A surging French candidate wants a 100% tax on the rich

former student of economics wrote:

Reasons why tax cuts for individuals in top 2% are not necessarily stimulative to domestic GDP growth:

1) Hard to predict how much top 2% will save versus spend.

2) Hard to predict how much top 2% will pay down debt versus spend.

3) Hard to predict how much top 2% will spend on overseas vacations versus spend domestically.

4) When top 2% place tax cut money in debt and equity markets, no harm usually.

5) When top 2% pour billions into real estate it creates winners & losers. Losers are young new real estate buyers.

6) Hard to predict how much top 2% will work less hard due to tax cut.

7) Some top 2% will take tax cut and buy real estate overseas. How many, not known.

8) Some top 2% will take tax cut and open foreign bank accounts. How many, not known.

You seem to be working from the assumption that stimulating the economy is the sole purpose of allowing people to keep their own property. Picking a person's pocket because not doing so wouldn't stimulate the economy is morally appalling reasoning.

So true, also government spending tends to be over credited for benefits in measures of growth (ie a lower GDP deflator then what is reality).

How does that chart make the case for a top marginal rate of 35%? How does your chart factor George HW Bush closing 1/3 of military bases 26 years ago with an overall Cold War peace dividend? How does your chart factor Fed Chair Volcker taking a hawkish position versus inflation with overnight fed funds rate and discount rate in the later 1970s? How does your chart factor banking deregulations of 1980s & 1990s? We can double the top marginal tax rate to 70% without ruining the economy.

HardLoper wrote:

I specified which data I was talking about with words.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA

Despite 3 recessions (1953, 1957,1960 ) Real GDP per capita growth compares favorably with other 14 year ( 56 quarters ) periods.

Also, here is George Romney"s ( Mitt"s father ) tax returns from 1955-1966.

Economics is management of resources. Are you a manager or employer? If so, most of your workers attended public schools. If managers/business owners want to start paying from time of birth to groom their workers, which managers and business owners do not want to do, taxes are part of doing business. Those cops, submarines and aircraft carriers GOP love cost money.

former student of economics wrote:

Economics is management of resources. Are you a manager or employer? If so, most of your workers attended public schools. If managers/business owners want to start paying from time of birth to groom their workers, which managers and business owners do not want to do, taxes are part of doing business. Those cops, submarines and aircraft carriers GOP love cost money.

I am not arguing for the abolition of income tax. I am arguing against the majority forcing the minority to pay a disproportionate share.

former student of economics wrote:

How does that chart make the case for a top marginal rate of 35%? How does your chart factor George HW Bush closing 1/3 of military bases 26 years ago with an overall Cold War peace dividend? How does your chart factor Fed Chair Volcker taking a hawkish position versus inflation with overnight fed funds rate and discount rate in the later 1970s? How does your chart factor banking deregulations of 1980s & 1990s? We can double the top marginal tax rate to 70% without ruining the economy.

I don't agree with your premises that increasing consumption or providing short-term boosts GDP is good so I don't care to argue those details. I was asking for your historical justification of 1950's tax rates because you have none.

HardLoper wrote:

former student of economics wrote:

US Bureau of Economic Analysis: Your time period, 1951 to 1963, I got 3.61% annual aggregate GDP growth. The growth rate isn't higher since top marginal rate has been 35%.

Look up GDP per capita growth. If the GDP grows but the work force population is also growing quickly that means everyone's income is not.

GDP per capita growth isn't the same as growth in real GDP per working-age person. In the post-WWII period, the percentage of the population under the age of five climbed steadily, peaking at about 11-12% in the late 1950s. Those freeloaders historically don't contribute much to GDP, regardless of the highest marginal income tax rates. (Economists might say that both supply of and demand for infant productivity remains highly inelastic.) And ever since the socialists and nanny-state do-gooders in Congress and state legislatures started imposing child-labor laws on our job creators, kids between the ages of five and fifteen, who were also sprouting like weeds during the 1950s, haven't been much better.

Of course, high GDP growth isn't the sine qua non for setting marginal tax rates. We actually have to raise revenue to pay for stuff, whether it's a social welfare program or a toy like the F-35. And contrary to the views of voodoo economists who believe that Art Laffer invented something called the "Laffer curve," increasing marginal tax rates, at least within the ranges generally proposed by American economists and not French far-left fringe candidates, tends to increase government revenue.

Be a doer and embrace possible wrote:

Everyone who got where they are had to begin where they were.

And wherever you go, there you are.

You do not agree that increasing consumption is good? You do not find value in boosting GDP, short-term you state? I gave you the aggregate growth rate of GDP in your time period. I believe I gave you an annual rate of 3.61%. The OP stated 100% marginal tax rate in France. I asked you to justify the current marginal rate of 35% as measured by GDP in USA. Now consumption is irrelevant? GDP growth is irrelevant, short -term? You do know the equation: C+I+G+imports-exports. Just say, "No Mas!" We have been going back and forth about top marginal rates as they relate to GDP, now the largest factor of GDP, consumption doesn't matter? Now, short-term GDP growth doesn't matter?

That will affect all the LetsRunners who live in France. Good thing he's also not imposing a tax on sub-14 5Ks as that would affect all of them too.

former student of economics wrote:

You do not agree that increasing consumption is good? You do not find value in boosting GDP, short-term you state? I gave you the aggregate growth rate of GDP in your time period. I believe I gave you an annual rate of 3.61%. The OP stated 100% marginal tax rate in France. I asked you to justify the current marginal rate of 35% as measured by GDP in USA. Now consumption is irrelevant? GDP growth is irrelevant, short -term? You do know the equation: C+I+G+imports-exports. Just say, "No Mas!" We have been going back and forth about top marginal rates as they relate to GDP, now the largest factor of GDP, consumption doesn't matter? Now, short-term GDP growth doesn't matter?

Correct. Long term GDP growth is more important than short-term and similarly investment is better than consumption. I am not arguing one way or the other what the top marginal tax rate should be, but I believe 70% is too high and other countries with high tax rates on the rich certainly don't support your idea that high tax rates make people work harder.

Isn't it great that this socialist retard has now disappeared off to Sugarcandy Mountain.

Obviously, a low flat personal and business tax rate of around 17% is what you need. So simple. The reduction in compliance costs would be huge. People would actually pay it because it would be so easy, so you can cut out all the legal BS tax-sparing dodges and loopholes since you wouldn't need them.

Revenue in the medium term would go up and up, just as hundreds of years of history attests to.

Then get rid of all that Obamacare crap once and for all. Do it properly this time. Make health care providers directly accountable to the consumer, not third party payers. Competition is good.

And finally, end the Fed, or, at least, its excessive and unnecessary powers. Go back to a new gold standard.

Everyone, come gather round and observe a moran in his natural habitat!

This is crazy, especially at such a low income level. If you wanted to get to 100% at some point it should be some very high number, like $250 million or something.

morals over economics wrote:

I am not arguing for the abolition of income tax. I am arguing against the majority forcing the minority to pay a disproportionate share.

The total tax burden is pretty even, very slightly progressive.

Income tax does hit the rich more than the poor. Pretty much every other tax is the reverse.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

morals over economics wrote:

I am not arguing for the abolition of income tax. I am arguing against the majority forcing the minority to pay a disproportionate share.

The total tax burden is pretty even, very slightly progressive.

Income tax does hit the rich more than the poor. Pretty much every other tax is the reverse.

So if it is currently even, then doubling the tax rate on "the rich" would cause them to pay a disproportionate share, right? Isn't that exactly what I said?

Mr. Obvious wrote:

[quote]morals over economics wrote:

I am not arguing for the abolition of income tax. I am arguing against the majority forcing the minority to pay a disproportionate share.

The total tax burden is pretty even, very slightly progressive.

Income tax does hit the rich more than the poor. Pretty much every other tax is the reverse.

[

The only taxes the real low earners pay is Social Security and Medicare (and their employers pay matching contributions), which they collect a disproportionate amount on when they retire (they receive back more than they contribute as opposed to higher earners who get much less than they contribute). They do not pay Federal Income tax which is where all the wasteful spending takes place. This is as opposed to state employees who live in the state I live in (CO) who do not pay into social security and their retirement is tied directly to their earnings (there is no subsidizing of the rich to the poor as there is in the social security system). In addition, many write offs that low earners benefit from (child care expenses, student loan interest, etc.) are substantially reduced for high wage earners (I get to write off about 20 cents on the dollar to what a low wage earner is allowed to write off for the same expenses).