1844

That isn’t what progressive tax system generally means. You’re arguing for a special definition, one which is not in common use.

1845

I can play devils advocate on pretty much any position, but it is too depressing to even contemplate taking the pro position on putting kids in cages. Even Mathlor might struggle with that.

1846

He’d just deny that it happens. And they shouldn’t have entered the US anyway.

1847

The highest marginal tax rate (the report you provided) has nothing to do with how progressive or not progressive a tax system is. You can have a high marginal rate and not be progressive, or a low marginal rate and be highly progressive, or any combination of the two.

A salary for an individual is not the same as the salary for an income group who always has different members. Here’s a quick back-of-the-napkin example of a company:

2000: A company has 20 employees each making $50,000 a year.
2001: The company gives everyone a $10,000 raise, then hires 5 more people at $50,000 a year.
2002: The company gives everyone a $10,000 raise, then hires 5 more people at $50,000 a year.
2003: The company gives everyone a $10,000 raise, then hires 6 more people at $50,000 a year.
2004: The company gives everyone a $10,000 raise, then hires 8 more people at $50,000 a year.
2005: The company gives everyone a $10,000 raise, then hires 10 more people at $50,000 a year.

In 2000, the bottom 20% of employees are making $50,000 a year. And at the end of 2005, the bottom 20% of employees are still making $50,000 per year.

So would you say that the company is not paying the employees more? Of course not! Every employee gets a $10,000 raise every year. The people making $50,000 a year are now making double that. And no one’s wages have stagnated, even though the top 20% have been making the same salary for five years.

That’s…not how math works. You can’t calculate the percentage of their own income unless you know their income and how much was collected in taxes.

1848

Meanwhile, another shining example of the GOP:

The girl came forward about what the preacher had done to her after her parents caught her trying to slit her wrists.

In the years that followed, the family’s world unraveled in their rural community in the North Georgia mountains. The girl’s health deteriorated from a congenital heart defect, and many in their church shunned them and rallied around the traveling evangelist who she told police had raped and molested her in her home while her parents slept, the family told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News earlier this year.

How did he get off with no jail time? He hired the Speaker of the Georgia House:

A joint investigation by the AJC and Channel 2 Action News found that Ralston appears to be misusing the power of his public office to benefit his private law practice. By doing no more than writing letters to judges declaring that court dates interfere with his lawmaking duties, he has been able to keep cases perpetually off the docket. But his tactics can thwart justice, harm crime victims and put the public at risk.

Ralston has tied up cases for clients charged with child molestation, child cruelty, assault, terroristic threats, drunk driving and other crimes.

1849

Which means, and stay with me now, that the pay for the CEO increased, but the pay for the entry level position in the company did not. Not over those 5 years. The wage scale for everyone else still begins at the same point it did from the start.

You’re basically saying that, no matter what happens to the company, the value of entry-level labor never changes. In fact, it declines, because inflation isn’t zero. It’s absurd.

1850

Here’s the table from the report you linked:

image
image.png734×673 41.3 KB

So, in 2014, the top decile had an average federal income tax rate of 21.25% That’s where Scott’s number came from.

1851

I think the kindest comment I can offer at this point is that you don’t really understand what a progressive tax system is at all, and because you don’t understand it you made a silly claim, and now you’re flailing around trying to find a way to defend it.

1852

WHY YES, CLEARLY DEBATING MARGINAL VERSUS AVERAGE TAX RATES IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FACING THE COUNTRY RIGHT NOW. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY THINK OTHERWISE? - Every Republican ever.

1853

Yes, thanks for explaining. It didn’t occur to me that @Andy_Bates wouldn’t know it was from his chart.

1854

Hate to be the thread police, but we are getting into taxation and economic inequality weeds far removed from the kind of malfeasance (as in @gruntled’s last post) this thread is supposed to feature. Maybe move tax discussion to Income Inequality thread?

(Where I’d love to discuss all the mechanisms by which executive compensation is shielded from market forces, and the way plutocrats have wielded political power to shield it further)

1855

“Obama did it.”

Not kidding, that’s their ‘retort.’

1856
  • No, but he would have gotten less if he had done a worse job. His salary was based on specific corporate milestones that the company had to meet. So pretty much by definition, he provided a benefit to the company greater than what he was paid.
  • Hypothetically, sure. Practically, no. If the board was so concerned about saving 3/4 of the CEO salary, they would have found someone else for the position. But after 25 years of proving his worth at ABC, I’m sure that Disney wanted to promote someone from within rather than hire an unknown quantity. And all things considered, saving money on the CEO salary is being penny-wise, pound-foolish.
  • I’m sure the majority of Bob Iger’s accomplishments are due to people who work for him, which is why their collective pay is so much greater than his. But at the end of the day, it’s his decisions that determine the direction of the company, and those decisions affect hundreds of thousands of people. With that in mind, his salary is well justified.

You’re supposed to look at the difference between the percentage of income and the percentage of tax revenue. That difference is what shows the progressitivity.

1857

Yes, fair enough.

1858

Wouldn’t a flat tax be progressive under this definition? If we set taxes at a flat 10%, the highest decile will pay more as a percentage of revenue. You could work a regressive tax structure (by which I mean lower rates for higher incomes) the same way.

1859

Look guys, what are you arguing about? Andy_Bates says everything is fine with American capitalism and we probably should lower taxes on the rich because they are the true job creators.

It’s a novel argument and maybe we should give it a shot.

1860

Yes, that’s what happens when you compare one specific person with an income group that contains different people over time.

In this hypothetical example, it is absolutely true that the lowest 20% of employees only make $50,000, every year. And it’s also absolutely true that every employee gets a $10,000 raise every year, including the CEO. In actual income, this would be a fantastic company to work for, where income growth is guaranteed. But if you’re just looking at the “bottom 20% of workers”, you would get the mistaken idea that worker pay is stagnating, when it absolutely is not.

It’s a hypothetical example, so inflation has nothing to do with it. I’m saying that you can have a company with regular, measurable income mobility for every employee where the bottom 20% still make the same amount every year, because looking at a percentage group is not a good way to measure actual wages over time.

Ah, sorry, I didn’t realize you were referring to that chart. But as you can see, the Average Tax Rate continues to go up as the income level goes up, which means it’s definitely progressive, and your comment of “That’s…not progressive” is incorrect.

I feel like you quoted the top marginal rates as evidence of progressivity, and once you realized you were wrong, you’re trying to act like it’s my fault.

1861

No, a flat tax would not be progressive under this definition. With a flat tax, the percentage of revenue earned would be exactly the same as the percentage of taxes paid.

Agreed.

1862

It’s not an either or situation, never let them talk you into that.

How a country is structured, in the way the poorest of us, the richest of us, those in minority positions… and a lot more tends to set policies and laws and the direction of the country. Some of these problems we have today are symptoms of bad structure, ignorance, and just hate.

1863

This is very true. Matt Yglesias (despite the fact that I rarely fully agree with him) makes a fairly good point on this topic, in this article (although the headline about Trump’s racism being a “con” is BS).

Here’s a quote: "The upshot of Trump administration policymaking — beginning with Paul Ryan’s speakership, continuing under Mulvaney’s operation of the executive machinery now that Democrats run the House, and of course extending into the Federalist Society domination of the judiciary — is to completely neuter or dismantle the institutions of government that are supposed to check the ability of the wealthy and powerful to run roughshod over the rest of us. Polluters can pollute more, scamsters can scam more, bankers can go back to running the risks that blew up the global economy, and no legislation that would impair the privileges of the powerful can pass.

It’s not exactly that the Trump Show is fake and Mulvaney’s operation is the real government, but it’s impossible to understand why the Trump Show we see on stage works without appreciating what’s happening behind the scenes and who benefits from it."