Re: Who Really Owns the Roads?

Rich Piehl wrote:
k_flynn@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Rich Piehl wrote:
k_flynn@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Rich Piehl wrote:
k_flynn@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 30, 10:15 am, Rich Piehl
<rpiehl5REMOVETHIS...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
k_fl...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 30, 7:39 am, Rich Piehl
<rpiehl5REMOVETHIS...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
k_fl...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
http://curiouscat.com/invest/soros.cfm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5476317
http://investing.fentonreport.com/2007/03/who-is-george-soros.html
Wow. He sounds like a very good investor, just the type of person you
seem to be lionizing. Hmmm.... He made his fortune, it says here,
investing at the very time that we had all those high top margin tax
rates that you decry.
And his fund is based out side the US so he doesn't have to pay the tax
I decry.
Why would that be?
That would be because you didn't read the link I gave.
Soros says he pays taxes in the US. The fund that is based in the
Caribbean lets foreign investors pay no US taxes. Soros pays taxes in
many nations where he has investments. The fund has many investors
from all over the world.
At least you seem to have abandoned your claim that raising the
highest rates on the last dollars of the richest Americans somehow
would be bad for the economy. That was my original point.
And why would the investors want to not pay USA taxes?
Uh, they're foreign, maybe? Why would any citizen of another country
who invests somewhere other than in the US want to pay US taxes?

Beyond that, it's a tax shelter. Ask Rupert Murdoch.

You're evading the answer to the question.
No I am not. That wasn't even a question. Did you read my link? Soros
says he pays US taxes.
And my link said he didn't.
So your link is wrong?

Do you have access to Soros' tax returns to say he is lying?

The obvious answer would be that if he's not paying US income tax there
wouldn't be any.

So then "no" is the answer, you don't know that Soros doesn't pay any
US income tax. Good. We can dispense with this irrelevant line of the
discussion.

No. Inconclusive.

No. You don't know. That's what I said. You reply "no" but then state
the same thing I did.

Conflicting information and a lack of evidence
doesn't mean that he isn't avoiding US taxes.

Nor does it mean he is. He said he does pay taxes. You say you do.
I'll believe you both, for now. In any case, it's irrelevant to the
discussion.

The offshore fund is not all his money; it is a fund that includes
worldwide investors. Besides, I don't care about Soros just as you
don't care about Rupert Murdoch sheltering as much of his income from
US taxes either. They are not the issue; they are your diversion from
the issue.

I haven't abandon anything. I've just given up trying to convince you
of something that seems quite obvious to me.
Just because it might seem obvious doesn't mean it is true, Rich. The
actual historical record shows that what I have said is true. If you
haven't abandoned the notion, you ought to.

That being when more money
goes towards taxes there's less money available for other things.
It depends on where the money goes. As I showed you, when we *did*
have top marginal rates on the highest personal incomes - 60, 70, 80
even 90 percent - the economy was doing much better than it is since
Reagan cut those rates eventually down to 28 percent (they're up
slightly again, but they apply to a broad range of American taxpayers,
not the top filers as the max rate used to). So again, it might sound
obvious to you , but it just isn't so. You can't ignore the true
historic record and still say the opposite of it is true because it
sounds better to you.

Doesn't matter what the economy was doing!!!!! It's basic math.
Well, you're wrong. Of course it matters what the economy was doing -
that is the whole point of this discussion - what tax policy lends
itself to the healthiest economy. I mean, *you* are the one who made
it the issue, now you deny the performance of the economy under
various tax policies doesn't matter? It seems it doesn't matter only
because the actual historical records bears me out.

If you make $100 and $95 goes to taxes that leaves you $5. If you make
$100 and $45 goes to taxes that leaves you $55. Which can you do more
with - $5 or $55 dollars?
Rich, do you understand what the top marginal tax rate is? Your
example isn't even real-world.

The top marginal rate is the rate that the wealthiest filers pay only
on their taxable amounts above the next lower threshold.

Reagan used a scythe to chop both the rate and the threshold, so that
you would pay the same rate as Bill Gates on all your taxable income
over $30,000.
AHA!!!!! Now you're talking about percentages of income!!!!!!!! That's
a whole different story!!! That's why we haven't been communicating.

Rich, we were ALWAYS talking about percentage of income. The top
marginal rate IS a percentage of income over whatever the top
threshold is.

You may have been. I haven't been

Yes you have. "Rate" is a percentage. It yields real dollars. I am not
excluding dollar totals but rate is an inseparable part of any
discussion of what the top marginal tax *rate* ought to be. You're
splitting a hair.

I've been talking actual dollars.

That doesn't matter in the aggregate. The facts are still the facts.
When we taxed the richest people for a higher percentage of their
highest dollars, GDP few faster than it has since we cut the rate for
billionaires down to what the $30,000-a-year folks pay.

And you can apply whatever loophole
or tax shelter or trust or any of the 40 bazillion other tax laws and
rules to it but, in the end, it's the ACTUAL dollars left after taxes
that will be used to buy groceries or invest in capitol improvements or
hire new employees or pay debt. And the lower the -actual- amount left
after taxes the less will be available for those items.

Bill Gates is unconcerned about whether he will have grocery money
left if the top marginal tax rate were raised back up to where it was
when we enjoyed robust economic growth in this nation before Reagan
slashed the rate.

But he is concerned about whether the majority of his income is going
away before he has a chance to do anything with it. I don't care how
rich you are or what your income level is.

Why would you think a majority of his income would go to taxes? Do you
misunderstand what a top marginal rate is? It affects only the *upper
threshold* of *taxable* income. You've been responding as though you
think there's a proposal under discussion here to take 95 percent of
every Americans' taxable income.

Companies grew and the economy thrived when we taxed 70 percent of a
billionaire's net income over a certain threshold. Those dollars going
in taxes, actually, helped provide for the GI Bill and other programs
that you earlier credited for the economic growth post-WWII and into
the 70s.

Again you're talking percentages. You don't spend percentages. You
spend cash.

Rich, the percentage rate of the top marginal tax bracket *is* the
discussion. Dollars don't materialize without the rate at which they
are taxed being a part of it.

That's the simple math of it.

But that's not the whole equation.

Sure it is.

No, it isn't. Not by a longshot. It's not that any dollar we don't tax
from Paris Hilton or Rupert Murdoch would somehow automatically go
into job production. Or that any dollar taken in a tax would somehow
disappear and never be heard from again <cough cough *GI Bill*>.
That's not the whole equation by a mile.

You're just trying to make a mess of it to validate a point.

No, you're trying on horse blinders to avoid the point.

And if you disagree with it we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Fine, but you are disagreeing with the actual historical record of
economic growth in times of high top tax rates for billionaires versus
slower economic growth when those people kept more for their yachts
and mansions. In this case, what we're disagreeing over is plain; I
say what actually happened happened, you say it didn't.

And there were also bad times at times with high tax rates. Again, the
ebbs and flows of the economy are going to happen.

Remember, I'm not the one who claimed a causal relationship between
certain levels of taxation and economic performance; you are. You
feared that restoring the high top marginal rate like we used to have
would lead to mediocrity. Yet the record shows the opposite of your
concern to be true. That's when you then claim there is no causal
relationship. You can't have it both ways. That's all I'm saying.
Taxing Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch or George Soros or the Walton
family more isn't necessarily going to stifle entrepreneurship,
economic growth or the like.

Same applies whether you make $100 or $1000.

And while its' property tax rather than income tax obviously your
governor agrees with the basic math.

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_6995496
First, never trust the Post. ;-)

But seriously, do you understand the difference between personal
income taxes and business personal property taxes?

The issues here are completely different. Cutting business personal
property taxes leaves more money in the business; that results in
potentially more growth in business. Your idea, to not go back to
taxing the highest incomes at a higher rate, only encourages taking
more money *out* of business by lessening the personal income taxes on
the highest incomes. That takes money out of business.

You cannot deny that the thing you fear - taxing the wealthy more
heavily - did not result in the economic disaster you think it would.
The opposite in fact was true. We had much more robust economic growth
when we taxed the highest incomes more heavily, and we had slower GDP
growth since Reagan cut that rate. That's just a fact. So your
statement, implying a causality of an outcome that in fact didn't
occur, is wrong.

Fear? I don't know that fear is the right word. You're talking about
tax rates as percentages, which is fine. But the bottom line of taxes
paid and money left is not going to be a percentage. It's going to be
in physical dollars. And that's what I'm talking about.

You're assuming that a bit more money left in the pockets of
billionaires is the best way to encourage more growth and innovation.
I say it's just as likely to be more people like Paris Hilton blowing
excess cash they don't know what to do with. Taxes paid doesn't make
the money disappear and have no impact. As I said, the GI Bill was
funded with it, and you liked that. We still have a GI Bill.


And there's also trillions of government dollars piddled down holes that
would be better spent by the private sector.

Iraq? You're right about that.

You've never seen the waste in the private sector then.

It's called capitalism.
Who better to know what business needs to grow and thrive than the
business itself?

Then by all means keep that money working in the business instead of
drawing it out as personal income. Then you won't be taxed on it. I
think that may help to account for the better record of the economy in
times of high marginal taxation. Lower rates of taxation may encourage
taking more money out of the business, not leaving it in.

Or, as Adam said, given to the philanthropic interests
with no government strings attached and no government bureaucracy
mucking up the works and consuming large hunks of the money with little
return.

We shot that one down too.

.

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