The Tax System Explained in Beer

[mpg]

the rich person is indebted to the poor people for his wealth. Without the purchases of the poor people, the rich man would have nobody to scam.

"scam"? "indebted"?

 

[NAKED N00B]

I agree that we're not in a position to cut taxes across the board, but seeing as companies have been outsourcing jobs and manufacturing even with relatively friendly rates (save for the corporate rate), do you really think that a rate hike in this economic climate would encourage companies and/or individuals to invest here and not elsewhere? I'd say it's more along the lines of an educated guess, not a baseless assertion.

Firstly, jobs are coming back. Not in huge droves. But the manufacturing sector is growing at its fastest rate since the 90s.

Secondly, I'm not against cutting the corporate rate.

Thirdly, I don't support raising taxes in this economic climate. Earlier in this thread I stated I would tie tax increases to economic performance. So once we hit certain goals for unemployment and GDP, tax increases would be phased in.

the crying over the Bush tax cuts is exactly this scenario. Everyone that paid taxes (beer) received a cut, but the wealthier you were, the larger the cut.

That's not entirely true. The top tax bracket got about twice as big of a cut to their rate as did everyone else (except for the second bracket which got no love at all). If you're going to make progressive cuts, make progressive cuts, but don't fake like most people are getting a 2% cut and then double it on a single bracket.

But that's not even my big problem with the Bush tax cuts. If that was it, so be it. My issue, and what should be the main issues, is the difference in treatment for income in the form as capital gains. There is no reason that a bill should a 20% tax cut which do disproportionally benefits the very wealthiest of the wealthy.

 

[TurtleDude]

Firstly, jobs are coming back. Not in huge droves. But the manufacturing sector is growing at its fastest rate since the 90s.

Secondly, I'm not against cutting the corporate rate.

Thirdly, I don't support raising taxes in this economic climate. Earlier in this thread I stated I would tie tax increases to economic performance. So once we hit certain goals for unemployment and GDP, tax increases would be phased in.


That's not entirely true. The top tax bracket got about twice as big of a cut to their rate as did everyone else (except for the second bracket which got no love at all). If you're going to make progressive cuts, make progressive cuts, but don't fake like most people are getting a 2% cut and then double it on a single bracket.

But that's not even my big problem with the Bush tax cuts. If that was it, so be it. My issue, and what should be the main issues, is the difference in treatment for income in the form as capital gains. There is no reason that a bill should a 20% tax cut which do disproportionally benefits the very wealthiest of the wealthy.

well you have no problem with the income tax which disproportionately screws the top one percent or the death tax which only screws the top 1 or 2 percent

 

[Kurmugeon]

well you have no problem with the income tax which disproportionately screws the top one percent or the death tax which only screws the top 1 or 2 percent

This is a very simple fix for this, its called a flat tax.

It won't happen because too many of the people in power are benifiting from the two phone book thick mess of the current tax laws, not the least of which are the Lawyers, who just so happen to hold well more than half of elected political offices.

 

[xpiher]

This is a very simple fix for this, its called a flat tax.

It won't happen because too many of the people in power are benifiting from the two phone book thick mess of the current tax laws, not the least of which are the Lawyers, who just so happen to hold well more than half of elected political offices.

as i've said previously, a flat tax is only good if it exempts a certain level of income i.e. the yearly amount required to sustain a family of 3. However, it still doesn't tax the underground economy which is why I personally prefer a Sallee tax that exempts lifer necessities, medical, and rent witha reduced tax on energy

 

[samsmart]

This story, while touching, fails to encompass some very key issues that help to define the American tax system.

Firstly, the tax cuts that were given under Bush and Reagan were unnecessarily beneficial to the rich. The important part here is the lowering of the capital gains tax rate, as another poster stated previously. This means that the tax cuts disproportionately benefited the rich. In addition, the increase of state tax rates was regressive, in that the poorer people were more likely to spend a significant portion of their income on goods that came with a state sales tax. Thus, your analogy is flawed because it fails to account for the intricacies of the financial system.

Secondly, your model is also biased. Firstly, it fails to account for the true incomes of the people. Without the true figures, your story is easily perceived as "unfair" to the richest person. If you could enumerate the first six people earned less than $25,000 and the richest earned $1,000,000 or more, the story might rub people a different way.

Thirdly, the rich person is indebted to the poor people for his wealth. Without the purchases of the poor people, the rich man would have nobody to scam. In a system where the poor person "quits," the rich man also loses, which brings me to my fourth point, which is that...

We're all in this together. Our economic system requires involvement from both the rich and the poor. When the rich people are being assholes and enjoying their pina coladas in the Caribbean while the rest of us toil away at our day jobs, we have some right to be angry that the next round of tax breaks gives the rich man even more and the poor man even less. Perhaps the rich people should such up their losses and willingly contribute to help along the lives of others. It's only when the rich guy is complaining about paying too much for his beer and lobbying the bartender for a $20 reduction on his bill that the common people get angry.

And don't forget that despite having higher rates to pay on the books, the wealthy and corporations can lobby for plenty of exemptions to negate those rates.

 

[samsmart]

There is nothing immoral about contributing to the success of your offspring. In fact, it’s natural and moral to do so.

The same thing can be said of contributing to the success of your country in the form of paying taxes.

 

[samsmart]

class envy is a poisonous affliction. My side was the one against a centralized dictatorial government that imposed unfair taxes. In other words we opposed what you want. Your side is that of the parasites and the elites who get their power pandering to them based on the mistaken belief that big government fat cats actually want to help their minions rather than keeping them dependent and stupid

Except when it comes to tax breaks for businesses, no-bid government contracts, and corporate subsidies.

In regards to that, your side is all for being parasites feeding from government fat cats.

 

[samsmart]

well you have no problem with the income tax which disproportionately screws the top one percent or the death tax which only screws the top 1 or 2 percent

And they have no problem having a disproportionate amount of influence on our political leaders by providing such large amounts of campaign contributions.

 

[iguanaman]

This is a very simple fix for this, its called a flat tax.

It won't happen because too many of the people in power are benifiting from the two phone book thick mess of the current tax laws, not the least of which are the Lawyers, who just so happen to hold well more than half of elected political offices.

The flat tax is the worst possible tax system for our consumer economy where 75% of GDP is SPENDING.. Penalizing spending by taxing it is the opposite of what we want to grow our economy. We need to tax income not spent if we want to fund our govt. without crippling growth. That is why we have a progressive tax system and it WORKS. I does need to be progressive enough though and that's where we have fallen short in the last 30 years..

 

[xpiher]

The flat tax is the worst possible tax system for our consumer economy where 75% of GDP is SPENDING.. Penalizing spending by taxing it is the opposite of what we want to grow our economy. We need to tax income not spent if we want to fund our govt. without crippling growth. That is why we have a progressive tax system and it WORKS. I does need to be progressive enough though and that's where we have fallen short in the last 30 years..

Flat tax isn't a sales tax, its applying the same tax % on all levels of taxable income. Also, we want to reduce spending and encourage saving to reduce debt over hang. Another good thing about a national sales tax or fair tax

The difference between a democrat and a republican is who owes the favor, the politican or the business

 

[mpg]

The same thing can be said of contributing to the success of your country in the form of paying taxes.

No one said that it's immoral to contribute to the success of your country.

 

[henrypanda]

Government is not implementing any new projects for poor peoples? Every person is paying tax for government.

 

[Zyphlin]

Thank you for posting a stereotypical chain mail political "analogy" that gets posted up at least once a year and is routinely pointed out that while it may be enlightening to those who know nothing about politics, those on a message board such as this realize the vast amount of flaws in it, the least of which is the fact that all of the taxes in our system don't come from just the income tax and thus the entire foundational argument upon which the analogy is built upon is a bit shaky.

 

[mpg]

Thank you for posting a stereotypical chain mail political "analogy" that gets posted up at least once a year and is routinely pointed out that while it may be enlightening to those who know nothing about politics, those on a message board such as this realize the vast amount of flaws in it, the least of which is the fact that all of the taxes in our system don't come from just the income tax and thus the entire foundational argument upon which the analogy is built upon is a bit shaky.

Many people, including many in these forums, get up in arms when a reduction in the federal income tax rates results in rich people paying thousands less and poor people paying the same amount as before. Even when other taxes are left out of the conversation, the reduction in income tax rates is perceived as making the tax code less progressive, even if it makes the tax code more progressive. The OP merely explains how people make that mistake. It goes a little further than that in the last two sentences, but the math part merely explains how people get confused.

 

[Cameron]

The Tax System Explained in Beer - Independent Journal Review

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing The fifth would pay $1 The sixth would pay $3 The seventh would pay $7 The eighth would pay $12 The ninth would pay $18 The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a h higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!” “That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

You forgot the part where the bar owner was allowing them to all to sign IOUs for 30 years, and now they all have to make up the difference, and the richest man doesn't think he should have to pay any more than the discounted price.

 

[pdog]

I tried to come up with my own counter-analogy about a year ago:

Cavemen Fred, Barney, and Mr. Stone all decide to pick up and move to new hunting grounds. They find caves that are roughly halfway between the nearest water source and the hunting grounds. When they get there they also agree that no man can claim ownership of Mt. Hotensmokie for fear of upsetting it.

-------------- water




--- Fred ---------------- Mr. Stone --- Mt. Hotensmokie
------------- Barney





--------- hunting grounds

Each man spends 6 hours a day hunting and another 6 hours a day getting enough water for his family.
One day Fred got very lost after a long mammoth hunt and ended up at the base of Mt. Hotensmokie. There he discovered a prestine spring. On his way home he tells both Mr. Stone and Barney about the spring.
Mr. Stone and Barney both immediately start using the spring. It is only a 2 hour round trip for Mr. Stone and a 3 hour round trip for Barney. It saves no time for Fred.

Without progressive taxes:
Mr. Stone uses his extra 4 hours a day over the next 3 years to build an aquifer back to his cave. Barney likes the idea so he spends the following two years extending Mr. Stone's aquifer to his cave. However, Mr Stone charges Barney a days worth of mammoth meat on every 3rd day for use of his aquafer. Mr. Stone spends the extra days digging a swimming pool and adding granite floors to his cave. Fred is unable to spend any time building aquifers as his day is still full.

With progressive taxes:
The men agreed that Mt. Hotensmokie is sacred lands, so the caveman council declares that they should proportionally share it's benefit. Mr. Stone agrees to carry a days worth of water 1 hour closer to fred's house, leaving him still with a net surplus of two hours. Barney carries that same water 45 minutes closer to fred's house leaving Barney with a net surplus of 1.5 hours. Mr. Stone still gets his granite floors, it just takes 6 years instead of 3.
However, the water carried by the other cavemen is now only a 5.5 hour round trip. It takes Fred 45 years to complete his aquifer. It almost wasn't completed since at one point the extra 30 minutes wasn't enough to reach the aquifer construction site as it got longer. However, the caveman council learned that Mr. Stone was using extra water from Mt.Hotensmokie to fill a swimming pool and create a fishing pond so they they ordered him to carry the extra bucket of water 2 hours closer to Fred's house. Of course Mr. Stone didn't actually carry this water himself, he sent an assistant to do it. 20 years ago he opened a granite quarry so he could make some money off of his other friends that wanted granite floors .

Unfortunately I've not found away to simplify the analogy without loosing key points in the way it's supposed to work. Combine that with two big problems:
1. Too many people get hung up in either the fictitious kid that pays for Harvard on McDonald's pay and student loans or the crack addict that have 12 kids in order to get a bigger welfare check as if these people are somehow the majority.
2. The average American does not understand "last dollar earned" and that a millionaire pays the exact same tax on the first 100k of his pay as the man that makes only 100k.

I've realized though that, simply put, money is the lube of the money machine and that's what makes progressive taxes fair.

But this debate is mostly ideological and can be summarized in two ways IMO:
1. Some people believe that America's greatness is a product of the wealthy.
2. Some people believe that the wealthy are a product of America's greatness.

 

[Rhapsody1447]

Thank you for posting a stereotypical chain mail political "analogy" that gets posted up at least once a year and is routinely pointed out that while it may be enlightening to those who know nothing about politics, those on a message board such as this realize the vast amount of flaws in it, the least of which is the fact that all of the taxes in our system don't come from just the income tax and thus the entire foundational argument upon which the analogy is built upon is a bit shaky.

Thank you for choosing to generalize and insult instead of discuss and debate. If you had read through the thread you would know that TOTAL effective tax rates were addressed, not just income tax rates. Payroll taxes are meant to be forced savings so they are not relevant to the analogy in the OP. Income taxes are the only progressively structured federal tax rates and thus are the topic of the discussion. I'm glad you found my stereotypical "chain mail" worthy enough for comment.

 

[Zyphlin]

Many people, including many in these forums, get up in arms when a reduction in the federal income tax rates results in rich people paying thousands less and poor people paying the same amount as before.

Let's be honest here. The majority of those on this forum that get upset about that likely do so not because the poor people are paying the same amount as before (IE, I've never seen someone advocating that the poor who pay no income taxes should start getting money given back as a tax return). Rather, they get upset that the "rich people" are paying thousands less and to counter act that programs that largely provide greater benefit to the poor rathre than the rich are getting cut. So essentially in their view not only are the rich getting to pay less taxes, but to compensate for that the poor are getting less services.

The anger over decreases, or "disproportionate" decreases, to the top brackets is rarely simply based on the fact that the poor also don't get a cut. It's that typically to compensate for the loss in revenue the government attaches cuts that tend to hurt the same people who aren't seeing a change in their total takehome rather than those who are.

Which is the other problem with the horribly simplistic example. Everyone is gaining the same benefit from the money they're paying for. They're all getting beers, and they're all presumably getting the same amount and kind of beers. Yet it's not a loss of the amount of beers that the lower end is upset about (loss of service) but rather seemingly that they're not getting money back.

Continue further, it fails to even highlight the base argument that many who argue strongly for progressive tax systems emplore...that a higher tax on lower income individuals affects their ability to survive more so than a higher tax on a higher income individual. You could have the same overly simplistic analogy being used to attack the notion of a flat tax. You could say the ten friends head to the bar and they're going to each buy a pitcher of beer that everyone will then share. So everyone has to throw in the same amount, the cost of one pitcher. However, for those who are wealth...lets say guys 6-10 in the original example...that's no issue and they always show up. However guys 1-5 start to decline coming out for drinks and end up not showing up any longer because the cost of a pitcher is just too expensive for them to be able to do on a routine basis. Suddenly the various benefits of having those other 5 guys around, and the benefits of each individual guy, is erased because the cost of entry is too great for them and they get left behind while the cost of entry was not even a blink of the eye for the others.

Now, that simplistic analogy noting the problems with a flat tax and how it harms those on the lower end of things is no better (or worse) than the one in the OP. Why? Because it's horribly simplistic, single minded, and is not being done from a perspective of attempting to help people better understand a reality but rather attempting to make people better understand YOUR reality through your own biases and attempts to divert/ignore what the other sides argument or view actually is.

There are a TON of legitimate and useful debates that can go on with regards to taxation and its various methods. The type of chain letter material of the OP is like Dr. Seuss compared to real discussion on the issue. Can it be useful? Sure. Can it be a bit insightful? Absolutely. Is it even close to scratching the surface of the complexities and realities of the situation? not in the least.

 

[Zyphlin]

Thank you for choosing to generalize and insult instead of discuss and debate. If you had read through the thread you would know that TOTAL effective tax rates were addressed, not just income tax rates.

Tax RATES, not total taxes, where as the OP clearly labels it as the "Tax system".

Our Tax System includes things like SS taxes, Medicare/Medicaid Taxes, Gasoline Taxes, Sales Taxes, Cigarette Taxes, and on and on.

When you post regurgitated drool that's passed around the internet like a 2 dollar whore for the past decade or so as if it is some kind of unique insight despite its incredibly simplistic, one sided, and biased attempt to view the situation don't be surprised when people insult and degrade your argument. Your argument was worthy of derision.

As part of a larger argument or actual piece of thought, perhaps it's a worthy addition. The OP however was presented singular, on it's own, as if some sterling piece of political insight worthy of no additional commentary or thought surrounding it. It's not, in the least. Even it's conclussion is in and of itself a horribly unrealistic one that it ignoranlty attempts to present in a way to suggest that somehow this singular issue is somehow in such a significant bubble that it alone shall drive individuals out of the country.

 

[Rhapsody1447]

Tax RATES, not total taxes, where as the OP clearly labels it as the "Tax system".

Our Tax System includes things like SS taxes, Medicare/Medicaid Taxes, Gasoline Taxes, Sales Taxes, Cigarette Taxes, and on and on.

When you post regurgitated drool that's passed around the internet like a 2 dollar whore for the past decade or so as if it is some kind of unique insight despite its incredibly simplistic, one sided, and biased attempt to view the situation don't be surprised when people insult and degrade your argument. Your argument was worthy of derision.

Yes, I clearly viewed it as profound, unique insight :roll: I posted it in the Partisan Politics forum and clearly explained that it was overly simplistic, didn't represent the entire tax system and was purely meant to show the difference between rate reductions and dollar reductions. This was the first time I had read it and I didn't receive it in a chain email; I guess I don't get around the brothel as much as you do. I completely expected people to insult and degrade the post. What I didn't expect was for you to ignore the actual argument presented and fly off the handle with rage.

 

[Zyphlin]

Perhaps next time, instead of acting the victim, declaring everyone else is "in a rage" or "flying off the handle" as you did with an earlier poster, you should actually present WHY you're posting something and your THOUGHTS on that something in the OP rather than getting "in a rage" and "Flying off the handle" when people point out that your post, devoid of any unique or legitimate thought, was rather useless and only THEN deciding to actually make a point and begin to present some kind of coherent argument.

Presenting it specifically against the notion that somehow in a progressive system cutting rates across the board will always present a larger total amount of money to the top rates is a reasonable argument to make and utilize the analogy as backup for. However, you didn't make that argument....not until after people rightfully started criticizing the post for what seemed to be a far "Broader" point, "The tax system explained" according to the only bit of original content you gave us in the first post.

However, even then, it's built upon a strawman. Who are these people railing against simply that the "rich" get a bigger dollar amount from an across the board cut of taxes? Where are these people? The majority of those I see arguing about it tend to be that the benefit to the rich is greater...something that is not really inherently a mathmatics problem but one that is more opinion based geared around what's "fair" and whether or not a higher standard of life is deserved to those with more money, etc. Or conversely that it negatively effects the poor more than the Rich even simply on a tax and income sense. Then there are those whose argument is that it's wrong because the poor are actually losing money in the tax cuts because they tend to come with spending cuts to compensate that affect the poor more than the rich. However, I rarely see someone arguing simply that it's bad because the rich get a higher $ amount from an across the board tax cut then the poor.

Now the argument that if you continue to just heap more and more onto "The rich" that they may finally get fed up, again...could be extrapolated to a pretty decent argument and discussion point with this being a spring board for it. However, that too comes with a number of pitfalls.

Perhaps if you had provided a "point" to the thread in the OP, rather than simply posting something from a seperate site, giving it a title which is inaccaruate, and adding no other discernable point, argument, debate, or stance in that OP, then people would've been able to "GET" the point of your thread. Instead, you failed to do such and, being that the majority of posters on this forum are not mind readers, all they could go off of was what you DID post in the OP. Instead of insulting and running down people for daring to not understand the greatness of your point that you failed to even mention in the OP, perhaps you should have realize that people are simply going off of what you actually gave them.

 

[iguanaman]

Flat tax isn't a sales tax, its applying the same tax % on all levels of taxable income. Also, we want to reduce spending and encourage saving to reduce debt over hang. Another good thing about a national sales tax or fair tax

The difference between a democrat and a republican is who owes the favor, the politican or the business

Same diffrence. ANY tax system that reduces consumer spending reduces growth, employment and GDP. That is your idea of prosperity? A progressive tax system encourages growth by taxing income not spent in the economy. Without growth we have recession. Raising taxes on those that spend all their income is self-defeating as consumer spending is reduced by the same amount as taxes were increased.

 

[VanceMack]

Thought I would add a, what I think, decent rebuttle: (Comment from this website)

The Obama Tax System Explained In Beer | Fortune Watch

(First Comment)

The 'response' is centered on falsehoods. the rich dont use more of public resources. Every public resource cited is a resource paid for (utilities, land, etc), as opposed to the resources the wealthy dont typically use which are basically ALL of the social services programs offered to the low/no income set.

Ive said it befoire...it always has amazed me that people are pissed off that the rich have to pay a little less (comparatively) for their beer than they would have before instead of having the decency and grace to say "hey...rich guy...thanks for paying for my beer!" Instead what we get is "hey...rich guy...**** you...I want you to pay even MORE so I can have MORE free beer and I still am not going to pay anything for it and oh yeah, BTW, **** you...did I already mention that?"

 

[Rhapsody1447]

Perhaps next time, instead of acting the victim, declaring everyone else is "in a rage" or "flying off the handle" as you did with an earlier poster, you should actually present WHY you're posting something and your THOUGHTS on that something in the OP rather than getting "in a rage" and "Flying off the handle" when people point out that your post, devoid of any unique or legitimate thought, was rather useless and only THEN deciding to actually make a point and begin to present some kind of coherent argument.

I'm perfectly calm, dude. I clarified the position in post #4 and was not "in a rage" or "flying of the handle". I had never read the analogy before and posted it for the exact reasons you listed above:

The type of chain letter material of the OP is like Dr. Seuss compared to real discussion on the issue. Can it be useful? Sure. Can it be a bit insightful? Absolutely.

Presenting it specifically against the notion that somehow in a progressive system cutting rates across the board will always present a larger total amount of money to the top rates is a reasonable argument to make and utilize the analogy as backup for. However, you didn't make that argument....not until after people rightfully started criticizing the post for what seemed to be a far "Broader" point, "The tax system explained" according to the only bit of original content you gave us in the first post.

I then went on, in post #42, to individually address the criticisms of the argument in a calm, non-confrontational manner (with the exception of iguanaman I'll admit). Multiple posters had already previously explained that the analogy did not attack the progressive tax system as a whole. The conclusion of the OP summed up the argument quite plainly in two sentences

The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore

However, even then, it's built upon a strawman. Who are these people railing against simply that the "rich" get a bigger dollar amount from an across the board cut of taxes? Where are these people? The majority of those I see arguing about it tend to be that the benefit to the rich is greater...something that is not really inherently a mathmatics problem but one that is more opinion based geared around what's "fair" and whether or not a higher standard of life is deserved to those with more money, etc. Or conversely that it negatively effects the poor more than the Rich even simply on a tax and income sense. Then there are those whose argument is that it's wrong because the poor are actually losing money in the tax cuts because they tend to come with spending cuts to compensate that affect the poor more than the rich. However, I rarely see someone arguing simply that it's bad because the rich get a higher $ amount from an across the board tax cut then the poor.

mpg and Harshaw both related specific incidences where these arguments are made. They are littered across this forum and progressive sources. I encounter graphs such as these all the time on this forum and elsewhere:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/romneytaxbush.png
http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/25mitt-tax-graph.jpg
http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow.../Average-tax-cut-by-income-group_full_600.jpg

Now the argument that if you continue to just heap more and more onto "The rich" that they may finally get fed up, again...could be extrapolated to a pretty decent argument and discussion point with this being a spring board for it. However, that too comes with a number of pitfalls.

Perhaps if you had provided a "point" to the thread in the OP, rather than simply posting something from a seperate site, giving it a title which is inaccaruate, and adding no other discernable point, argument, debate, or stance in that OP, then people would've been able to "GET" the point of your thread. Instead, you failed to do such and, being that the majority of posters on this forum are not mind readers, all they could go off of was what you DID post in the OP. Instead of insulting and running down people for daring to not understand the greatness of your point that you failed to even mention in the OP, perhaps you should have realize that people are simply going off of what you actually gave them.

Please point out examples of me insulting and running down people. The only responses I made that could be considered inflammatory were responses to "Idiotic, Awful post". I simply shared a story I found interesting in the forum I thought was appropriate. In fact, I PM'd a mod to have it deleted so I could redact certain elements and reformat the argument, but I was informed that since someone had already responded that doing so was against policy. What I don't understand is that despite acknowledging the merits of the analogy, you chose to attack the post instead of make an argument.