Most Americans: "Tax the rich but not me"

[cal04]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100329/us_nm/us_usa_taxes_poll

Most Americans believe tax hikes are OK if you're making more than $250,000, a policy proposed by President Barack Obama, but hands off Medicare and Social Security, a poll released on Monday found.

The Quinnipiac University poll found that 60 percent of Americans among both major political parties think raising income taxes on households making more than $250,000 should be a main tenet of the government's efforts to tame the deficit. More than 70 percent, including a majority of Republicans, say those making more than $1 million should pay more.

But 80 percent say raising taxes on those making less than that should not be part of the government's approach. Moreover, most oppose touching Medicare and Social Security - two long-term drivers of the budget deficit over the coming decades.

"Given those numbers, it's clear that those who want serious deficit reduction have their work cut out for them in convincing the public, which seems adamantly opposed to cutting the programs with the largest budgets," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the polling institute.

[rfranklin]

1. The biggest long-term driver of deficits is the "defense" budget...

We spend as much as the rest of the world combined on weapons and war. Why is it no article ever mentions that as a cost overrun?

[closeupready]

6. My first thought, as well. Or the mortgage interest deduction, which is about $100B/year

as a part of the budget.

[county worker]

26. Let's get rid of the exemption for kids. That would bring in some bucks.

[crazyjoe]

29. that's a great idea genius, make homes unafforable for more people!!

you should be an economist.

[closeupready]

31. If the choice is either Social Security or the mortgage interest deduction, sorry Charlie.

Hey, hey! Ho, Ho! The Mortgage Interest Deduction has GOT to GO!

[DesertFlower]

33. do you know how many people

would lose their houses if they took away the mortgage interest deduction?

[closeupready]

34. Point I'm making is (as was the person to whom I originally responded), that lots of waste

in the budget - excessive defense spending and the mortgage interest deduction being two prime examples. Many here would disagree that the upper-middle class welfare entitlement known as the Mortgage Interest Deduction (how many homeless people file for that?) is wasteful. That's fine. Pick your poison. Regardless, Medicare and Social Security are some of the most essential programs that government runs, and rather than contemplate how to cut these programs (so as to sustain tax cuts), we should be looking at either 1) raising taxes; or 2) cutting things like defense spending.

[SharonAnn]

21. I call it "the military budget". Not all of the money is for defense.

[rfranklin]

36. I use quotes around "defense" because almost none of it is defense...

It's mostly about projected military might around the globe.

[pitohui]

2. seems reasonable to me

i'm surprised that "most americans" can agree to anything sensible but it should be obvious that before you tax people who are already hurting (the old and the disabled, which is who they're talking about taxing when they're talking abt snatching benefits away from social security and medicare/caid) you should first be taxing the millionaires

if you have a $250K annual income or a $1 million K annual income, you should be ashamed to even suggest cutting benefits to those less fortunate before you kick in a little more

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Yep. Sounds reasonable to me too

In fact, I advocate bumping the tax rate up a bit once $500K is reached, a bit more at $750K, a bit more at $1M, etc. A multi-tiered tax structure worked well during the postwar period commonly referred to as 'America's economic miracle,' but things started going to hell once St. Ronnie & the trickle-down proponents started cutting the tax rates for the richest people in society.

[Gaedel]

28. To be fair

John F Kennedy cut the top rate from 91% to 70%. This was one of his campaign planks. He blamed the 91% rate for the "rolling recessions" we went through in the 1950s.

Jimmie Carter cut the top rate from 70% to 50% for "earned income" while leaving the 70% rate for "unearned income".

Ronald Reagan cut the top rate to 50% for all income early in his tenure.

In 1986 there was the massive "tax reform" bill that cut the top rates as a tradeoff for doing away with some of the more egregious tax shelters particularly in real estate.

[left coaster]

3. Most Americans: "Tax the rich but not me"

Most Americans aren't rich, and have paid there fair share of taxes all along.. time to let The Haves and The Have Mores pull their weight.. sounds reasonable to me!

[DesertFlower]

4. $250,000 is not that much

if you live in new york city. for example take 2 lawyers -- husband and wife right out of law school they start at $125,000 each. they've got massive student loans to pay, apartments are very expensive. just the general cost of living there is extremely high.

when we lived in new york over 20 years ago, we were making over $100,000 between the 2 of us. we didn't own anything so we paid very high taxes. it was hard to save money. we never could have afforded a house there.

on the other hand, if you live in other parts of the country $250,000 makes you "almost" rich.

[Lorien]

7. The big Bush tax breaks started at over 400k though

and that's pretty comfortable no matter where you live.

[Lance_Boyle]

9. Not all apartments in the city are terribly expensive. And there's always Brooklyn.

A couple making $250,000/year should be able to pay off their student loans *really* quickly (assuming 3 years grad school apiece). Your hypothetical couple will run into trouble when they come to believe that they are *entitled* to a luxurious apartment and a couple of German automobiles because, after all, they're LAWYERS. They'll put off repaying those student loans and will dig themselves further into the hole when they decide they must also reproduce (because the world could not possibly ever be complete without their precious lawyerspawn). Oh, and I bet they eat out a lot, too. Easy to place the blame on their location, when in reality it's their choices.

[DesertFlower]

16. i worked with lawyers for 11 years.

if they had been practicing law for a few years, they were doing pretty good -- especially if they were made a partner.

the younger ones i worked with were not living the way you described. some did live in brooklyn. many did not own cars. if they needed a car for a weekend trip they rented one.

i worked with new york telephone legal for 9 years. those lawyers were very "down to earth". however, when i left and went to a big firm, some of them had "attitudes", but many of them were really nice.

bottom line. some people are really nice and others are nasty bastards.

lawyers also put in a lot of hours. they spend a lot of time in the day talking on the phone or going to meetings. they do their work at night and on weekends.

[DesertFlower]

18. 2 of my friends who were not

lawyers lived in a tiny studio apartment. it wasn't even big enough to put a full size refrigerator. their rent was over $1,000 a month and the neighborhood was not very nice. that was over 20 years ago. i've heard the rents are much higher now.

we didn't live in the city. we lived in queens. the bus into the city was $3.50 each way. i can only imagine what it is now.

one year we made a little over $100,000. we paid $48,000 in tax (that included the FICA). our accountant said "you've got to buy something".

[Lance_Boyle]

19. Two of my friends who were also not lawyers lived on the upper East side

in a 2-bedroom apartment with a decent sized living area and a HUGE kitchen for $1500/mo. This was circa 1999. The myth that all housing in the city is outrageously expensive is either just a myth, or a fabrication by people seeking to justify their expensive tastes and reckless spending.

[DesertFlower]

23. it must have been rent controlled. i think

there's still some around. our apartment was.

[closeupready]

35. Brooklyn's not exactly Brooklyn anymore.

What used to be cheap got 'hot' and is now getting prohibitively expensive. Which is a joke to me, as I grew up thinking of Brooklyn as a bad joke, like Cleveland or Albuquerque. It stank, it was old, rundown and ethnic.

But judging by all the new and continuing construction of fashionable condos in Brooklyn, one could be forgiven for thinking, after a stroll, "Recession? What recession?"

Anyway, sorry for distracting here, lol.

[Lance_Boyle]

37. Yeah, a lot of Brooklyn still is, though.

The fashionable Park Slope crowd hasn't yet gotten into much of Bensonhurst, and as far as I know *no one* has yet heard of Gravesend (an awesome little spot!). Bay Ridge I think is too far gone now, but used to have lots of charm at a low, low price.

[Hello_Kitty]

10. But no couple making $250K is facing tax increases.

In individual making that much may see a slight (barely noticeable) increase.

[Xenotime]

11. $250 no matter wehre you live you can afford higher taxes.

[Fresh_Start]

13. $250K is rich even in NYC

however your aspirations may have been higher.

Less than 5% of all NYC families earn more $250K or more.
Its a higher percentage in Manhattan (somewhere around 15%) and much much lower rate in the other boroughs.

[no limit]

15. Well you could be like most other americans and commute to work

you don't have to live in the most expensive parts of the city. I dont know the housing situation in NY. But I have a hard time beliving you can't live very comfortably on $250K, you would live like a king on that kind of income here in New Mexico; and we have very good standards of living here.

[laughingliberal]

25. Yes, most of us find it difficult to afford housing close to work in large cities

My husband and I bought 40 miles from town to get a place we could afford. And it's not cause I liked driving 47 miles to the office.

[no limit]

30. Yup. Many people in my city commute about 40 miles north to Santa Fe

Because Santa Fe is so expensive to live in yet their wages are much higher. So most people just live here in Abq and drive up there which takes about an hour. Then funny thing is that most people that live in Santa Fe actually work in Los Alamos which is about a 45 minute drive.

Me personally I couldn't stand driving more than 15 minutes to and from work as is my case now and feel lucky I don't have to. But if it's something that had to be done then so be it. I just don't see how you could be making a quater million dollars a year and then in the next sentance say you are barely getting by. That sounds insane to me.

[Greyhound]

8. Peter Brown, official lying liar for the $$ party. n/t

[Dr Morbius]

12. Tax luxuries, not necessities

When taxes mean people have to drive Buicks instead of Mercedes, or Chevys instead of Buicks, that sucks. When taxes mean you take the bus, because you simply don't make enough money after taxes to own a car, that's usury. When taxes mean your family skips meat a couple nights a week, that's unacceptable.

Taxes must not be usurious. Taxes will always suck. Suck it up, folks. Nothing will ever make taxation not suck. If you enjoy more luxuries, you're going to pay more taxes. Because it's better for the country for you to vacation only one week in Greece and one week in Hawaii each year than to take food from the mouths of children, or to deny the children of middle-class parents even the means of community college. it's better for all of us to tax luxuries than necessities, and thus a progressive income tax will never, ever go away.

Not while there's breath in my body, anyway.

[TalkingDog]

14. Why we should TAX THE RICH (taxing top 10% should would fix a lot)

Over the years the top tax rate for the “SuperRich” has dropped from 94% under FDR Depression I to it’s lowest ever under “Trickle Down” Ronnie at a meager 28%

“SuperRich” (the top 400 families) income averages 344 million per year. A 94% tax forces them to live on a mere 20 million a year. Paying Reagan’s “WealthCare” rate nets them 247 million a year.

Today, the “SuperRich”, using tax loopholes, pay a bit more in tax than the 15% paid by unwashed middle and lower classes; so the “SuperRich” net 300 million a year in income. Each. The merely wealthy top 10%, net more per year than the struggling 80% of Americans combined.

Adults have to make choices. Services mean somebody has to pay for them. The rich used to foot the bill. Which was fair, since the bulk of their wealth was created by the sweat and labor of the poor.

The old solution is the new solution: Tax the RICH!

[OnionPatch]

17. In other words

put the burden back where it has always belonged......the rich. Especially the ultra-rich.

I don't care what anyone says, once you're that rich, a whole lot of the money in your pockets was made possible by hoards of underpaid workers around the world.

[mainer]

20. I question whether that will really fix the budget

Even if you tax the rich to death, will it be enough to fix the budget, given how much money we're throwing away on foreign wars?

[hamsterjill]

22. Sick of loopholes

I work for two wealthy gentlemen, both of whose tax returns I see every year.

I, of course, make no where near what either of these two people make.

But by the time they've taken all of the deductions, tax credits, "business losses", etc., etc., AND the fact that they can afford to pay CPA's to FIND these loopholes - well, their actual percentage of tax to income is less than the percentage that I pay.

I think Warran Buffet still has that reward out there for someone proving this NOT to be true, doesn't he? And to my knowledge, no one has collected the reward. No wonder!

Like Joe Biden said once, it is my privilege to pay taxes. It means that I'm making money. I would simply like the system to treat me as fair as it treats the wealthy.

[walldude]

24. Gee I'm struggling with paying the rent, feeding my family and

being able to afford health care. The "rich" are struggling with "should I go with the brass or gold fixtures on my new yacht. Yeah, I should be the one to pay more taxes. :eyes:

[laughingliberal]

27. And we have been the ones funding these tax cuts for the rich for the past almost 30 years

Reagan financed his tax cuts with an increase in payroll taxes which they have stolen from the SS fund all the years and now don't want to pay back when the time comes.

[reggie the dog]

32. good

if you make 250000 a year I think you are doing well enough, and better off than most, and can contribute more to the common good.