Trump Seeks Tax Hike on Wealthy Earning $2.5 Million or More

[Deuce]

Growing government control and power over people isn't the solution as history has proven.

Trump is growing government control and power over people.

 

[eohrnberger]

Trump is growing government control and power over people.

So the push narrative goes.
From my view, Trump is correcting that which shouldn't have been done in the first place.
But view points on this clearly differ.

 

[eohrnberger]

I think you're starting with a misunderstanding of who has a claim on wealth in the first place.

Those who have earned it, I would think, whether it be by hard work and frugal living, or shrewd / wise investments which have paid off.

Again, you're talking about wealth after it has already been distributed according to a scheme that does not exist in nature, but is, rather, the result of laws we humans have written. There's nothing particularly right about most of them, and it is those very rules that are at issue here. Your replies generally assume they are right, and then, of course, it's easy to conclude that they are.

Either someone has a right to what they've earned, or you have law of the jungle, where anyone can come along and take it from you, without repercussions.
Which one is it for which you are advocating now?

But they are not all right. The principle flaw is that they have a very limited understanding of what constitutes a freely entered contract, and also a very limited understanding of what it means to earn something.

That some 'a very limited understanding of what constitutes a freely entered contract' does not negate such contracts.
That some have ''a very limited understanding of what it means to earn something' speaks equal parts to failures in parents and the education system.

Individual labor is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of wealth creation.

Agreed. Good decision making is also required.

The structure of interrelated contracts and how those interact with laws on the books ignores that sufficient clause, which is where the rules we've established go wrong.

In short, there's no disfavored tribe to "take" from in the first place.

Umm, no. Clearly those from whom the government confiscates are disfavored.
Suppose the progressives are swept into power in the next election. They promptly go about imposing wealth confiscation laws. Its easy to predict that wealthy progressives will be given loop holes, where has wealthy conservative won't (favored vs. disfavored).
We've already seen this type of behavior from Lois Learner and the IRS during the Obama administration. We have heard this from the Democrats campaign after campaign under the gaslighting of 'fair share'.
So tribal clearly applies as well.

As an addendum, it's not obviously true what you say about government anyway--that is, it's not obviously true that a government that can give you everything you want is powerful enough to take all you have. It'd be fairly easy to design a set of rules that meet the first condition but not the second. If you're talking about the government stepping outside rules that inform its actions, then any government at all probably meets those criteria.

Again, not talking about confiscation and redistribution. Just production and distribution. As to who...that's a good question, but we could figure that out pretty easily. Representative democracy is a good place to start.

Were it a pure democracy, then it'd be mob rule. As it is, the US is a Democratic Republic, where there are inalienable rights which keep the keep the pure democracy mob rule at bay.
Pure democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding who to have for lunch.

This is not always true, either.

 

[eohrnberger]

I don't think you cited anything. It seems to me untrue that pure capitalism has lifted the most people from abject poverty; it looks like mixed economic systems did. But feel free to cite something and I'll take a look at it.

No, I did cite, if you go back you'll see it, and there are no 'pure capitalistic' and / or free market economic system at present, likely there will never be, and will always be a regulated.

Actually, no. I don't think that right exists in reality. No one--not me, not you, not Musk, not anyone, earns their wealth these days.

Opinions clearly differ.

There's a reason we call it the slippery slope fallacy--because it is. Taking one step, three, five, whatever steps, toward something does not mean we have to go all the way to it.

Meh. Thanks, but no. I don't want to proceed even with the first step in that direction, thanks.

But the thing is, he didn't. I and other there recognized the ineptitude at the top and we kept the company going despite the son's absurd directives. In the meantime, the son had received close to half a billion dollars in wealth from his father's efforts; it's unlikely he was going to sink down the economic ladder.

Oh well. That's how the cookie crumbles. You are in favor of passing legislation to try and curb that? What would that legislation even look like?

I think I would say it's more complicated than that.

No, I don't think so. If the government confiscates wealth from the investment class there'll be less investment, and that'll have exactly that impact.

 

[dairyair]

Meh.


I'm inclined to disagree.

The right to property in the U.S. Constitution is primarily protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which state that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation and that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This ensures that property rights are respected and that individuals have legal recourse if their property is taken or regulated by the government.​

Property Rights: An Overview of Property Rights in Law

Property laws shape how we interact with our possessions and those of others. Explore the types of property and the legal principles that govern property ownership in the United States.

online.law.pitt.edu

https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policymakers-9th-edition-2022/property-rights-constitution

Suffice it to say I believe there are inherent property rights, and the U.S. Constitution is the formalization of those rights which the US government is required to respect, unjust confiscation not acceptable.


A rather binary point of view, I think.

I view rights as man made. Without an enforcing mechanism and laws, there are no rights.
The above is about the gov't taking property. But owing property is not a right. No one is given property, unless inherited or similar.

Stop paying property taxes and see just how well one owns it.

So, in your case, the gov't grants the ownership of property, and makes a law to make it harder for gov't to take said property and uses the gov't legal laws to abide by it.
So, as you said, gov't can take property if they change the laws.

Eminent domain can cause you to lose your property to said gov't

Binary view of free markets? Hardly, there's 100s or 1000s of reasons markets aren't free.
Binary is 2 options. I briefly listed 4 or 5. There's many more reasons markets aren't free. Just ask any big tech company.

 

[eohrnberger]

I view rights as man made. Without an enforcing mechanism and laws, there are no rights.

The US Constitution does a pretty reasonable job of enumerating these rights, calling them God-Given Rights.
Now if you want to call those rights as being enforced by this,

The above is about the gov't taking property. But owing property is not a right. No one is given property, unless inherited or similar.

Given? No, that's not what I was talking about. Owning property, yes I was, and would be covered by the owners' property rights.

Stop paying property taxes and see just how well one owns it.

So, in your case, the gov't grants the ownership of property, and makes a law to make it harder for gov't to take said property and uses the gov't legal laws to abide by it.
So, as you said, gov't can take property if they change the laws.

Eminent domain can cause you to lose your property to said gov't

In cases of eminent domain, property cannot be taken without appropriate compensation for that property's value, criminal proceedings being one of the few exceptions.

Binary view of free markets? Hardly, there's 100s or 1000s of reasons markets aren't free.
Binary is 2 options. I briefly listed 4 or 5. There's many more reasons markets aren't free. Just ask any big tech company.

This is what you posted:

. . .
And there's no such thing as free markets. Laws, taxes, regulations, subsidies, monopolies, all make free markets non existent.

What's more binary than free markets don't exist?

You observe markets, more specifically choices made in those markets, comes with a cost or expense. I have no argument with that, just as long as the choice to NOT buy something is available, which it is generally is.

 

[eohrnberger]

Not meant to be an equivalence...not even sure how what I wrote could be seen that way. The point was that this response:

Life is unfair, get over it.


Is never applied evenly. The folks who apply it at all do so in very selective ways that follow no obvious principle. Why not just make this response to any form of injustice or unfairness at all? Conversely, why not apply it to no case at all? Why would we apply it to some cases of unfairness or injustice but not others?

This response of yours here seems that you are wanting equal outcomes, rather than equal opportunities. The implementation of equal outcomes comes with such a heavy government hand that it would destroy equal opportunities in its wake. Better, I think, to have a slightly flawed system of equal opportunities, and continue to work to make them more equal rather than enforcing equal outcomes with that heavy government hand. You are free to disagree.

The second point was that it's a bad response anyway. The concepts of fairness and justice mean that it's not a response we ever make--the response is literally an acquiescence in injustice or unfairness.


Again, what do you mean by power? If you mean, writing a set of laws that would distribute wealth more equitably, which government will follow, then this is obviously false. If you mean, power regardless of laws or rules, then we pretty much blow past that marker the moment we establish a government.

Yes, that's the heavy government hand I was referring to.

That's probably what we would have regardless of what the tax rate was.

The higher the tax rate, the more unfair and unjustified it is perceived, the greater the focus will shift from earning and growing wealth to hiding it from the government. Its a balancing act, but one you don't seem to want to acknowledge, opting instead for that heavy government hand.

It does, but it's not clear what we're meant to draw from it. The period over which the decline in poverty is reported is a period of mixed economics, not pure capitalism. To get pure capitalism, you need to go back before roughly 1930. That period was marked by high inequality and squalor for a great many in the midst of unprecedented wealth for a few.

What to draw from it is how few people other economic systems have raised the standard of living for. Managed capitalism and managed free markets being the clearly far superior economic system.

They seem to be fairly balanced to me...and their people are generally happier than ours are.

The level of happiness of a population is objective measured how? I suspect that this can't be done, and is based in the subjective.

Can you provide an example?

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010):

• Passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis, Dodd-Frank increased federal regulation of financial institutions, creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and imposing stricter rules on banks, hedge funds, and derivatives.
• Increased Government Control: Expanded federal oversight through the CFPB, which regulates consumer financial products (e.g., mortgages, credit cards), and gave the government authority to monitor “too big to fail” institutions and intervene in financial markets.

The greatest irony of all is that it didn't reduce the number of “too big to fail” institutions, but forced a consolidation in those financial institutions, making more “too big to fail” institutions and the death of the small town bank industry.

 

[justoneman]

An insurrectionist Obama Judge will block it.

The DP left will melt down that it's unconstitutional to raise taxes on the rich.

They oppose anything Trump does so... Yeah.

 

[dairyair]

The US Constitution does a pretty reasonable job of enumerating these rights, calling them God-Given Rights.
Now if you want to call those rights as being enforced by this,


Given? No, that's not what I was talking about. Owning property, yes I was, and would be covered by the owners' property rights.


In cases of eminent domain, property cannot be taken without appropriate compensation for that property's value, criminal proceedings being one of the few exceptions.


This is what you posted:

What's more binary than free markets don't exist?

You observe markets, more specifically choices made in those markets, comes with a cost or expense. I have no argument with that, just as long as the choice to NOT buy something is available, which it is generally is.

What god. Who's god. Prove this god and the words from that god.
Else we're talking man made rights.

Owner's property rights are laws set forth by a gov't. So, it is not a right to own property. I agree.
Just there's laws to protect owners of property. As long as some squatters haven't moved in?
Or it's not a rental property, for renters also have rights. Sometimes in difference to owner's rights

Appropriate compensation per which party? I've heard stories of owners doing very well and some getting taken to the cleaners by a gov't.

I posted nothing binary. That you view several options as binary is your problem. Perhaps you have a binary view.
The option's are not limited to free market fully or no free market at all.
That's the problem, there's various states of markets. With different regulations, laws, taxes, rights, etc. Some can be very lenient, some can be very restrictive. But totally free from interference, never.

The choice to NOT buy something is always available. Why would anyone think any different????????

 

[dairyair]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.

This is because the plan as is will had over $3T to the deficit over 10 yrs.
Quite the opposite of a plan to reduce debt and deficits. And it's because the tax revenue lost is more than the spending cuts.

And I seriously doubt the dems will not support raising taxes on those making over $2.5M.
As for the rest of your post, it seems you went off some kind of edge.

...

President Trump’s tax policies would add roughly $3.8 trillion to the national debt, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

https://thehill.com/business/5309473-trump-tax-policies-national-debt/

 

[eohrnberger]

What god. Who's god. Prove this god and the words from that god.
Else we're talking man made rights.

Not everyone views it that way. You are just going to have to see your way clear to allow others their view.

Owner's property rights are laws set forth by a gov't. So, it is not a right to own property. I agree.
Just there's laws to protect owners of property. As long as some squatters haven't moved in?
Or it's not a rental property, for renters also have rights. Sometimes in difference to owner's rights

Appropriate compensation per which party? I've heard stories of owners doing very well and some getting taken to the cleaners by a gov't.

The point being out right property seizure without compensation its how it works.

I posted nothing binary. That you view several options as binary is your problem. Perhaps you have a binary view.
The option's are not limited to free market fully or no free market at all.

In one instance you declare that there are no free markets, then declare that there are. Seems confused or befuddled somehow.

That's the problem, there's various states of markets. With different regulations, laws, taxes, rights, etc. Some can be very lenient, some can be very restrictive. But totally free from interference, never.

Fair enough.

The choice to NOT buy something is always available. Why would anyone think any different????????

 

[MTAtech]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.

Trump, beyond the rhetoric, has made no effort to have the current budget include an increase in the tax rate of those earning >$2.5 million. Actually the opposite.

The Democrats have been saying taxes should raised on the wealthy and continue to do so. The amount of effort spent on men using women’s bathrooms could fit on the head of a pin.

 

[dairyair]

Not everyone views it that way. You are just going to have to see your way clear to allow others their view.




The point being out right property seizure without compensation its how it works.


In one instance you declare that there are no free markets, then declare that there are. Seems confused or befuddled somehow.


Fair enough.

You can have your view. You can have your god.
But to claim some god, that you apparently can't ID and claim we have certain things we get because of this god you can't ID, means you need others to have their views.

Which is more related to humanity.

Which is a law that a gov't enacts.

I never said there are, why did you claim that. I said there are various levels of markets, none free. All with varying degrees of manipulation, interference, or any other method to either encourage or discourage certain things.
Those things can be done by a gov't, other competitors, monopolies, boycotts, etc.
There's literally any way to effect any market.

 

[George50]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.

Of course Trump’s voters are so gullible they won’t be able to figure out that Trump just pulled another fast one on them. He knows the Republican Congress will NEVER do this but it sounds good to his stupid base.

 

[Greenbeard]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Turns out it’s the usual GOP slop. Rich get richer, poor get poorer.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.

Standing by for the lefties to start talking about the Laffer curve.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Those who have earned it, I would think, whether it be by hard work and frugal living, or shrewd / wise investments which have paid off.

No one earns their wealth these days. No one. Not you. Not me. Not anybody. Maybe if you found someone who was raised by wolves and never had any interaction with any other human being, that'd be an example, but outside of that, no one earns their wealth these days. People work for it--but that's not the same thing.

Either someone has a right to what they've earned, or you have law of the jungle, where anyone can come along and take it from you, without repercussions.
Which one is it for which you are advocating now?

The first. The problem is that no one earns their wealth. Society does. Individuals do not. If you don't believe me, just strip yourself of everything you got from another human being, walk naked into the wilderness somewhere, and work for a year or longer to see how much wealth you amass with your own labor, outside the context of a society. The overwhelming likelihood is that you'll be dead inside two weeks. If you do manage to make it a year, you might have a rudimentary set of tools, a small one-room smoky and drafty dwelling, maybe some buckskin clothes (though more likely something woven from grass), and perhaps a smoking shed made of small branches and stones. Compare the value of all of that to what you are paid in one year at your current job, and what that money allows you to purchase. The differential is so great as to essentially zero-out the value of your labor by itself.

Societies earn wealth. Individuals do not.

That some 'a very limited understanding of what constitutes a freely entered contract' does not negate such contracts.
That some have ''a very limited understanding of what it means to earn something' speaks equal parts to failures in parents and the education system.

I was talking about you and people who think like you. You do not know or understand what freedom is and what earning is. You work, no doubt. But that is not the same thing.

Umm, no. Clearly those from whom the government confiscates are disfavored.

No one is confiscating anything. If no one earns their wealth, then by definition, it cannot be confiscation. Societies generate and earn wealth; societies have the first claim on it. Individuals after that.

Suppose the progressives are swept into power in the next election. They promptly go about imposing wealth confiscation laws. Its easy to predict that wealthy progressives will be given loop holes, where has wealthy conservative won't (favored vs. disfavored).

Well...I wouldn't do such a thing (i.e. grant myself loopholes). But perhaps I'm a rarity, though progressives generally strike me as fairly principled people who have interest in money only to the extent it is necessary to survive. If I were suddenly given a huge fortune, I'd give most of it away. I have before.

We've already seen this type of behavior from Lois Learner and the IRS during the Obama administration. We have heard this from the Democrats campaign after campaign under the gaslighting of 'fair share'.
So tribal clearly applies as well.

Were it a pure democracy, then it'd be mob rule. As it is, the US is a Democratic Republic, where there are inalienable rights which keep the keep the pure democracy mob rule at bay.
Pure democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding who to have for lunch.

I'm not sure how any of that is relevant.

 

[j brown's body]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.

So how'd that work out?

 

[TangoNoCash]

But in the end the distribution of tax benefits under the bill is as follows:

• Top 1% of earners: Receive approximately 58% of the total tax cuts.
• Top 0.1% of earners: Receive about half of the total tax cuts, amounting to over $1.7 trillion over the next decade.
• Middle-income households: Receive a modest share, with estimates around $56 billion over ten years.
• Bottom 20% of earners: Experience a 4% decline in annual financial resources, including both cash and the value of government aid such as Medicaid and SNAP.

 

[ncguy]

They oppose anything Trump does so... Yeah.

you're agreeing with that stupid post? lol

 

[ashurbanipal]

No, I did cite, if you go back you'll see it, and there are no 'pure capitalistic' and / or free market economic system at present, likely there will never be, and will always be a regulated.

There were essentially no regulations on industry from the 1850s through about 1932--what did exist in that realm was basically local zoning laws, and even those were few and far between. Once industry became regulated and we built social safety nets, then we had a mixed economy, and it is at that point that your statistics start showing people coming out of poverty.

Opinions clearly differ.

It's not an opinion. My view is demonstrable. See experiment proposed in previous post. Or try another one: I'm sure you recall the "you didn't build that" furor from a decade and a half ago--a remark made by Obama. His point was that any business owner had massive help from society that is unrecognized in our current economic scheme. The counterpoint came soon enough: lots of business owners came along and said "hell yes, we did build that"--the claim being that they built what they have all on their own. Did they? I don't think so. Pick any successful business person you like, and radically change the social context, and see what happens. Take someone like Elon Musk, rewind the clock on him so that he's, say, 15 years old, and plop him down in the middle of 8th century Italy. Let the clock run. Does he build the same fortune again? Does he build electric vehicles and 400 billion dollars worth of wealth and private airplanes and other such stuff for himself?

Obviously not. But why not--he should be able to, if the conservative claim is correct. That claim, again, was that someone like Elon Musk built his wealth all by himself. Any help he had is, in this way of thinking, adequately and fully compensated by whatever contract he had with those helpers. If that's true, he should be able to build exactly the same wealth in any social context--but clearly, he could not do so. Ergo, the conservative counterpoint is false and Obama was correct--Musk did not build that himself. Society built it; he benefits from it. That's the problem.

Meh. Thanks, but no. I don't want to proceed even with the first step in that direction, thanks.

I'm sure you don't, but you're just wrong, as you should realize by the fact that you have no substantive reply--"don't want to" doesn't qualify as substantive.

Oh well. That's how the cookie crumbles. You are in favor of passing legislation to try and curb that? What would that legislation even look like?

Once again, the "life isn't fair" response...see previous replies. Anyway, I'm after far more than drafting legislation. The foundations of Western Civilization need to be re-thought. That's nothing that's going to happen in my lifetime. My old boss example is just one drawn from my own life that illustrates the issue with the current regimes of conception.

 

[dobieg]

So how'd that work out?

It didn't.

 

[ashurbanipal]

This response of yours here seems that you are wanting equal outcomes, rather than equal opportunities.

What makes you say that?

Yes, that's the heavy government hand I was referring to.

That doesn't explain what you mean, so I'll ask again. When you're talking about government power, do you mean power within laws or outside of laws? If outside, then any government already meets that definition, so it's hard to figure out what your complaint could be. If within laws, then your claim is obviously false. Laws can be written that give government the power to give but not the power to take.

The higher the tax rate, the more unfair and unjustified it is perceived, the greater the focus will shift from earning and growing wealth to hiding it from the government. Its a balancing act, but one you don't seem to want to acknowledge, opting instead for that heavy government hand.

Not if you change how money works at the most fundamental level. There wouldn't be anything to hide.

What to draw from it is how few people other economic systems have raised the standard of living for. Managed capitalism and managed free markets being the clearly far superior economic system.

When you say "managed," it sounds like you're agreeing with my view but just insisting on name changes. What is different about managed capitalism as compared to a mixed economy?

The level of happiness of a population is objective measured how? I suspect that this can't be done, and is based in the subjective.

As one would expect, since happiness is subjective. This would be another of those issues that is at the heart of Western civilization but that really needs a re-think. Merely because something is objective (which term loses a lot of clarity the more you think about it--you should read Thomas Nagel's book The View from Nowhere on this topic. It's a real eye-opener, and Nagel is a fantastically clear writer) doesn't mean it is somehow not real. Happiness is subjective, but it's also vastly important, and quite real. Psychologists and sociologists have developed ways to measure it.

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010):

• Passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis, Dodd-Frank increased federal regulation of financial institutions, creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and imposing stricter rules on banks, hedge funds, and derivatives.
• Increased Government Control: Expanded federal oversight through the CFPB, which regulates consumer financial products (e.g., mortgages, credit cards), and gave the government authority to monitor “too big to fail” institutions and intervene in financial markets.

The greatest irony of all is that it didn't reduce the number of “too big to fail” institutions, but forced a consolidation in those financial institutions, making more “too big to fail” institutions and the death of the small town bank industry.

Sure--most legislation these days, and for a long time, is written by center-right folks, which is as close to the political/economic left that we tend to get in this country right now, and of course, such legislation won't do much good and will just lead to unintended consequences.

 

[Variant]

It didn't.

All of us can now sarcastically put on our shocked face.

Who could have possibly predicted this obvious outcome.

 

[George50]

It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.

Of course this was just another con job by Trump to appeal to his base.

He floats the popular idea of increasing taxes on the wealthy publicly. Then when he is twisting arms and threatening holdouts to get House Republicans to do what he actually wants the result is nowhere to be seen, nor is he complaining about it.

The result is just the same as always take from the poor and give to the rich like Trump, Musk and their buddies.

If Trump really wanted a tax increase on the wealthy that’s what we would have.