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Wealthy Can't Be Taxed Enough To Pay For America's Massive Real Deficit By Walter E. Williams Posted 12/04/2012 06:39 PM ET

Is there any reason for today's Americans to care about what happens to tomorrow's Americans? After all, what have tomorrow's Americans done for today's Americans? Moreover, since tomorrow's Americans don't vote, we can dump on them with impunity.

That's a vision that describes the actual behavior of today's Americans. It would be seen as selfish, callous and ruthless only if it were actually articulated. Let's look at it.

Businesses, as well as most nonprofit enterprises, by law are required to produce financial statements that include all of their present and expected future liabilities.

On top of that, they are required to hold reserves against future liabilities such as employee retirement.

By contrast, the federal government gets by without having to provide transparent and honest financial statements.

The U.S. Treasury's "balance sheet" does list liabilities such as public debt, but it does not include the massive unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and other federal future obligations.

A conservative estimate of Washington's unfunded liabilities for the year ended in 2011 is $87 trillion. That's more than 500% of our 2011 GDP of $15 trillion.

Former Congressmen Chris Cox and Bill Archer have written an article — "Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt," the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 26) — pointing out our dire economic straits.

They say, "When the accrued expenses of the government's entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually.

That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit."

Let's analyze that. Washington would have to collect $8 trillion in tax revenue, not to pay off our national debt and have reserves against unfunded liabilities, but just to avoid accumulating more debt. Recent IRS data show that individuals earning $66,000 and more a year have a total adjusted gross income of $5.1 trillion. In 2011, corporate profit came to $1.6 trillion.

That means if Congress simply confiscated the entire earnings of taxpayers earning more than $66,000 and all corporate profits, it wouldn't be enough to cover the $8 trillion per year growth of U.S. liabilities.

Given this impossible picture, the message coming out of Washington, especially from our leftist politicians and the news media, is that we solve our budget problems by raising taxes on the rich. If Americans were more informed, such a message would be insulting to our intelligence. There are not enough rich people to satisfy Congress' appetite.

We'd better hope that pen has a lotta ink. We're carrying over 120 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

We don't really eliminate it. The debt doesn't exist until the fiscal year starts if the legislature allowed the entitlements to continue.....Businesses can't do accounting that way because they can't just cancel the entitlement/debt.


Then we collect FICA and Medicare tax from your paycheck and use that money to pay it now that it is actual debt.

YOU DIDN'T BUILD THAT!

The war on the rich has already been extended to the war on the upper class. Eventually it will be extended to the war on the upper middle class. This is becoming entrenched rapidly and is not going away any time soon. Its the new "American Dream".

The war on the middle classes has been going on for time immortal. The rich are the greatest of all protagonists. They enlist the poor and unwise to fight their wars while they laugh with ruthless abandon.

It is in the way of things . . . .

Right.


They champion tobacco by taxing it too.

Ah, yes. And how long have you sat on the Federal Reserve Board?

Who would not be jealous of a man who hangs out on a cigar auction site? Truly, you are the hated rich . . . .

So, I got a small bonus this year and 25% of it went in federal taxes.
Guys like Romney, who live off his intrest income only pay 13%.

So riddle me this, the money I bust my hump for gets taxed at almost twice the rate of money that comes from simply owning and doing nothing and they call that fair?

Then I get to hear snot nosed misanthropes whine about stealing from the rich? Boy, ain't that America?

Until recently we were trained to defend and emulate the rich upper class because we were taught to believe that it was an achievable dream if we delayed our gratification & worked hard (and smart).



BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!



Brewha, one of my kids' caretakers complained about that same thing and will be cutting back hours in order to pay less tax.

There is no 13% tax bracket for anything so I'm 98.2% sure you made that up. With that said, I see no reason why earned income, dividends, long term capital gains, and short term capital gains should not be taxed at the same rate.

...and you are still a peasant so get back to work.

Peasant? I sir am an educated man with dignity and class. I never spit if public, if it can be seen. I leave the waitress a fair tip even if she is ugly. Why, I have more class in my little finger than most of you have in your entire intestine - Including the colon!

The rich are much too fatty. High cholesterol. Some grass fed proletarians would be a much healthier diet as the Koch brothers can attest.

Riddle me this: who are you to determine who deserves to keep what share of the returns they make on their efforts?

It doesn't matter whether you take a penny from a poor widow, or a bazillion dollars from Bill Gates, it is still stealing. Just because you justify it with some beknigted cause doesn't mean that you can make theft a virtue, and that you're a saint for being a thief.

Raising taxes on the rich to pay for anything in this country isn't going to fix anything. Whatever revenue increases they promise will be inflated. Even at their inflated estimates, it isn't going to raise anywhere near the amount of money that will be needed to erase the yearly spending deficit.

But hey, idiots like you will get a big, warm, fuzzy feeling that you're stickin' it to the wealthy because...well...they "deserve" it.

The federal government takes in roughly two-trillion dollars, and spend roughly three-trillion: nearly two-thirds of that is spent on social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, WIC, ADC, Obamacare, and so on. All of them are LOADED with waste, inefficiengy, and hampered by general mismanagement. They same can be said for military spending as well...though, in all fairness, the federal government is given a constitutional charter to maintain a military, and the post office. The rest? Not anywhere in the Constitution.

But people like you stick to this idiotic idea that raising taxes will somehow fix everything. It's nuts. It's never worked. It will never work. Mainly because politicians get re-elected these days based on what portion of the public largess they can bring back home to their districts and states.

In the past, the deficit was minimized because rich people invested money, and that spurred economic activity in one form or another, and that increased economic activity generated revenue to the federal government. Because an overall return on investment is something like 5% - 10%, it takes loads of money to generate decent interest income for the vast majority of investors.

Along comes a socialist president who spends like a drunken sailor WISHED they could spend, and then denigrates the people who provide the lifeblood for a thriving industry. Morons like you line up behind said president, and form an Amen Chorus of mindless idiologues, and you expect investors to keep sinking money into an economy when investment returns look mighy bleak? For what? For you?

The answer to their riddle I posed at the beginning of this diatribe is that, of all people, you are the LAST person who should be contributing any arguments on increasing taxes. Mainly because your views are outright idiotic.

You apology is accepted.

seems logical to me. seems fair to me to.

in a society that seems to be crying "fair" im surprised it aint that way.

Once again you show how ignorant you are. Learn the tax code, understand the rules instead of spouting talking points.

Your bonus is not "Taxed at 25%", there are taxes WITHHELD from your bonus that are set by the IRS, other states would also include state tax withholding, and the number would be higher.

If Mitt got a bonus it would be taxed the same way. Dividend are taxed at the 15% rate.

I guarantee your EFFECTIVE tax rate is probably about the same or less as his. Look at your total taxes paid and divide that number by your total income (yes divide the smaller number by the bigger number to get a percentage). The resulting percentage is your EFFECTIVE tax rate. Forget about Marginal Tax rates.

When you are in retirement and having to live on your savings via dividend checks you will absolutely appreciate the lower tax rate on dividends. Increasing the rate on dividends will hurt the senior citizens and those who actually saved for retirement, more than the "rich".


I really don't know why I waste my time though. You really are too ignorant to even know you are ignorant. You arent the only one on this forum either, just the unlucky target of my disgust and lack of patience.

This is why I don't really post anymore. I fell like I have to spend 5000 characters to first educate the other person I am trying to have a discussion with, then my damn fingers are too tired to continue.


Seriously man, educate yourself.

Say when...Wish you were around more!

Then the government misses out on the interest for having the money throughout the year. Incidentally, this is why the government charges you an interest fee if you neglect to pay your taxes throughout the year (for 1099 workers).

I think you are demonstrating that ignorance and rage of hand in hand. And that you are an expert in both.

I gather that you think it is right and fair that a multimillionaire pays a lower percent of income tax because his money comes from dividends, and a working stiff pays a higher percentage because he actually "worked" for his money. Well, you are entitled to that opinion - which make it no less stupid.

At last, you have become a man of few words . . . .

Forcefully stealing wealth is immoral.

I wrote that I “gather” that he thought it was “right and fair”.
So – exactly, right – who did say it was right or fair? Good point – I think . . . .


And to continue my spouting off; I think those pesky “wealthy people” need to pay more. And stop living off of our backs.

Ram does the hokey-pokey when in doubt...

How is the wealthy "living off our backs"? The fact of the matter is wealthy people pay a greater share of the tax burden under the Bush tax rates than they did under Clinton.