Zombies Dodging Bullets

Ann Althouse sends us to the reliably uncivil Paul Krugman, who explains (for the umpty-bumpth time) that people who disagree with him are liars and knaves.  Not to mention zombies:

The claim that only rich people pay taxes is a zombie lie — something that keeps coming back no matter how many times it’s killed by evidence.

So, let’s try another shot to the head.

Yes, high-income people pay the bulk of the federal income tax. But that’s not the only tax! And while the income tax is quite progressive, the payroll tax — the other major federal tax — isn’t; and state and local taxes are strongly regressive.

Yeah, yeah - his Big Liars and Knaves Finish:

And here’s the thing: the people peddling this stuff about those lucky duckies who don’t pay tax because their incomes are low know all this, because it has been pointed out many times. They are deliberately trying to deceive you.

That's us.  Well, in another context Krugman would note that the Social Security trust fund is deeply meaningful, from which it would follow that both Social Security and Medicare taxes are simply forced saving with a progressive, redistributionist tilt.  People who pay their Social Security taxes also increase their future expected benefit; Medicare likes to see a bit of a work history but the total contribution does not increase the total benefit.

So one might argue that Social Security and Medicare represent taxes I am paying to myself in a way that can be easily segregated and accounted, unlike taxes spent on, for example, defense or Medicaid.  And what about the courts, or the schools?  Don't ask.  people pay taxes and get services, and most of those linkages and net benefits are much harder to track than Social Security.

Comments

[Danube of Thought]

So--who's gonna tell Jeter he's finished?

[Thomas Collins]

I agree with TM that it is nonsense to classify Social Security exactions as taxes when the topic is how much do lower income individuals pay in taxes, and then to classify the Social Security trust fund as a real retirement trust (which in effect treats Social Security exactions as retirement contributions, not taxes). When I advise clients on tax planning issues, I have never heard, in response to my analysis of how the client's Social Security or self-employment exaction liabilities might be reduced by legitimate planning techniques, the client say to me: "Oh, don't worry about those payments, they are really part of my retirement contributions." I wish those on the left, right, center, above, below, and every other place in the political spectrum could agree that (i) in putting forth numbers on the tax burden, Social Security taxes would always be included, (ii) Social Security payments be recognized for what they are, namely, welfare for seniors, and (iii) all talk of the so-called Social Security trust fund as a real trust fund cease. Then we could focus the policy discussion on the appropriate level of federal taxes including Social Security taxes, and which seniors should receive welfare payments.

[Gmax]

What you were expecting internal consistency out of uber lefty lying liberal Krugman? C'Mon.

[Jim Ryan]

I confess that I can't understand what TNR and Krugman are arguing about taxes other than federal income taxes (state, payroll, etc.) That they are so regressive that they make up for the disproportionate income tax load the rich bear? Is there any data to support that? I don't get it.

As a matter of strictest justice, even a flat tax is unfair. Each adult American should pay the same absolute amount in tax. We could reasonably opt for a less strict standard, by noticing that under any tax code which taxed everyone for an equal absolute amount we couldn't afford a military or a legal system because the absolute amount everyone could afford would be too small. This would justify taxing the rich more because no rich person could object to the minimum level of taxation required of him in order for there to be the orderly, free and secure society which makes his becoming rich possible in the first place. But we are taxing the rich far beyond that level at the moment, unjustifiably.

[Neo]

Obama in October [2008] called for a $175 billion stimulus measure, but his comments in the radio address on Saturday signaled he was prepared to push for a much larger package, though he did not give a price-tag.
The economic recovery plan being developed by his staff aims to create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011, and he wants to get it through Congress quickly and sign it soon after taking office.

$175 billion stimulus measure ? So what is Krugman complaining about all the time ?
I’m no economist, nor an actor playing an economist, but the words “EPIC FAIL” seem to apply.

[Jim Ryan]

Great points, TC.

[PD]

Since the topic is taxes, let me float an idea.

Our president is fond of the concept that people should have "some skin in the game," i.e., a personal stake in financial matters.

Yet we have a large percentage of the populace who pay no federal income tax.

Shouldn't Obama therefore be pushing to lower the wage level below which a wage earner is exempt from federal income taxes?

Benefits: 1) Increase in federal revenues (of course I'm assuming static analysis here as Democrats do in their projections of tax revenue); 2) A sudden and marked uptick in the number of people now paying attention to the impact of the federal budget on their bottom line; 3) Possible uptick in number of people interested in being directly involved in governance.

And yet our president seems focused only on taxing "the rich." Puzzling!

[Captain Hate]

Our president is fond of the concept that people should have "some skin in the game," i.e., a personal stake in financial matters.

I think like with most things, he likes catchy phrases without understanding what the words mean. I've seen no evidence to refute that not only is he not as smart as the MFM dumbbells claim, but he's at least as stupid as Rick Ballard repeatedly posts. And maybe worse....

[Thomas Collins]

Jim Ryan, your point about the tax level needed to finance an orderly, free and secure society is something progressives seem incapable of understanding. A prog talking point is that an individual's money can't really be said to be his or hers, because that money was made in the context of a functioning body politic. They don't seem to be able to take the next step in reasoning that if maintaining an orderly, free and secure society (one within which humans exercise their own planning choices within a framework of rules, as Hayek discussed) is what justifies taxes, taxes would be way lower than they are now. To the progs, it is as if living in a body politic justifies the government's extracting money from the populace to support every prog dream. Your point shows the nonsense of this prog approach, and is a point I am going to keep in mind in my interactions with progs (in the Boston area, interactions with progs, or those infected by the prog virus, are unavoidable).

[PD]

CH, you're saying I'm engaging in the fallacy of thinking possibly, just possibly, he means what he says?

Barack Obama not meaning what he says? Pshaw, sir!

[PD]

A prog talking point is that an individual's money can't really be said to be his or hers

When Michael Moore was here in Madison recently to rally the masses, he said the wealth of the rich is not their own and that it is a public resource.

Just wondering whether anyone has heard: Is Michael Moore still a millionaire? Has he forked over his money to the Treasury?

[Thomas Collins]

Krugman on his best day is a small fraction of the economist Thomas Sowell is on his worst day. If the NY Times had any intellectual integrity, it would invite Sowell to be a regular contributor to its op ed pages (perhaps Pinch is bright enough to realize that having Sowell as an op ed contributor would expose Krugman as the intellectual fraud that Krugman is).

[Thomas Collins]

PD, I wonder whether Michael Moore makes voluntary contributions to the US Treasury Department, so that the Federal Government can have its rightful share of Moore's resources.

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

"Yet we have a large percentage of the populace who pay no federal income tax."

Do you mean General Electric?

[Thomas Collins]

Perhaps as a matter of social justice, Joanne Kloppenberg could drop her recount and contribute the money she was going to spend on the recount to the US Treasury Department. I think all progs should consider doing this. Just think how many more windmills could be financed by the Feds.

[PD]

Kloppenburg's use of tax money for the recount is taking food from the mouths of union members' children! Has she no shame?

[PD]

63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone

Thanks for demonstrating my point.

[Thomas Collins]

63%, Social Security and Medicare are not going to be left alone if Obama successfully implements his budget plans. A fiscally incontinent nation must cut benefits (for example, by inflation) even if the stated level of benefits is the same. You are defending a state of affairs that simply cannot continue. As far as GE goes, if you think that Obama's IRS should revisit the transfer pricing rules and other tax rules that allow GE to engage in the tax planning it does, why don't you write the IRS with a pointed analysis on the issue.

Finally, 63%, do you remember that the alternative minimum tax, which was enacted with much hullabaloo so that the rich would have to pay some federal tax, now hits folks far below the highest income levels? Will you at least acknowledge that it is utter demagoguery to argue that taxing the rich is sufficient to keep the level of social programs envisioned in Obama's budgets, and that the middle class is going to be squeezed even more than it is now?

[Ignatz]

--Yes, high-income people pay the bulk of the federal income tax. But that’s not the only tax! And while the income tax is quite progressive, the payroll tax — the other major federal tax — isn’t; and state and local taxes are strongly regressive.--

Seems to me we should take Kruggy at his word.
The obvious and only realistic solution is to privatize SS and drastically reduce the rest of government and give the poor and middle class gigantic relief from this unfair burden of regressive taxes he and his other greedy leftist buddies have imposed with their welfare state.

[PD]

By the way, 63%, did GE do something illegal WRT their taxes?

(pause)

Didn't think so. So what's your point, if you have one?

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

Did the low-income poor do something illegal?

[PD]

Do you have to do something illegal to be subject to tax?

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

Did your mother have any children who lived?

[Extraneus]

If corporate profits are distributed as stock dividends, and those dividends are taxed, what is the point of the corporate income tax, anyway?

[PD]

Did the low-income poor do something illegal?

So you're okay with taxing the high-income poor?

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

PD wants to play 'copy-editor' today. In case you didn't know, copy-editors epitomize
the Peter Principle. Teachers who can't teach.

[47% say change medicare to private insurance, 41% too stupid to]

--Did the low-income poor do something illegal?--

Well, yeah, a lot of them do, which is precisely why they are low income and poor. Even numerous lefties admit that.
Why are you too stupid to admit it?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Just wondering whether anyone has heard: Is Michael Moore still a millionaire? Has he forked over his money to the Treasury?

I've been meaning to get back to Manhattan for a while. I'm going to write Moore and ask, since the wealthy's property is really a public resource, when I can arrange to get the keys to our New York apartment?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

If the NY Times had any intellectual integrity,

then unicorns would crap glitter.

That is, in fact, a theorem.

[Fred Beloit]

Perhaps some of you (especially 100%-37%) might like to read my recent best-seller: "Krugman and Reich, The Clownishness of Bearded Economists", Yale University's Pipsqueak Press, 2010.

[PD]

Did your mother have any children who lived?

In tribute to your well known tactic of only posing and never answering questions: Who wants to know?

[PD]

I see someone's had no actual experience with real copy editors.

[harrjf]

Everyone should pay for their government regardless of income level. The idea that nearly 50% of America pays no taxes is repugnant to me. My step-son is done with school, he earns well above the "poverty" level and for 2009 payed no income taxes yet received a check back from the government. He thought this was great until I pointed out that the money comes from taxpayers like me and his mother and that it pisses me off. He had a service do his 2010 taxes.

The government also considers him a child until 26 for health care. His mother thinks I am mean because I think he should pay the deductible when he uses dental/healthcare. The handouts never cease.

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

"I see"

Another PD oxymoron

[harrjf]

63% The peter principle doesn't mean what you reference. The peter principal is that you rise to your level of incompetence within an organization. Congratulations to you! You've made it!

This is an example where copy editing would have benefited you.

Those who can do, those who can not teach, those who can not teach, teach teachers.

Those that can not teach teachers join a union.

[narciso]

Krugman citing Jonathan Chaitred, citing Leonhardt, what kind og ouroboros is that.

[harrjf]

Oxymoron - A figure of speech that combines contradictory terms.

63% "I See"=oxymoron. ??????

Perhaps you were searching for ironic?

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

Harif (?)

Are you sock-puppeting PD? The idiocy is quite similar.

But, thanks for the 'Teachable' moment.
Your insight and quick wit will be an invaluable resource to the trollops who frequent this site. I encourage you to linger so that we may all benefit from your
sage advice.

[Jack is Back!]

I see that 63% of the public are just as smart as Cleo.

Let me ask one silly question. If the SS is a trust fund, who did we trust with it and how much remains in it?

The answer is Congress and nothing remains in it since it has all been spent by successive Dem and Rep administrations. The only thing remaining in the trust is a bunch of IOU's drafted on the parchment of Chinese banks.

"We are spending more than we take in", BHO. Okay, lets tax more to cover the differential. But at a 90% load on those making over $100K it doesn't even cover the interest payments on the differential. So, I guess Cleo you have another answer as to how we fix this without reforming the SS and Medicare system and cutting Federal spending.

We are all ears.

[Fred Beloir]

"I see someone's had no actual experience with real copy editors." PD

One's had extensive experience with reel copy editors while working for the Daiwa company, PD.

[harrjf]

PD doesn't need a sock-puppet. You have yet to respond intelligently to his statements. You miss the irony of bringing up sock puppetry when you are yourself a sock-puppet.

harrjf not harif. Reading is fundamental. Perhaps you should go back and re-read PD's posts to you. Chances are there are important words that you have skipped over.

Why trollops? Why limit your insults to a subset of the JOM family? Another example of using words you don't truly understand?

[sbw]

This must be the interlude between the substance. Toying with trolls is so unproductive.

[Cleo]

harrjf, the definition of words gets tedious because I don't have anything of value to bring to the discussion, which summarizes my entire life.

[63% say leave SS and Medicare Alone]

A non-response, response. Why deny you are sock-puppeting, PD?

[PD]

The answer is Congress and nothing remains in it since it has all been spent by successive Dem and Rep administrations.

Gosh. You mean there's no "lock box"?

[Ignatz]

--an invaluable resource to the trollops--

The tolerant left; always obsessed with and insulting women and homosexuals.
The racial jokes are only for behind closed doors.

[harrrjf]

"Toying with trolls is so unproductive."

What business is it of yours? If I want to look like an inflamed hemorrhoid and play with my under-developed private parts, that's for me to decide.

[Fred Beloir]

Liberty, harrjf, that's the ticket.

[Cecil Turner]

And while the income tax is quite progressive, the payroll tax — the other major federal tax — isn’t;

Well, in the first place, the taxes aren't equal (income tax brings in more money than payroll tax). In the second, for most people, employers pay half of the payroll tax (self-employed pay it all; under-the-table types avoid the tax). Finally, the 2011 payroll tax holiday drops the percentage paid by the individual by 2% for this year, meaning the employer picks up a disproportionate share . . . so it it's all a bit more progressive than it looks. (Not that I necessarily agree that's a "good thing.")

That's mostly irrelevant anyway (and Krugman's silliness is a red herring). The main issue with half the people not paying income tax is that there's a huge voting bloc thinking they can have something for nothing, and are really excited about spending other peoples' money. And because of the disproportionate benefit/cost curve, are even willing to spend money past the point it causes overall harm to the nation's economy, and makes it politically impossible to rein in out-of-control spending. The point is that bad tax policy makes for bad economic policy, and that we ought to give everyone at least some accountability for the money the government is spending.

[Thomas Collins]

Cleo, if you are someone who doesn't like God talk, you are not going to like this, but, especially given the season, I can't let your comment about bringing no value to discussions your entire life go unnoticed. As a child of God, created in God's image, you by that very reason alone bring value. If you could make the turning and recognize your value and bring it to bear in your time in the City of Man, it would brighten God's Kingdom for all of us, but especially yourself. I would never patronize you by failing to agree or disagree with a comment you make here on the ground that you have no value. But I hope that if you read my comments questioning your reasoning, you understand that I do it in good faith and with the faith that there is a reason (a reason that adds value) that God put us here temporarily in the City of Man.

[God is not a proper subject, here.]

Collins;

God talk doesn't offend me unless it takes the form of pontification disseminated by
hypocrites. I'm not saying you are a hypocrite, but the fact that you are talking about God in a nest of hypocrites, gives me the feeling I'm getting a lecture on the value of temperance from a Pastor who is already deep in his cups.

[Fred Beloir]

"...a nest of hypocrites..."
Oh, now see? I was just beginning to take quite a likens to yuz too. And there you go spraying paint with too broad a brush. (Where is one honest and reel copy editor?)

But the fact is Cecil above seems to have it just about right, as well as some of the other hypocrites here. We just can't afford to have an electorate half of whom pay no income taxes but vote for receiving other people's, who do pay taxes, assets. Krugman's full of it.

[Rick Ballard]

Cecil,

Wrt progressive rates - 30% of the total Medicare taxes are paid by the 6% of the population earning over 106K per annum. There is no income cap on the HI (Medicare) portion of the SS extortion.

Perhaps smaller violins are in order regarding the regressive nature of the levy.

[Fred Beloit]

Fred Beloit, see keyboard, see r adjacent left of t. Miss r, hit t. Thank you.

[Thomas Collins]

Happy Easter, Cleo.

[An Army of Rainmen]

Happy Easter, Thomas. You can call me Leo.

[Ignatz]

--I'm not saying you are a hypocrite, but the fact that you are talking about God in a nest of hypocrites, gives me the feeling I'm getting a lecture on the value of temperance from a Pastor who is already deep in his cups.--

I can think of a very apt word for a person who puts on the false virtue of saying they're not calling someone a hypocrite and then calls him a hypocrite.

[An Army of Rainmen]

Iggy;

see Websters for compare/contrast; simile, metaphor.

btw; only one lesson per day for you. don't want to tax your senses.

[An Army of Rainmen]

btw;

I found someone dumber than you. PD/harrjf.

Awesome intellect.

[boris]

"it's not like algebra where a negative plus a negative is positive"

Stuff the idiot troll from Assclowinstan once wrote that's dumber than carp.

[harrjf]

"Stuff the idiot troll from Assclowinstan once wrote that's dumber than carp."

Whaaaaaaaaaa ??

[Ignatz]

--see Websters for compare/contrast; simile, metaphor.--

You really don't have the slightest idea what most of the words you use even mean do you?

You didn't compare/contrast you compared/ declared them the same.
It wasn't a simile at all.
And to the extent it was a metaphor it was exactly what I said it was; you calling him a hypocrite while claiming you weren't, which makes you the best example of one I've seen in awhile.
Thanks for the semantics lesson though. I'll file it right next to your grand mal delusions.

[Ignatz]

Paul Krugman's idiot accomplice at the Times, Flat Top Friedman, has spent years telling us about the wonders of China's high speed rail system. This read at Hotair serves up another in the unending flood of egg on his face as the Chinese rail line is drowning in red ink, embezzlement and the invincible stupidity of central planning and top down control.
No wonder Barry loves it.

[Gmax]

which makes you the best example of one I've seen in awhile.

If one = butt wipe then I heartily agree.

[Jack is Back!]

Grafitti!

[Jack is Back!]

That's Bambi doing the corrections. Couldn't figure out how to size it correctly.

[daddy]

If you ask me Krugman can't get behind the NYTimes new firewall fast enough.

[narciso]

True, daddy, didn't they learn the lesson of Timeselect, or are they just going Spinal tap,
'toward a more selective audience'

[daddy]

"A prog talking point is that an individual's money can't really be said to be his or hers"

Just so we don't forget Hillary Clinton in criticizing this Socialism of Obama and Michael Moore, here's a link to her comments to the DNC in 2008:

"The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy ... technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence."

She's as rotten a Marxist as the rest of them, so lets make sure we don't give her a pass.

I think the more difficult task would be to try to find somebody in this Administration who doesn't believe that all money in this country is the rightful property of the Government.

[daddy]

I imagine this is what Bowdoin College and the Ivy League schools will be teaching your kids any day now as their contemptuous nod to teaching American History: "A Zombie's History of the United States: From the Massacre at Plymouth Rock to the CIA's Secret War on the Undead"

And be sure to note the zombies hanging on to the gunnels of George Washington's boat as he crosses the Delaware.

[narciso]

It's a chicken and egg question, though, daddy, do they believe themselves or is it
what they say to curry favor.

[daddy]

Narciso,

I think Hillary the Marxist truly believes it, because I don't think she's ever made a legitimate buck in her life.

I recall Hillary claiming IRS deductions like $4.50 for each pair of Bill's used underwear that they donated to the Salvation Army, so I think that with a mindset that warped and venal that she honestly believes that any money anyone makes in this country ought by right to be the property of the Governments.

I also think a downside to her illegal and corrupt acquisition of $100,000 profit in Cattle Futures-gate was that it proved to her that big money could be made unethically by big shots, and she probably views anyone else who has earned their money legitimately as somehow having earned it just as unethically and illegitimately as she did. All she has to do is look around corrupt Washington to see that that's how the Rangells and Dodd's and Obama's of the world have prospered, so it makes sense she'd believe everyone else is as corrupt as the wealthy political allies she hobnobs with.

[Melinda Romanoff]

daddy-

There were no trades of hers in that account. When she made that money, that pit was the easiest to manufacture a "winning trade", or pair trades into an account so as to launder a donation from the LR commodities firms, of which there are two. You pick which was the bigger donor to her husband.

I'm so sick of that story.

[PD]

I recall Hillary claiming IRS deductions like $4.50 for each pair of Bill's used underwear that they donated to the Salvation Army, so I think that with a mindset that warped and venal that she honestly believes that any money anyone makes in this country ought by right to be the property of the Governments.

Since she was trying her best to take the deductions (i.e., keep her own money), I think it represents her belief that everyone's money is the government's except hers.

[rse]

Melinda-

Saw your comment on what Trump does right before another financial wipeout.

LUN says he called Spitzer to correct info on his net worth.

Do you remember when he had to correct the comparison in the late 80s between his net worth and Merv Griffin's? I remember wondering why it mattered if he was that rich. Shortly thereafter was the first discharge petition.

[Extraneus]

I think she might be of the mind that individual people's money is theirs, since I'm sure she'd consider her own money hers and hers alone, but corporate profits are different. We should be able to take those and use them for the common good. It's just profit overhead, after all.

[daddy]

Melinda,

Just to be clear so I understand because you know that stuff so much better than I. That was simply a BS "gift" of $100,000.00 to Hillary, masqueraded as a legitimate playing of the Cattle Future's market. Corrupt as hell right?, and everyone who knows squat about the Future's market knows it was all BS as well. Simply another example of the MSM protecting Hill and Bill and saying walk on by citizens, nothing to see here. Is that about it?

[Melinda Romanoff]

Couldn't be closer, daddy, unless you were standing in the trading pit next to me. It was so crowded in the pits back then you could pick both of your feet up and be held up by the crowd pressing in on you.

Try doing that for seven hours straight.

Oh, and trade too.

[Uncle BigBad]

I'm so sick of that story.

I can't get enough of it.

[Freddie Sykes]

Social Security taxes are flat but the benefits are progressive. After calculating your indexed average wages over a 35 year period, the benefit is 90% of the lower part of this average, 32% of the middle part and 15% of the rest, if any.

I call giving a larger replacement ratio of benefits to earnings to lower paid workers progressive.

I also call paying yours and your employer's FICA taxes to get a future 15% of 1/35th of each additional dollar earned sometime in the future a really poor investment that no one would willing choose excepting the other fellow had a gun.

[larry]

one way to fix it all THE FAIR TAX nothing more needs to be said

[Your Uncle Daddy]

A House of Representatives that understood its own function in the US government could be de-funding and not funding this pathetic pile of garbage known as the federal budget.

If I ruled the world in the HOR, then I would unleash an army of Mother Theresas onto the budget such as it has been funded in this last Teddy Bear Fight between Boehner and Comrade Chuck "the Tumor" Schumer. (Why the HOR insists on even speaking to this useless rectal wart, I am not sure.) And have these non-vested saviors of the poor and the wretched get an up-close-and-personal look at what our National Tresure is actually squandered upon. Then, give them red pencils to draw a line through any item that smells as bad as Mayor Bloomberg's views on the Ground Zero Mosque. Hire a little army of college interns and have them do the leg work which links each line item expenditure to the authors and the signatories on the bills that appropriated these line items. Finally, publish this exhaustive list of spending with the names of legislators on a new blog called "Nothing But the Truth".... and continue to publish the listings about the budget. A budget clock doesn't tell me squat--- but with today's transparency tools and the internet, nothing is sacred. I also want to see lists and costs published on; 1) the White House pharmacy bill, by item and by expenditure; 2) the White House grocery bill, by item and by expenditure; 3) the Congressional motorpool bill, by item and expenditure; 4) Pelosi Galore's travel expenses, by item and expenditure;

It would be a start. Even if it meant RINOS and their dirty laundry was exposed, who would care? It is our tax money and we deserve to see how they are burning it.

My two devalued cents. Oh, speaking of devalued fiat currency, anybody seen Soro's commercial on behalf of the eternally persecuted "Roma" of Europe? Puke. What a flippin rabid hypocrite. He makes me as queasy as President Snow Job.

[sympleton]

Yep - The Fair Tax...

Everybody pays 23% sales tax. No income tax. No IRS.

Learn it. Embrace it. Fight for it today.