No, Obama and Buffett are peddling a myth when they claim that secretaries pay more taxes than their bosses. No surprise — Obama has spent much of his life peddling myths, with great success, to fools.
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Obama and Buffett are peddling a myth when they claim that secretaries pay more taxes than their bosses.
There are two possible explainations and they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
1. Obama is too stupid to know that’s a false statement.
2. Obama is lying is ass off.
“Peddling a myth” is too soft. Tell it like it is.
Obama and Buffett aren’t claiming that secretaries pay more taxes than the super-wealthy, but that they (in some cases) pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. The AP does not disprove that claim, because it’s true: if you’re living off dividends and long-term capital gains (taxed at 15%) like Warren Buffett you’re paying a smaller share of your income in federal taxes than a middle-class worker paying 15% in federal income tax, plus 7.6% in payroll taxes. If you include the more regressive state and local taxes, the contrast is even starker.
The AP is fact-checking a straw man.
Jim beat me to it. 🙂 The President and Buffett are right on this one.
My solution to that would be to tax all billionaires in Omaha at a hundred percent of all capital gains.
if you’re living off dividends and long-term capital gains, you are investing in businesses that will create jobs.
Obama wants that to stop.
How many people only get income from dividends and long term capital gains? More importantly how many of those people are bringing in $250k-1,000k a year this way?
Probably isn’t more than a couple thousand people. Is the idea really to tax those people or is it to tax the average person who uses dividends to supplement income (aka retirees)?
We really ought to make it easier for people to be self sufficient in retirement not harder.
And here is another question, what happens to the assets that are generating these dividends when Buffet or anyone else dies? You need to include the death tax.
How did you get the capital to have capital gains on? Oh, you saved your income? Your after tax income? Well then, you’re obviously a bad guy. Only evil people save for the future.
I can’t believe you made such an obvious mistake Trent. Don’t you know saving is evil? Obama is setting the example by spending without limit.
It’s magic Obama money from his stash.
Before agreeing with Jim, does buffet have other taxes such as property tax?
We really ought to make it easier for people to be self sufficient in retirement not harder.
No, we can’t do that because self-sufficient people aren’t dependent on the government and Democrats for survival. Better to keep people poor and dependent. They’re so much easier to control when they’re scared. It also explains the push for national control of health care. Dependency = servitude.
if you’re living off dividends and long-term capital gains, you are investing in businesses that will create jobs.
Dividends are money you take out of a business; it’s money that the business can’t use to create jobs. Capital gains are the result of selling your investment to another investor; they don’t affect the company’s ability to hire.
Is the idea really to tax those people or is it to tax the average person who uses dividends to supplement income (aka retirees)?
The Buffett Rule only applies to household incomes over $1m.
And here is another question, what happens to the assets that are generating these dividends when Buffet or anyone else dies?
The Buffett Rule applies to income, not principal.
We really ought to make it easier for people to be self sufficient in retirement not harder.
For the last fifty years that’s been the trend: away from (often union negotiated) guaranteed pensions, and towards defined-contribution plans and individual savings accounts. The result is an erosion of retirement security for the typical worker.
One way to address the debt issue is to only cut Social Security and Medicare benefits and eligibility, and further erode retirement security for the poor and middle class. Another is to pair cuts that affect average citizens with higher taxes on the wealthiest taxpayers, whose share of national income has skyrocketed over this same period.
That’s the choice Obama is giving voters in 2012:
Obama: Tax the rich to protect Medicare
GOP: Cut Medicare to protect the rich
“The Buffett Rule only applies to household incomes over $1m.”
You sure? Last I saw they wanted to raise taxes on people in the $250k/year range.
“The Buffett Rule applies to income, not principal.”
But you need to take into account the death tax, which for people like Buffet will take around 50% of their unprotected assets.
“For the last fifty years that’s been the trend: away from (often union negotiated) guaranteed pensions, and towards defined-contribution plans and individual savings accounts. The result is an erosion of retirement security for the typical worker.”
Pensions are unsustainable in the long term which is why most private companies did away with them. Look at all the companies we have seen over the years that were crushed by pension obligations. Just look at the problems with pre-bankruptcy GM or the current problems with the USPS.
There are other pay as you go methods of contributing to a worker’s retirement that don’t bankrupt the company or the government.
“Obama: Tax the rich to protect Medicare
GOP: Cut Medicare to protect the rich”
You can’t raise taxes enough to pay for Medicare, SS, and Medicaid obligations.
“The Buffett Rule only applies to household incomes over $1m.”
Also, consider what happens when capital gains or taxes on dividends are increased. It does adversely affect retirees.
Just because Obama said in a speech he wants people like Buffet to pay more doesn’t mean the actual text of his bill targets those people.
“The Buffett Rule only applies to household incomes over $1m.”
And when the income tax was being passed (16th Amendment), it was promised to only be a tax on “the rich.” And when the Alternative Minimum Tax was passed, it was only on “the rich.”
Are you actually gullible enough to believe these tax increases will only apply to “the rich”? Wanna buy a bridge?
Dividends are money you take out of a business; it’s money that the business can’t use to create jobs.
Dividends are the rewards for risking an investment. Take away the award, then the risk isn’t worth it. That’s what Obama and the Democrats have been doing now for several years while wondering why unemployment expectedly increases. Again, I remind you that there exists better models than you have been using. You can believe in whatever you want, but the results of your beliefs over the last few years have been a disaster to the economy.
The Buffett Rule only applies to household incomes over $1m.
Why treat some Americans different from others? Why divide Americans into groups and use populous rhetoric to turn the groups against each other?
The Buffett Rule applies to income, not principal.
Except that part of the repeal of “Bush era tax cuts” is high rates on the Estate Tax. It’s roughly $.5 Trillion of what Obama calls savings, but is really tax increases. So you can call it whatever you want. It’s a tax increase that disincentives business investment, which in turn hurts job growth.
“Obama: Tax the rich to protect Medicare
GOP: Cut Medicare to protect the rich”
You can’t raise taxes enough to pay for Medicare, SS, and Medicaid obligations.
Don’t renew the Bush tax cuts, and apply the Social Security payroll tax to all income (rather than just the first $106k). There, you’re done.
You can believe in whatever you want, but the results of your beliefs over the last few years have been a disaster to the economy.
Are you joking? The tax policies of the last decade aren’t the result of my beliefs, they’re the enactment of the GOP fantasy that if you cut taxes on the rich, the economy will be great for everyone. Reality has utterly refuted the GOP position.
Why divide Americans into groups and use populous rhetoric to turn the groups against each other?
This from the folks who rail against the 47% of Americans who don’t pay federal income tax? Who demonize unions, public employees, illegal immigrants, and the unemployed?
“Class warfare” is what the GOP yells when it’s losing an argument.