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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (187679)	4/26/2012 5:23:57 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542836

Neither of which are politically viable at the moment The Bush tax cuts are due to sunset at the end of the year. All you need for them to sunset is gridlock, which is not very hard to achieve. For money required right now, I would repeal capital gains treatment of hedge fund manager compensation. The "rich" simply haven't been paying their fair share of taxes for a very, very long time. I disagree. There are some loopholes, like the above HF manager compensation, that should be closed, but the rich in high tax states like California and New York are paying marginal rates similar to or even higher than in most liberal European countries. What's different in Europe is that those high marginal rates kick in at much much lower levels of income. In "profligate" Greece, for example, the top marginal rate of 40% kicks in at a family income of around $60,000. So the huge difference between Europe and the US is not in top marginal rates but rather at which point those marginal rates kick in. As a result, the middle and upper middle classes in Europe pay far far higher income taxes than the middle and upper middle classes in America. i.e. exactly those people for whom Obama wants to preserve the Bush tax cuts. The European way is really the only way to gather enough income taxes. There are simply not enough filthy rich to tax to get the money needed. For example, as you may know, the famous Buffett rule that Obama invokes in all his speeches lately, raises a pitifully small amount of money over the next 10 years. Also, even the poor in Europe contribute substantially into the tax pot. Their social security contributions far exceed those in the USA. For example, in "profligate" Greece which I know very well, the average combined contribution of a typical worker and his employer to social security and health care is 35% of the worker's total compensation. But, there is more: a typical VAT of 20%. And a gasoline tax of $4 per gallon. This is how serious welfare states are being taxed.