state's income taxes in 2007, up from 25% in 1994,
> > according to state tax data. The top 1% of taxpayers paid 40% or more of
> > state income taxes in New Jersey and Connecticut. In Illinois, which has
> a
> > flat income-tax rate of 5%, the top 15% paid more than half the state's
> > income taxes. This growing dependence on wealthy taxpayers is being
> driven
> > by soaring salaries at the top of the income ladder and by the nation's
> > progressive income taxes, which levy the highest rates on the highest
> > taxable incomes. The top federal income-tax rate has fallen dramatically
> > over the past century, from more than 90% during World War II to 35%
> today.
> > But the top tax rate—which applies to joint filers reporting $379,000 in
> > taxable income—is still twice as high as the rate for joint filers
> reporting
> > income of $69,000 or less. "
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Bryan
> >
> > ___________________________________
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