The Rich --- that is, the 1.4 million taxpayers who earn more than $1.5 million a year and who are currently saving about $121 billion in taxes thanks to the Bush tax cuts -- have been notably silent of late, leaving their messaging to lobbyists, Congress and the media. Those minions have been worth every dollar. By now, almost all of us understand that these extravagantly well-off Americans refuse to be taxed at levels they paid without vocal protest a decade ago.
Do the top one percent of American taxpayers truly believe that the government should shut down if we increase their taxes by what amounts to a rounding error? Are these fortunate few really willing to see Medicare and Social Security reduced for millions just so they can buy one more Mercedes? Are they -- let's put it in moral terms -- honestly that hard-hearted?
Their silence suggests they are just that cold. But why? And why now, when they've never been richer?
I think I know. And I dare to suggest I can speak for them. Not that I am personally Rich. But back in the Reagan years, by a fluke of marriage, I flew the Concorde almost as often as I now take subways. Later, I spent many hours with Michael Milken, the financier who once made $714 million in a single year. And over a long career writing for glossy magazines I played Nick Carraway to any number of Gatsbys.
The first counterintuitive truth I learned about the Republican Rich is that they don't feel it. For them, the Rich are always somebody else. Whether they made their money or inherited it, it's not nearly enough. They're like the family in the D.H. Lawrence short story, "The Rocking Horse Winner" -- no matter how their fortune grows, the walls cry out, "There must be more money." So they don't notice the influx of money, only its outflow. The upkeep of houses, the education of slacker children, the purchase of Birkin bags -- everything costs. A lot. And they can, with stunning accuracy, calculate those costs.
This leads to a second counterintuitive truth. Out here in America, we look up at the country's ever-growing income inequality and feel it has become permanent. But the Rich, for their part, don't consider themselves victors. To an astonishing degree, they feel surrounded and threatened -- potential victims of a plot to strip them of everything they have.
And how will this happen? Not by Socialists storming their Southampton estates, but by taxes.
If the Republican Rich feel overtaxed, it's for a reason you'd never guess -- they believe they work harder and longer than the rest of us. Consider: A hod carrier has only one job, and it ends before sunset. A billionaire has several others. In addition to whatever he does all day, there's exercise. Socializing. Fashion. To the hod carrier, those are extra-curricular activities, completely discretionary. The Rich know better. For them, every public appearance is a kind of performance; everything they do is work. And their work is always on view to other Rich people, who have a personal interest in seeing who's doing better. "If you have less than $750 million," a billionaire told me in 1984, "you have no hedge against inflation." Those who have never considered that problem can't possibly grasp the special burdens of wealth.
But for a real understanding of the Rich's resistance to taxes, we must step into the chamber of pathology. For the ultimate shocker about the Rich is that some of them don't want to pay dividend and capital gains taxes at all. Their minions dance right up to this view when they argue that the Rich contribute more to the economy than any other group. What they really want to say is what some of the Rich I know have actually come to believe: They're role models for the rest of us -- proof that discipline and effort, not entitlements and coddling, are the straight path to success. They see themselves, in short, as national treasures.
Ever since Leona ("Only the little people pay taxes") Helmsley blabbed her way into a federal prison, the Rich have been as careful in their public speech as Derek Jeter. For an unfettered account of their views, I have to look back to 1933, when Sterling Clark, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, became convinced he was paying 80% in taxes on his $3 million a year income. Considering that he liked to buy one art masterpiece almost every day, this tax bite would surely put a crimp in his collecting, so he offered half of his $30 million fortune to finance a Wall Street conspiracy that would overthrow the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The "Business Plot" failed, and he is now remembered as the role model he wasn't --- as the creator of the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Today's Rich also like to fund buildings on which their names can be carved. But this year, if we look at the Forbes 400 list, we can extract blunter messages: Inherit your money or, if you must earn it, be the head of a large enterprise. Hire aggressive representatives to advance your interests. And if none of that is possible for you, you should act as The Rich do in old movies and nowhere else. Stiff upper lip. Accept your lot. Respect your betters. Starting with the Rich.
Edward Jackson: Letter to Derek Jeter: How About Helping 30,000 Young People?
Nancy Altman: Third Way Is No Way for Social Security
click "by Agency Name" then click "B" then click "Bureau of the Public Debt" then click "Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt" - give til it hurts.
so they may have seen the huffpo comments section, which is populated by people who want a 90% income tax and a 100% estate tax - wow!!! - i can't imagine why those with anything to lose may feel threatened.
1993 13.79%
1994 13.80%
1995 14.6%
1996 16.04%
1997 17.34%
1998 18.47%
1999 19.51%
2000 20.81%
2001 17.53%
2002 16.12%
2003 16.77%
2004 19.00%
2005 21.2%
2006 22.20%
2007 22.83%
2008 20.00%
The peaks in 2000 and again in 2007 correlate precisely with the highs in the stock markets. These were periods where the wealthy received enormous earned and unearned income. During the Clinton period they paid higher rates on both earned and unearned. As we all know those rates went down significantly under Bush.
There is other data that suggests how wealth became more concentrated during this period. But the data you cite is not the right data to make your point.
IMO BORROWING money to GIVE to the rich is fiscal irresponsibility. Republicans are forcing the hands of taxpayer to pay an unnecessary debt that Bush created and it is unequal …Adding to our already over-burdened debt.
Since republicans voted and passed their wealthy tax atrocity, and seemingly it escaped without much ridicule and now, the wingers have chosen to believe that Reverse-re-distribution of wealth is now written in stone …At least we pay for our entitlements (SS & Medic.).
Comprise …Why not share this tax burden after closing some loopholes. The wealthy have had almost eleven years to enjoy their tax cuts; now the wealthy needs to pay their fair share for the next eleven years.
Hint: there is none. "The Bush tax cuts" made the tax code MORE progressive, not less.
There, now I feel a tiny bit better.
I am one of those people who have mostly (very wealthy) friends. I live on SS. One in particular is absolutely terrifified that he will lose $$......he is currntly worth over 15mil. He is the classic miser. Just how much $ is enough? If I can live, for now, on my SS.....surely he can live on a 1/3 of what he has?? Not that I am asking for that much of a takeaway.
$$ to these guys is like the martini rule:
One in not enough,
Two is enough,
Three is not enough!!
The Federal government needs to bring its financial house into order before they have the right to ask any of us working Americans for more money.
My issue has always been more on how the wealthy can't seem to understand that with power comes responsibility. I know many on the right think the rich should have zero responsibility for society, but IMHO this is why there is this divide and why the country is a mess.
They dont understand how even with the most free of market the "little guy" can't get ahead when the people at the top have enough wealth to easily destroy the little guys. So a man opens a fruit stand, and Walmart doesn't like that...so they slash the prices of their produce to 1/4 of what they pay for it...just so the little guy has to close his store because he can't compete...then Walmart raises the price up to 200% of its value since they have no competition.
It's the same deal when these wealthy folk employ lobbyists to write our laws and pay enough in campaign donations to get them passed. How is that a free market when the new law really favors those who wrote it?
The late night debates we had at that startup amounted to me asking about what happens when all the taxes have been cut, the profits maximized from production, social programs have been successfully gutted, etc.
I predicted to him that corporations would move to stock buy backs, cuts to work forces, and an overall loss of a national economy, because we little people had seen our fortunes climb from 1995 to 2000 at the greatest rate ever, and spent our money like drunken sailors in our new found places. We used the money, instead of collecting it.
I often wonder about those that will get carved out of the lineup as this progresses, because this is a game of exclusion. Once the wealthy can no longer feed off the masses, they'll have to graze on their own, or simply be satisfied that they have "enough," which as far as I can tell, will never happen.
I have wealthy relatives and came from an upper middle class family whose grandparents owned their own businessess (since sold). No matter what - our family always found time to help others - through direct giving, charitable giving: never did they feel "superior" or entitled - why? They were raised right - it starts at home.
then you might have something to say. In the meantime, for all of the advantages given to them to structure the "free market" in their favor, it is money owed for services rendered.
Wrong. Flat taxes eliminate all those special tax breaks.
You say, "Common people could then manage to live for themselves instead of having the LOrds and Dukes suck them dry"
Say goodbye to all the sales taxes from "the rich" buying expensive stuff, all the people employed by the people who produce the expensive stuff, etc, repair people, retail clerks, etc. etc.
If "the rich" just go away, who would the government tax? YOU.
For a concrete example-
San Francisco just made what I consider a very bad deal with the head of Oracle, Larry Ellison, to bring the America's Cup to the city in return for a sweetheart deal over waterfront property.
SF basically gave it away. The original deal included concrete ways for the city to make revenue, but Ellison wouldn't close the deal unless he got title to the one pier, long term leases on some adjacent piers, permission to build condos and only a promise to bring regattas and other sailing competitions in so SF could garner only indirect revenue.
They could have kept the property and spent the money they are losing on a beefed up ad campaign to bring in more tourists.
In the meantime, the citizens have lost access to these properties for any other purpose while Ellison isn't paying much for prime waterfront property.
Talk to me some more about fair.