Obama To Make Taxes On Wealthy Voluntary (Or Something)

The NY Times describes the latest Obama financial gambit with yet another smiley-face headline:

Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires

"Ask"? Can they really refuse?  Geez, this may be a breakthough approach for the IRS - maybe we can put Jerry Lewis in charge of an April 15 telethon.

But no; the text indicates that the same coercive approach we have seen for decades will be employed:

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.

Team Obama has already prepared the spin:

Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.

Billionaire, millionaire, whatever.  Bill Clinton set his "millionaires tax" threshold at $250,000, so at least we are a baby step closer to matching rhetoric and reality.  Of course, if Warren Buffet really wanted to pay more taxes, he could simply write a bigger check.  Evidently, he wants other high-earners to write bigger checks as well, although his motive is murky (maybe he just wants to preserve his relative standing?)

Team Obama is offering just rhetoric at this point:

Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.

In other words, they have no idea how much it will raise but they know it sounds good talking about it.  Wow.  Who can fail to be impressed by their careful planning and attention to detail?

Various "soak the rich" schemes are mooted by here (Sanders and Schakowsky) and here (Tax Policy Center).

Comments

[Benjamin Franklin]

"George Carlin was to standup what El JEFe is to the economy."

My. You are humorless....

[Benjamin Franklin]

"'Simple' arithmetic. Heh....."

I can only assume Snarkisolator malfunction

[Cecil Turner]

I can only assume Snarkisolator malfunction

I can only assume there's no demurral on the rather basic arithmetic. Heh.

[Captain Hate]

My. You are humorless....

Why? Because I didn't find some skullet-headed fossil's repetition of the same sixties pot-headed "insights" like an early unfunny version of "Groundhog Day" amusing? Oh the humanity. Even Cheech and Chong were able to do something different with their careers; well Cheech did.

I laughed a lot when Carlin died though; it's the funniest and most original thing he ever did. I like how you don't see any humor in what Threadkiller posts; it's like a comedy club with you stepping on your johnson when you try to match wits with him.

[Benjamin Franklin]

"I can only assume there's no demurral on the rather basic arithmetic. Heh."

All you may assume is my response to your mitigation of the 'facts' as you see them. If you can't accept one CBO 'model' don't make something up (ONE trillion over ten years). Or are you a one-man OMB?

[Benjamin Franklin]

" I like how you don't see any humor in what Threadkiller posts; "

Wrong. I see his humor when it's good-humored snark. Sometimes it's enigmatic and opaque like Kim's and I need the joke explained.

The thing I like about you is that you are black/white; no grey, no thinking or imagination is required to read you.

Hate is like that. No sense of humor in hate.

[MayBee]

No sense of humor in hate.

I'd guess that's the complaint about Carlin's stupid joke you posted.

[Captain Hate]

The thing I like about you is that you are black/white; no grey, no thinking or imagination is required to read you.

Ouch; that really hurts that I'm not complex like you.

[Benjamin Franklin]

'I'd guess that's the complaint about Carlin's stupid joke you posted."

It wasn't a joke. It was a statement. Any good comedian is a keen observer of people and cultures.

I wonder if that's why you think it 'stupid'.

[MayBee]

I think it's stupid because it wasn't a keen observation.

Carlin was rich. Did he keep poor people around to scare the middle class?

[Yo, Mama, I am rich.]

Charles Barkley's mother chastized her son for being a Republican saying that the Republicans loved the rich.
================

[Cecil Turner]

All you may assume is my response to your mitigation of the 'facts' as you see them.

That's all you've got? Another red herring? Why not just admit that the numbers don't add up for a "millionaire's" tax? Or is the class warfare so important to you that you have to lie to pretend it makes sense?

[MayBee]

A keen observer would note it is the progressives who like to have the poor around to scare the middle class.
They constantly tell the middle class they on the verge of becoming poor. They use anecdotes about poor people to demonstrate how, without whatever government program they are pushing, the middle class person will find himself in the exact same position.

[Doctorate of Hatred.]

The Professor on his specialty.
==============

[Benjamin Franklin]

"A keen observer would note it is the progressives who like to have the poor around to scare the middle class."

No link. No quotation marks......

Certainly, you don't refer to yourself as the 'keen observer'?

So who made the statement?

[Benjamin Franklin]

"Why not just admit"

lol. Coming from you, that is truly RICH.... Millionaire
Rich. Even if a corndog is held under your nose, you smell socialism and taxes.

"Why not admit", indeed.

[Cecil Turner]

lol. Coming from you, that is truly RICH....

Pitiful projection, Professor. Okay, let's try PolitiFact, who are surprisingly on point in a related fact-check :

According to the president's budget, ending these three tax breaks would reduce the deficit by more than $678 billion over 10 years. So the reverse -- continuing them -- should cost the government about $678 billion over the same time period. [ . . . ]

Ultimately, we feel that Will had a point worth making -- that the 10-year cost of the upper-income tax cuts was lower than the total cost of the stimulus.

$678 billion is of course considerably less than a trillion. So what was your winge again?

[MayBee]

Certainly, you don't refer to yourself as the 'keen observer'?

If I were referring to myself as the keen observer, I would say "I note". I'm commenting on what a keen observer would actually see, as opposed to the statement the rich George Carlin used to scare the middle class people in his audience.

[Ignatz]

--So who made the statement?--

Well Mayor Bloomberg is certainly not on the right side politically and he said there'd be riots if high unemployment wasn't solved in a speech praising Barry's job program.

[Benjamin Franklin]

"$678 billion is of course considerably less than a trillion. So what was your winge again?"

Will, very like yourself, left out the following important info,,,

"Just as the upper-income tax cuts are being charged against the budget over several years, so too is the stimulus, as different funding streams are spent and tax breaks exercised. The same CBO report attributed $180 billion in new spending and foregone tax revenues to the 2009 budget, followed by $392 billion in fiscal year 2010 and a cumulative $242 billion over the course of fiscal years 2011 to 2019. The report does not provide updated yearly breakdowns for the period 2011 to 2019, but CBO's analysis at the time the bill was passed" ....my insert from the CBO link ;

[Net Increase or Decrease (-) in the Deficit by 2016 is MINUS 7.14]
(Table 1)
"showed that the measure would increase the deficit in each year between 2009 and 2015, before reducing the deficit starting in 2016.

So it's clear that the funds authorized by the law are not being charged in one year, as Will said, but rather over several years.

When we ran this by Will's camp, they e-mailed back that "you have a good point.""

See, even Will can address his inconsistency without being evasive.

You, not so much.

[MayBee]

The same CBO report attributed $180 billion in new spending and foregone tax revenues to the 2009 budget, followed by $392 billion in fiscal year 2010 and a cumulative $242 billion over the course of fiscal years 2011 to 2019.

Those "foregone tax revenues" include all income levels, right? Not just the upper income levels.

[Cecil Turner]

Will, very like yourself, left out the following important info,,,

You are sooo lame. Will's claim has absolutely nothing to do with mine. There's nothing on point about the multi-year expenditures of the stimulus, and you know it. And it's so far under a trillion (which was the claim I actually made that you challenged, stupidly and incorrectly) that you can't even try to dispute it. Here it is again, in case you forgot:

A simple bit of arithmetic should illustrate how clueless this is; the "wealthy" portion of the Bush tax cuts amounted to less than a trillion over ten years (the "middle class" part was more than three times as large).

You find anything "made up" there? Gonna throw in another "2.8 Trillion" misdirection quote? Are you capable of admitting you're wrong? (Though I'm not sure why you should, it's not like you have any credibility to salvage.)

[Cecil Turner]

Those "foregone tax revenues" include all income levels, right? Not just the upper income levels.

They're talking about the stimulus bill, there. That's mostly spending and some tax credits, the vast majority of which were limited to those making under a certain income level.

[glasater]

Carlin wasn't very funny in his standup routines after he sobered up...sorry to say.

[MayBee]

Oh, thanks. I knew the argument you were making and thought that's what he was addressing. So I got it all wrong.

[Benjamin Franklin]

"misdirection quote?"

What misdirection were you referring to?

First you question CBO numbers, then you quote them as though absolute when it widgets into your mindset. Credibility?

[MayBee]

Sober or not, Carlin got too bitter and lost his funny.

Perhaps he hated himself for what he had become:
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/george-carlins-house-former/view/?service=1

[glasater]

He did get bitter and for what reason?

[Cecil Turner]

You're welcome, MayBee. Here's a listing of the credits and tax breaks in the stimulus (ARRA) if you're interested. They have various upper income limits, and even those were subject to change. For example the homebuyer credit was increased in 2009 to:

Those with MAGI between $125,000 and $145,000, or $225,000 and $245,000 for joint filers, are eligible for a reduced credit. Those with higher incomes do not qualify.

As you can see, that one doesn't apply to upper (>250K) levels. Many of the others (e.g., expanded COBRA) only apply to those who lost jobs, so probably aren't impacting upper income types much if at all. And some (i.e., energy efficiency ones) don't appear to have an upper income limit.

But in any event, this is completely unrelated to the reinstatement of Bush tax cuts "for the wealthy" or any of the other "tax the rich" schemes. (And I sympathize, sifting through Dana's red herrings can be difficult.)

[Benjamin Franklin]

"But in any event, this is completely unrelated to the reinstatement of Bush tax cuts"

Even a blind sow finds a truffle, occasionally.

The Bush Tax cuts have not been stimulative, therefore the continuation of same is counter-productive.

[Cecil Turner]

What misdirection were you referring to?

That would be this one, Professor, in which you conflate total tax cut cost with that for the wealthy.

Which, unlike the 2.8 trillion you claimed, is apparently a mere $678 billion over ten years. And hence incapable of retiring even a modest portion of the deficit. Is any of this coming back to you?

[Benjamin Franklin]

"is apparently a mere $678 billion over ten years"

'Mere'?

We can't afford the continuation of the Bush Tax cuts if ARRA
has been deemed too expensive...........

"The Bush Tax cuts have not been stimulative, therefore the continuation of same is counter-productive."

Reposted for a more consistent CT.

[Cecil Turner]

The Bush Tax cuts have not been stimulative, therefore the continuation of same is counter-productive.

Well, let's see. The first tax cuts were implemented in June, 2001 when the total US employment was 137,737,000. In July of 2007, there were 147,315,000 employed, for an addition of almost 10 million jobs.

Contrast that with the ARRA, passed in Feb 2009, when employment was 140,105,000 jobs. The biggest number I see after that is in July 2009: 141,055,000. And as of August, we're down to 140,335,000, so it's maybe been worth a couple hundred thousand.

I don't think there's any way to argue porkulus created a bunch of jobs. It obviously didn't. But the same really can't be said for the Bush tax cuts. Something created ten million jobs . . . we just lost most of 'em in the recession. You could try to prove your point . . . but I betcha can't.

[Cecil Turner]

We can't afford the continuation of the Bush Tax cuts if ARRA
has been deemed too expensive...........

Non-sequitur.

ARRA was more expensive than the Bush tax cuts. Hence you can say that if the Bush tax cuts were too expensive, then we can't afford ARRA. But the converse doesn't hold.

See how that works?

[MayBee]

We can't afford the continuation of the Bush Tax cuts if ARRA
has been deemed too expensive...........

All of the Bush tax cuts?

As for the "we" who can't afford this, to whom do you refer? The government? Or the people who pay the government and will pay increased insurance premiums and whatever it takes to bolster CLASS?

[Benjamin Franklin]

"See how that works?"

One of your better qualities is your predictability.........

[MayBee]

Conflating the Bush Tax Cuts with tax cuts for the wealthy is sooooo 2008.

[Ignatz]

Ben, please stop before Cecil is cited for exceeding the daily limit on shooting fish in a barrel.

[Cecil Turner]

Above: "Bush tax cuts" should be read as shorthand for "Bush tax cuts on the wealthy" (with "wealthy" being defined as individuals with annual income over 200K or couples over 250K to be precise).

[Cecil Turner]

There's a limit? Carp.

[jimmyk]

Capital gains can reflect any number of things; in the present timber instance, bad Fed policy leading to higher commodity prices, not future earnings.

I won't pretend to know a thousandth of what you know about timber, but if, say, the government declares 100 million acres of forest off limits, and the price of lumber jumps up. Isn't the reason the price jumps up that lumber will be more profitable in the future (for those who are fortunate enough to have it), and those profits will be taxed?

But regardless I have never heard of a guy selling his stock for a realized gain and then the corporation paying tax on the future earnings that gave rise to his realized gains being considered double taxation.

You're right, it's probably simpler to view it as a tax on income that's already been taxed once. Steven Landsburg blogs about this here and here. He focuses on the fact that your investment came from after-tax earnings. But it's still double taxation in the sense of a tax on top of another tax.

[glasater]

Ben is totally non-sequitur.

[Ignatz]

--Isn't the reason the price jumps up that lumber will be more profitable in the future (for those who are fortunate enough to have it), and those profits will be taxed?--

Yes, but it isn't taxed when the price spikes and again when it's sold, but rather, only once when the timber is cut and the gain realized.

--He focuses on the fact that your investment came from after-tax earnings.--

As I was saying to DoT, in some ways everything is bought with after tax earnings if you go back far enough; even including my examples of a 1031 exchange or using the proceeds from a tax loss sale.
Which is why there should be no capital gains, dividend or corporate taxes at all IMO; they all inhibit and distort investment which is the only true driver of economies.

[Benjamin Franklin]

"we just lost most of 'em in the recession. " which began in December 2007......

How many jobs, Cecil?

Politifact has your Bush bottom line; "During Bush’s eight years in office -- January 2001 to January 2009 -- the nation actually gained a net 1.09 million jobs. (Because there were gains in government jobs, the private sector actually lost 653,000 jobs during that period.)

We can't afford the Bush Porkulus any longer.

Nice postscript. If you need Omega for those synapses, buy the oil. Fish has mercury and that conflicts with your intent.

[Chubby]

((Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” ))

I wonder if we are supposed to pronounce that "the boofay rule", like Hyacinth Bucket pronounces her last name "boocay"

[Cecil Turner]

It wasn't stimulative because the economy tanked later? Is that supposed to be a proof? Do they teach logic at Yale?

[Benjamin Franklin]

"It wasn't stimulative because the economy tanked later?"

ARRA didn't work because it didn't take off like a rocket, when it began it's current voyage as a demolished Bush Edsel?

Is this supposed to be proof?

[MayBee]

We can't afford the Bush Porkulus any longer.

Are you referring to the tax rates at all income levels?

[Cecil Turner]

Is this supposed to be proof?

You're the one who made a claim about something not being stimulative (Bush tax cuts) . . . I made no such claim on ARRA.

But, to be fair, I believe it's true. And the proof would be something like "ARRA didn't work because total employment didn't go up." (Or at least not significantly.) That's not something you can say about the Bush tax cuts--though I don't see how it'd be possible to prove they caused it.

But we're drifting off target (again). If the ARRA had dramatically increased employment, it might've been worth it. It didn't. Raising taxes now seems pretty dubious to me, but that's still not the point.

The point is, getting rid of Bush's tax cuts (on the wealthy) will not have a significant effect on the deficit. $68 billion is less than 5% of the ~$1.5 trillion deficit. If that's the plan, you lot have no plan. So unless there's a pretty dramatic cost-cutting proposal somewhere in the Democrat playbook--and we all know there's not--this is all hokum.

[Rick Ballard]

Interesting factoid - in 2000 the CBO projected total tax revenue for 2007 would be $2.572 trillion. In 2008, the CBO reported total actual tax revenue for 2007 to have been $2.568 trillion.

We can therefore say with absolute certainty that the entire loss of revenue due to the Bush tax cuts was no more than $4 billion dollars.

What fantastic accuracy! How could they have come so close in their estimate before the Bush tax cuts were even written?

[Neo]

When Bill Clinton passed a “millionaires tax” back in 1993, there was an exception for Hollywood celebrities and sports figures.

When Barbra Streisand sang at the MGM Grand in 1993, the head of MGM was paid less for the year than she got for a week. Guess who had to pay the millionaires tax ?

Of course, the unintended consequence of that “millionaires tax” was that corporate executives capped their salaries at $1 million, and made up the rest with stock options. This lead to the largest transfer of equity in the history of the world, as these executives acquired roughly 10% of the Fortune 500 through stock options over the next 10 years.

[boris]

"it's not like you have any credibility to salvage"

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

At least Androol could be made to retract a patently false claim when presented with facts. Cleo chares the pomo trait that nothing they assert is actually wrong because for them the idea of right and wrong only exists as a tool to use against non-pomos.

[boris]

* shares *

[KH]

The redistribution of wealth is foreign aid through domestic agencies like CDC HHS providing health care entitlements and food security to foreign countries.Thought it was just currency through loan forgiveness?

[Jeff S.]

I would like to see a wealth tax on billionaires who don't feel they are paying enough.

How about 5% a year on the assets of all billionaires?

Or tie an increased income tax to their asset level - a 20% income tax surcharge for everyone whose net worth exceeds $1 billion.

You could opt out by agreeing that all Americans are overtaxed and spending needs to be cut.