Is that why military recruiters are triple in places like Detroit, St Loius, Memphis, etc.. . Goto any poor city and you'll see military trolling the malls looking for poor kids with no futures. They even have the power to make arrests go away. I say it her, I got popped on some charges. Went to court and the judge read our a list of names saying Everyone that qualifies for MIP(Misdomenor Intervention Program) FIP(Felony Intervention Program) or is enlisting in the military goto this room. Lucky my name was called and they let me do community service and payed some fines and got time served. All the ghetto bangers were all enlisted in the military. They were told upon completion of 1 year in the military their charges would be wiped clean and they were free to head to boot camp. Then take into account the massive problem the military is having with gangbangers in the warzone. You can goto Afganistan or Iraq and see the same MS-13, Latin Kings, Bloods, Crips, etc...tags all over the walls everywhere. So to say they are there voluntarily is a pretty big joke.
That and many says their own neighborhoods are just as dangerous. Many have said they see iraq on TV and say hell, that doesn't look that different then my house.
But when you take away options 2,3,and4. and Leave 1 Military, or 5 GangBangin and Jail. I don't see that as freely volunteering. But everyone has thier own opinion of what a free choice is.
Two points: First, this is mixing apples and oranges. Taxes are not based on your stash, big or small (until you start talking about inheritance taxes). So two people with the same AGI and other items on their tax form will pay the same taxes even if one has a stash of $10 million and the other has a stash of $10. Second, as I have shown with hard data, people that earn more pay considerably higher tax rates than people that earn less. Can you look hard enough and find anecdotal stories about isolated cases where that is not the case? Sure, and most of those have very straightfoward explanations in which the specifics of that case make it quite reasonable. Are the a few rare instances where that is not case? Almost certainly. But should we make policy based on anecdotal stories and rare and unusual cases?
First yes thats the point. If they both made 10 million a year and one saved it and one blew it on hookers and blackjack I fully think they should pay the same taxes reguardless of how finacially smart or responsible they are.
And it's the percentages that are being screwed up right here. Where are you getting this notion that someone making $2billion a year is only paying 1% in federal income tax while people working normal jobs are paying 30%? I have given the actual numbers direct from the source, namely the IRS data base.
What about these thousands and thousands of people working normal jobs and paying a 30% tax rate? For people making under $50,000 AGI (which was almost exactly 2/3 of all the returns filed), out of 92,888,972 such returns, only 2,065 paid 30% or more; In other words, only 0.002% of people in the bottom 66% of the population paid 30% or more of their AGI in federal income taxes. At the other end of the spectrum, of the 3,924,489 returns with an AGI of $200,000 or more (the top 2.8% of all returns), 73,725 of them (1.9% of those returns) paid 30% or more.
Again, where are you getting these numbers?
Not true. I would really love to know where you are getting this information from.
Not really. What I'm talking about is paying your fair share. The very vehicle that decreses parcipitation in the armed forces, namely wealth, is the same that can fund operations. If the rich don't participate in physical presense, then they can help to fund operations. That has nothign to do with politics. BTW, I doubt there is any data on political affiliation for the service.
What's 'fair' in not necessarity a precise measure. It is fair that the rich pay higher taxes to participate more fully in perserving their own liberties. Would you not say it's 'fair' for a day's work to be paid a day's wages? If so, then what is a day's wages? The details are worked out by the parties involved.
here's an idea: we'll establish tax brackets, just like we have now, and let the people in the fist bracket (poverty) decide the tax rate for the people in the second bracket (low income). Those people (second bracket, low income) get to decide the tax rate for the 3rd bracket (middle income), and so on, up through mid-high income, high income, celebrity-high income, and elite income. That way everybody everybody will be content that their version of "the rich" paid their perception of a "fair share".
There's a lot of data on this. The enlisted military overall tends to run about even between Republican, Democrat, and other/unaffiliated. However, the officer corp is about 10:1 in favor of Republican. It varies somewhat from service to service, but is pretty stable over time.
Part of the problems are that the details are NOT worked out between the parties involved. Parties A, B, and C work out between them how much Parties D and E will pay.
Huh? This makes no sense. It is the tax liability owed and, in virtually every instance, paid. It was what was owed after all other deductions and credits. If you owe the IRS a million dollars, they WILL come after you. If someone commits tax fraud and doesn't report a bunch of income or claims a bunch of bogus expenses, then the tax liability that is computed will be artificially low, but whatever is computed is the amount that is to be paid and, again, in almost all cases is the amount that is actually paid.
I don't believe it. Never in my long service was I ever asked what party I belong to.
How can you say a day's wages if you can't define what a day's wages are? It's not a simple answer, but rather a method of educated guesses, feedback, adjustment, compromise, and so on. The wealthy do have disproportionate influence over laws that are enacted, so it's not really a matter of other groups deciding for them.
I don't know if this would be much better or not. Here would be a rather simple way to do it, though: Ask people what the income tax rate should be for people that make twice what they make. Then, for any given income, average the responses from those people that make between 25% and 75% of that amount.
by Jake Hertz
by Duane Benson
by Aaron Carman
