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Wealth inequality (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter gianmarco
- Start date
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Are you saying 50 votes or 60? I don’t know my Senate procedure well enough to know if this could get filibustered.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Shula-holic
Footballguy
Keep in mind they had a caucus of 60. 58, Sanders, and Lieberman. There were only 40 Republicans in the Senate at the time.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Right but that was only for like 8 months and like it or not most of that time was spent on Obamacare. Also some of those Dems like Manchin or Baucus weren’t exactly progressives so getting 60 votes for anything like that was going to be a huge challenge. That’s why I’m wondering if they could have done it with 50 votes with reconciliation. If so that makes your argument way stronger but I don’t know the answer.
Shula-holic
Footballguy
I was wondering how someone like Manchin or Tester would react, did a quick search and found this article.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/manchin-tester-vow-theyll-never-nuke-the-legislative-filibuster/
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AAABatteries
Footballguy
I think it was only 4 months between Kennedy getting sick and the long vote counting thing with Franken.
What this shows is is that there were only two time periods during the 111th Congress when the Democrats had a 60 seat majority:
From July 7. 2009 (when Al Franken was officially seated as the Senator from Minnesota after the last of Norm Coleman’s challenges came to an end) to August 25, 2009 (when Ted Kennedy died, although Kennedy’s illness had kept him from voting for several weeks before that date at least); and
From September 25, 2009 (when Paul Kirk was appointed to replace Kennedy) to February 4, 2010 (when Scott Brown took office after defeating Martha Coakley);
For one day in September 2009, Republicans lacked 40 votes due to the resignation of Mel Martinez, who was replaced the next day by George LeMieux
So, to the extent there was a filibuster proof majority in the Senate it lasted during two brief periods which lasted for a total of just over five months when counted altogether (and Congress was in its traditional summer recess for most of the July-August 2009 time frame).
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/did-the-democrats-ever-really-have-60-votes-in-the-senate-and-for-how-long/
beef
Footballguy
Study: Repeal Of Wisconsin's Prevailing Wage Law Led To Drop In Wages For Construction Workers
"The study further found that at the same time, construction industry CEOs saw an increase in pay after the repeal of the prevailing wage, worsening economic inequality, according to the authors. Researchers estimate construction industry CEOs in Wisconsin saw slightly more than a 54 percent increase in inflation-adjusted total income after the laws were repealed."
"The study further found that at the same time, construction industry CEOs saw an increase in pay after the repeal of the prevailing wage, worsening economic inequality, according to the authors. Researchers estimate construction industry CEOs in Wisconsin saw slightly more than a 54 percent increase in inflation-adjusted total income after the laws were repealed."
Snorkelson
Footballguy
JAA
Footballguy
Trickle down / supply side don’t work, have never worked, and will never work.
why people keep talking about it baffles me
Drunken Cowboy
Footballguy
It is not a control of the trickle problem. It is just not a good way to generate economic growth. Giving money to rich people doesn't start any new business. If I am wealthy and want to start a new endeavor, I don't need a tax cut to do it.
GROOT
Footballguy
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
JAA
Footballguy
GoBirds
Footballguy
https://equitablegrowth.org/the-distribution-of-wealth-in-the-united-states-and-implications-for-a-net-worth-tax/
This gap seemed to widen significantly under our last Democratic POTUS, especially under his last 4 years per Figure 2 in the attached. This is a main talking point for the left, what specifically is Biden going to do differently?
This gap seemed to widen significantly under our last Democratic POTUS, especially under his last 4 years per Figure 2 in the attached. This is a main talking point for the left, what specifically is Biden going to do differently?
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
JAA
Footballguy
Read the article you just quoted. It says exactly what @gianmarco stated. The top 1% are referenced in his GIF properly.
E Street Brat
Footballguy
according to the Census Bureau's new annual poverty report, 46.7 million Americans lived in poverty in 2014. This finding is surprising since government spent more than $1 trillion in 2014 on cash, food, housing, medical care, and targeted social services for poor and low income Americans. (That figure does not include Social Security or Medicare.)
More than 100 million people, or one third of the total population, received benefits from at least one anti-poverty program, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. If converted into cash, this spending is five times the amount needed to lift everyone's income above poverty.
How can government spend that much money and still have more than 45 million people mired in poverty? The answer is: It can't. The problem lies in the way the government measures poverty. The Census Bureau defines a household as poor if its "income" falls below specific thresholds. (In 2014 the poverty income threshold for a family of four was $24,008.)
But in counting "income," Census excludes nearly all welfare benefits. According to Census, food stamps, housing vouchers and refundable tax credit programs (which provide up to $7,500 per year in cash grants to poor families) are not "income." Of the $1 trillion government spends on anti-poverty programs, Census counts only about 7 percent as "income" for the purposes of measuring poverty.
It should, thus, be no great surprise that government's own data show the poor actually spend $2.30 for every $1.00 of income Census claims they have. In addition, the living standards of the poor (as defined by Census) differ greatly from conventional images. According to the government's own reports, the typical American defined as poor by the Census Bureau has a car, air conditioning and cable or satellite TV. Half of the poor have computers, 43 percent have Internet, and 40 percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
Far from being overcrowded, poor Americans have more living space in their home than the average non-poor person in Western Europe. Some 42 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes; on average, this is a well-maintained, three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 4 percent of poor children were hungry for even a single day in the prior year because the family could not afford food. The average consumption of protein, vitamins and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children, and in most cases is well above recommended norms. By his own report, the average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs and was able to obtain medical care for his family throughout the year whenever needed.
Of course, poor Americans do not live in the lap of luxury. Many of the poor struggle to make ends meet. But they are generally struggling to pay for cable TV, air conditioning and a car, while putting food on the table.
Fortunately, claims of widespread deprivation in the U.S. are inaccurate. But we should not judge the enormous welfare state merely by the volume of free benefits it distributes.
When President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1964, he sought to decrease welfare dependence and to increase self-sufficiency: the ability of family to support itself above poverty without the need of government handouts. By that measure, the War on Poverty has been dismal failure. While self-sufficiency increased dramatically in the decades before the War on Poverty began, it has been at a standstill for the last 45 years, despite $24 trillion in anti-poverty spending.
We should reform welfare by resurrecting Johnson's original goal: increased self-sufficiency. The keys to improved self-sufficiency are work and marriage. To promote work, able-bodied recipients should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid.
Welfare programs should also be reformed to encourage, not penalize, marriage A welfare system reformed on these principles would be good for the poor, the taxpayer and society overall.
2015 Link
tri-man 47
Footballguy
A meme I saw from a Project X on a friend's FB page:
"One of the biggest problems in the U.S. is that people making $1,000 per hour have convinced people making $50 per hour that people wanting to make $15 per hour are a problem."
"One of the biggest problems in the U.S. is that people making $1,000 per hour have convinced people making $50 per hour that people wanting to make $15 per hour are a problem."
Spanky267
Footballguy
Gianmarco's chart isnt accurate. It shows the rich in 1950 paying 70% in taxes. The top marginal rate in the 1950s was 90% but there were so many exemptions and deductions that the rate paid was significantly lower. Groot's article points out that the effective tax rate for the top 1% in the 1950s was 42% and by 2014 that same income cohort was paying 36.4%. Which isnt nearly as dramatic a decline as shown in Gianmarco's graph. In part because many of the deductions and exemptions that were available in the 50's were eliminated during the Reagan administration when the marginal rates were reduced. So you can reduce the marginal rate, eliminate deductions and still generate as much or more tax revenue as before.JAA said:
To be fair, the chart in Gianmarco's link clearly says its showing the total tax rate (Federal, State, and Local taxes), so it's not looking solely at federal income tax rates (which seems to be what you're talking about, admittedly I didn't look at Groot's link).
Spanky267
Footballguy
Fair point. That being said the notion that the rich are paying less now in taxes is an overstatement of the facts. In this country the wealthy by and large dont stay wealthy forever. Generally speaking inherited wealth is almost completely gone by the third generation.
The "wealth gap" is primarily a political talking point. It also assumes that as some get rich or richer that others must get poor or poorer. That wealth is a zero sum game which it most certainly is not.
MAC_32
Footballguy
Da Guru
Fair & Balanced
How is that fixed? How to you gauge wealth equality? What level is not equal? There are so many questions. I know a guy who makes around 75K a year and has 4 kids. Lives in a small ranch home, does not drive a big flashy SUV or take vacations to Cancun but he struggles to cover all of his bills every month. So would anyone under 100K with kids need some kind of help?
I dont know the answers.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
There are hard questions and easy questions. Let’s start by taxing billionaires more. That’s at least a start.
Shula-holic
Footballguy
I know you are already aware of this but people as a whole need to understand when they want this, this is a capital gains rate issue not an incremental tax table rate issue. Whether that means you make capital gains a higher rate across the board or have it stratified somehow would have to be worked out. But changing the incremental rates, which is always the window dressing the politicians give us when this topic comes up, doesn't cut it.
Sand
Footballguy
While right now enacting/sustaining the biggest reasons for this wealth inequality increase - ZIRP, QE, and injecting tons of money to slosh around in the system. All these inflate asset prices and the folks who own capital make out well in these conditions.
Just don't look behind the curtain...
MAC_32
Footballguy
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
I think income tax rates can be part of the package but yes I agree that capital gains rates, estate taxes, wealth taxes (if found constitutional), greater enforcement of existing tax laws directed towards wealthy filers, attempts to repatriate money stored offshore, and lots of other ways to tax billionaires more.
Shula-holic
Footballguy
I ran the numbers on this once, found an online calculator for it. Changing that top rate or adding new rates at higher strata of income level did very very little to raise revenue. The vast majority of billionaires income is passive, capital gains, etc. While the effect of raising those incremental rates isn't zero, it's certainly in the single digits, I'd argue low single digits of the percentage of revenue that would be hoped to raise any meaningful revenue. It just makes for an easy talking point for politicians, and perhaps they do so because explaining our tax code to the average taxpayer who doesn't operate in seven figure income is way too complicated for a soundbite. But it's also part of the issue as to why things are never really addressed.
Bucsfan5493
Footballguy
Bumping this up as I had a great conversation with a friend today about wealth inequality. This is one of the biggest core issues the country is facing and the downstream effects it has is absolutely devastating.
It’s also an issue that neither party seems interested in fixing and it’s continuing to get worse and worse. Why are people not outraged by this and demanding better from both parties?
15% of the country is going hungry right now while we have people with so much money that they don’t even know how to spend it all and continue to build even more wealth as half of it sits in the stock market. I just don’t understand how that doesn’t make every American outraged.
It’s also an issue that neither party seems interested in fixing and it’s continuing to get worse and worse. Why are people not outraged by this and demanding better from both parties?
15% of the country is going hungry right now while we have people with so much money that they don’t even know how to spend it all and continue to build even more wealth as half of it sits in the stock market. I just don’t understand how that doesn’t make every American outraged.
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It’s a balancing act for me. I’m all for a super rich tax but we can’t create a larger welfare group that feels/knows they don’t need to contribute. I’ve talked about my brother who hasn’t worked for 30 years or so. His thinks work is for suckers and is happy getting free housing, food, heat, electric, phone, healthcare etc. every able body can contribute so if you accept free items you need to volunteer.
Bucsfan5493
Footballguy
What % of people do we actually expect to abuse the system like that? I don’t think it would be that significant of a number.
I honestly don’t know anyone like your brother. How is he getting all of that for free?
Sand
Footballguy
GordonGekko
Footballguy
San Francisco is an interesting test case.
You have the rich, then you have the homeless, comprised of mostly mentally ill ( unfortunately) and you have a middle class essentially being eliminated wholesale. With the death of so many small business and with so many smaller level landlords getting completely hosed, you'll see Big Business come in and buy up everything for pennies on the dollar before this is all said and done.
Here's where it gets bizarre. The Unabomber was right. At least about the impact of technology on society and where society was heading culturally. Also the movie Robocop was right too. You have the wealthy and you have the serfdom who aren't seen any better than Morlocks and cannon fodder. And Mike Leach was right too. About everyone staring into a little electronic box instead of interacting like actual human beings.
I would not say "solution" as much as I'd say one inevitable pathway.
Human history has showed us that people solve all their problems eventually through violence. What will trigger people will be two things
A) Watching their children suffer, starve, be homeless and die.
B) When politicians are caught on video/audio in private talking the unfiltered truth. This means eventually a Secret Service agent is going to simply flip and go rogue and become a whistleblower. Fight Club has it right, the "elite" don't pay attention to those cooking their food, cleaning their toilets, doing their gardening, driving their cars, etc, etc.
I suggest people read Mark Bowden's Killing Pablo, because it really is a summary of how human history has always handled those in power who have gone completely out of control.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
The economy has been basically co-opted by a small group of uber-rich. All the bailouts are geared toward preserving and cementing that status quo for the wealthiest of the wealthy. It’s a disease that needs to be eradicated.
FairWarning
Footballguy
It wont with globalization either. Don't see an easy fix for it. Our country will consist of $200K and up jobs, and $15/hour.
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Rich Conway
Footballguy
This is exactly the problem a UBI is designed to solve. Will there be some who are fine with a $15K/year UBI and choose to do nothing else? Sure, but it will be minimal, and it just won't matter.
The Commish
Footballguy
Because of "sides"...plain and simple. Too many caught up in the third grade version of politics in this country....just as the politicians like it.
His income is zero so he qualifies for public housing, food stamps, subsidized electric and oil programs, state health program, Obama phone program etc... I know numerous people like him that are taking advantage of the system. I think the more you offer, the more people will game the system.
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