Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich (Texas has it right)

[almaty 19]

brother Ma ..knows $$$

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Total state and local tax burden is much more meaningful. It includes property taxes, which your cherrypicked analysis does not.

2% percent of California's tax revenue comes from property tax. That's 2%. I'll try to find more data to confirm that number, but that is incredibly small.

No, the actual number is close to 25%. 2% is Fascist Left-Wing Propaganda.

Stats for the 2006-2007 fiscal year:

The $170 billion in state and local tax revenue in California came from five major sources:

• personal income taxes of $52 billion (30.5%),
• sales taxes of $45 billion (26.5%),
• property taxes of $42 billion (24.7%),
• corporate income taxes of $11 billion (6.5%),
• $20 billion in other taxes (11.8%)

Ok, but look at who is paying the least....corporations, and the CA Republicans say we keep those taxes low to attract business. CA's budget crisis isn't because the taxes are too high as indicated earlier.

[mawilson 2,133]

Ok, but look at who is paying the least....corporations, and the CA Republicans say we keep those taxes low to attract business. CA's budget crisis isn't because the taxes are too high as indicated earlier.

True... then again, it's a lot easier (and makes more sense) for a corporation to move its operations

to another state where taxes are lower or non-existent. You can ream the middle class six ways

from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it. Corporations will not.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

]

You can ream the middle class six ways from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it.

My butt hurts.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Ok, but look at who is paying the least....corporations, and the CA Republicans say we keep those taxes low to attract business. CA's budget crisis isn't because the taxes are too high as indicated earlier.

True... then again, it's a lot easier (and makes more sense) for a corporation to move its operations

to another state where taxes are lower or non-existent. You can ream the middle class six ways

from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it. Corporations will not.

Well, that's just it. Beyond the argument of what state programs should exist, is what percentage of the total tax revenue should be coming from whom. Right now, as it stands, the lower income and middle class bare the brunt.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Ok, but look at who is paying the least....corporations, and the CA Republicans say we keep those taxes low to attract business. CA's budget crisis isn't because the taxes are too high as indicated earlier.

True... then again, it's a lot easier (and makes more sense) for a corporation to move its operations

to another state where taxes are lower or non-existent. You can ream the middle class six ways

from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it. Corporations will not.

Well, that's just it. Beyond the argument of what state programs should exist, is what percentage of the total tax revenue should be coming from whom. Right now, as it stands, the lower income and middle class bare the brunt.

Steven,

You need to address this point. Your argument collapses without an effective rebuttal.

You can ream the middle class six ways from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it. Corporations will not.

The fact is that jobs do move, and have moved, to lower tax locales over the last decade. I don't see how you dispute the point, but I'm eager to see you try.

[endoftheroad 1]

The Texas Gov. has been making a name for himself lately.

Yes and that name is JOKE.

Part of the point of the OP article is that high taxes have an adverse effect on job growth.

Geez that has been proved wrong so often.

Fascist Left-Wing Propaganda.

Fascist Propaganda is something conservatives have mastered.

Keep quoting BillO the clown, Harold Hill, Faux News, etc. Oh to be the party in decline.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Ok, but look at who is paying the least....corporations, and the CA Republicans say we keep those taxes low to attract business. CA's budget crisis isn't because the taxes are too high as indicated earlier.

True... then again, it's a lot easier (and makes more sense) for a corporation to move its operations

to another state where taxes are lower or non-existent. You can ream the middle class six ways

from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it. Corporations will not.

Well, that's just it. Beyond the argument of what state programs should exist, is what percentage of the total tax revenue should be coming from whom. Right now, as it stands, the lower income and middle class bare the brunt.

Steven,

You need to address this point. Your argument collapses without an effective rebuttal.

You can ream the middle class six ways from Sunday and the poor chumps will bend over and take it. Corporations will not.

The fact is that jobs do move, and have moved, to lower tax locales over the last decade. I don't see how you dispute the point, but I'm eager to see you try.

Have companies always threatened to move to another state where the taxes were cheaper? I don't know, but you made the claim earlier that state pensions are unsustainable. Both my parents are retired state employees - my Dad worked at a university and my Mom at a community college. I'll ask them if they think it's their pensions that are bankrupting the state of Arizona. It seems to me that if we're going to get into a game of finger pointing, we should look at just what exactly has been going going on. That's what I'm most interested in and it irritates me that so often it's the Middle Class, like my parents who get pointed at as the root of the cause.

[mawilson 2,133]

Fascist Propaganda is something conservatives have mastered.

Keep quoting BillO the clown, Harold Hill, Faux News, etc. Oh to be the party in decline.

"Fascists can be aristocrats or democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists".

-- Benito Mussolini

[Peikko 1,575]

Quoting Mussolini? To be fair though, the Italian political elite is always the same no matter what they call themselves:

The latest scandal:

Link

Silvio Berlusconi was tonight under withering fire from opposition leaders in Italy after a court declared that he had bribed his lawyer, David Mills, so that he could avoid conviction on corruption charges and hang on to "huge profits made from the conclusion of illicit corporate and financial operations"....

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I wonder what the Texan take on the French Revolution is...

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Fascist Propaganda is something conservatives have mastered.

Keep quoting BillO the clown, Harold Hill, Faux News, etc. Oh to be the party in decline.

"Fascists can be aristocrats or democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists".

-- Benito Mussolini

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

How do you like them apples?

[rclouse 0]

Total state and local tax burden is much more meaningful. It includes property taxes, which your cherrypicked analysis does not.

2% percent of California's tax revenue comes from property tax. That's 2%. I'll try to find more data to confirm that number, but that is incredibly small.

No, the actual number is close to 25%. 2% is Fascist Left-Wing Propaganda.

Stats for the 2006-2007 fiscal year:

The $170 billion in state and local tax revenue in California came from five major sources:

• personal income taxes of $52 billion (30.5%),
• sales taxes of $45 billion (26.5%),
• property taxes of $42 billion (24.7%),
• corporate income taxes of $11 billion (6.5%),
• $20 billion in other taxes (11.8%)

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I'll ask them if they think it's their pensions that are bankrupting the state of Arizona.

Do you even know how most public retirement systems work? I don't think you do. While an attempt to adequately educate you is beyond the scope of this discussion, I'll be happy to throw out a few pointers.

First, when public employees contribute to their own retirement, where does it go? It goes to an organization - usually public - that manages the money. The goal? To manage it so that the income streams generated by their investments are adequate for purposes of meeting the promises made. Is this the only source of money in the system? Sometimes, not always - oftentimes, these retirement systems are set up with an accompanying mandate that state/municipal governments contribute a certain number of dollars per year. The amount they're required to chip is in usually a function of the number of employees in the retirement system and sometimes, inflation and equities performance.

So what does this all mean? A bad stock market, a bad real estate market, can all adversely impact the ability of the retirement systems to meet their promised payments. Generally speaking, declines in values of investments. To give you an example, 55 Water Street in Manhattan is a Class A office building with many high profile tenants. Who owns it? The State of Alabama's Retirement System. With Wall Street in a slump, who does that affect? You got it.

Ok, so what's the problem? Surely, the promised payouts from the retirement system can't possibly be so much that they depend on internal rates of return much higher than those offered by stable real estate and money market funds and blue chip bonds?

Wrong again! Jacking up promised payouts on retirement systems during stock market and real estate boom years was par for the course for state governments around the country, particularly in states like New Jersey. Do I need to tell you what has happened to this states pension funds now that Wall Street has taken a massive dump over shareholders and real estate is in a slump? And on top of everything, tax revenues are down so the State isn't even sure it can make its required payment into the system this year.

Still don't think there's a problem?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I'll ask them if they think it's their pensions that are bankrupting the state of Arizona.

Do you even know how most public retirement systems work? I don't think you do. While an attempt to adequately educate you is beyond the scope of this discussion, I'll be happy to throw out a few pointers.

First, when public employees contribute to their own retirement, where does it go? It goes to an organization - usually public - that manages the money. The goal? To manage it so that the income streams generated by their investments are adequate for purposes of meeting the promises made. Is this the only source of money in the system? Sometimes, not always - oftentimes, these retirement systems are set up with an accompanying mandate that state/municipal governments contribute a certain number of dollars per year. The amount they're required to chip is in usually a function of the number of employees in the retirement system and sometimes, inflation and equities performance.

So what does this all mean? A bad stock market, a bad real estate market, can all adversely impact the ability of the retirement systems to meet their promised payments. Generally speaking, declines in values of investments. To give you an example, 55 Water Street in Manhattan is a Class A office building with many high profile tenants. Who owns it? The State of Alabama's Retirement System. With Wall Street in a slump, who does that affect? You got it.

Ok, so what's the problem? Surely, the promised payouts from the retirement system can't possibly be so much that they depend on internal rates of return much higher than those offered by stable real estate and money market funds and blue chip bonds?

Wrong again! Jacking up promised payouts on retirement systems during stock market and real estate boom years was par for the course for state governments around the country, particularly in states like New Jersey. Do I need to tell you what has happened to this states pension funds now that Wall Street has taken a massive dump over shareholders and real estate is in a slump? And on top of everything, tax revenues are down so the State isn't even sure it can make its required payment into the system this year.

Still don't think there's a problem?

AJ,

My parents would be saying you are spot on with that assessment. They are steaming mad because legislatures have been talking about gutting their pension.

The larger argument I'm making is that we can have a sustainable Middle Class in this country and we do that by making sure that things like state pension funds are tied into secured investments. It would also help by stabilizing the market which is what the Obama Adminstration hopes to achieve.

Edited May 19, 2009 by Col. 'Bat' Guano