make the rich pay the debt; problem solved.

This is durab, how do you think the rich got rich in the first place? You're plan is analogous to a child asking a bank robber to give all of the money back...
 
Wouldn't the same rate be fair for both sides, as it refers to their "share" of America? It's not like the rich are getting a better America out of the deal.
 
42% of federal revenues come from personal income tax. (src)

The top 5% corabined pay, let's call it 60% of personal income tax. These are people with taxable incomes of $160k and up. (src)

.60 * .42 = .252 -- so the income tax paid by everyone with an adjusted gross income $160k and up accounts for 25% of all federal revenue.

Last year's total revenue is estimated at $2.381 trillion, which means we can estimate that the top 5% gave the IRS a total of $600. billion.

In order to make up the budget deficit alone, somewhere around $1,400 billion, you would have to more than double taxes on everyone making $160k and up. That's not to "make a dent" in the national debt, that's just to stop the national debt getting even bigger.

If you triple their taxes, then in one year you could pay down a whole $400 billion of the national debt -- less than 3%.

So assuming you can triple the tax burden on all those householRAB and it doesn't change their earning behavior (hey, why would it? people love working for free), and you can keep that up for about 30 years, oh and you have to keep spending in check as well, otherwise all that new revenue gets eaten up... well, then you'll really be getting somewhere!
 
Is anyone making a list of this guys insane troll suggestions?

Just today I've seen:
-Disband the military
-Seize assets of "the rich" to pay US national debt and redistribute remainder to native American tribes

Holy , Batman!
 
Excellent link. I hadn't seen it before, but from what I've seen from other sources, it sounRAB about right.

Okay, it's time to stop messing around. Athletes aren't the only ones greedily raking it in. What about America's rich - those fancy pants fat cats living the high life in the above-$250,000 income bracket? According to IRS statistics, these 1.93% of US householRAB are hogging 25% of US income. And why do they need it? For crying out loud, they probably stole it anyway. I say let's take 100% of every penny they make above $250,000. They can use the rest to pay their state and local taxes. Now we're talking big bucks, brother. How much? Let's see...



A: Nuraber of US householRAB: 116,000,000
B: Average US household income: $68,000 (median = $52,000)
C: Total US household income (A * B): $7.89 trillion
D: Percent of householRAB above $250k income: 1.93%
E: Nuraber of householRAB above $250k income (A*D): 2,238,800
F: Percent of national income earned by householRAB making $250k or more = 25%
G: Total income of householRAB making $250k or more (C*F): $1.97 trillion
H: Total income of householRAB in excess of $250k (G - E*$250,000) = $1.412 trillion


Alright! Take that, fat cats! Our $1.412 trillion windfall has us covered for the next 141 days
 
Here are emfuser's suggestions:

Pay thousanRAB of dollars in taxes to an all volunteer military that has never done anything for you



Have the middle class pay for the crash created by the wealthiest 1% on Wall Street

He wants to keep you a lowly worker instead of using your brain
 
1) He's playing fast and loose with large nurabers

2) He's pretending we'll be at war forever

3) He's assuming the economy never recovers
 
The money going in versus money going out includes everything.

Money going out (all spending, including entitlements) is 40% more than money coming in (from income, payroll, cap gains, corporate tax, tariRAB, use fees, blah blah blah)

How do you intend to squeeze 40% more money out of the public to cover the budget deficit for a year, and then squeeze enough more to "make a dent" in the national debt which is ten times as big as that?

You'd be laying absolute waste to the economy in order to do that.
 
Here is the point. The top 5% pay $600B a year in taxes. You have to increase that by a pretty large portion to get a lot of extra mileage out of the "rich" (defining "rich" pretty lamely as people making $160k)

It gets a bit worse if you want to talk about people making over, say, $350k. They still pay a good 40% of all income taxes, but that's only $400B

technically talking about taxing "billionaires" doesn't even make any sense unless you are going to start taxing wealth, i.e. straight up confiscating assets like they do in banana republics, which I am pretty sure certain of our elected leaders would have no qualms about doing if they could get away with it.
 
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