Who would Democrat tax increases effect?

[_ajax18]

My only request on this to start is can we try to stick to the topic and avoid the temptation to inject race into this conversation.

I keep hearing that most educated people are liberals and registered Democrats. Republicans are uneducated working class people. If that's true, where do these uneducated people get jobs making over $250k/year? The article makes it pretty clear that the new tax proposals will not just be hitting the 1% which seems to be a common Democrat talking point. I think the more reasonable posters on this board can admit that. I won't be effected by increased taxes on people making $250k/year but I'm a PhD Republican voter so I don't really fit the stereotype either. But I still think what these payroll taxes will be doing to families making only slightly more than me are immoral and unfair. It's very interesting for me to see if these "educated," liberals are really going to vote themselves a take hike. I personally think the number of people making over $250k/year and less than $1 million/ year and voting Democrat are a lot fewer and further between than we are led to believe by the mainstream media.

Elizabeth Warren and other leading Democrats have said that they would impose a stiff payroll tax hike on higher-income families. In Warren’s proposal, she would impose a 14.8 percent payroll tax on workers with incomes above $250,000.

Currently, Social Security payroll taxes amount to 12.4 percent for incomes up to $132,900. Incomes above that level are not taxed and do not contribute to a worker’s future Social Security benefits.

Warren’s plan would have the tax kick back in on incomes above $250,000. And the rate would rise to 14.8 percent. Like the current tax, this would be split between the employee and the employer.

If the wealth tax is a “billionaires tax,” this would be a “hundred-thousandaires tax.” It would hit the pocketbooks of around 5 million households.

The tax on higher incomes would not result in higher benefits. Breaking with its roots as an earned entitlement, Social Security would become a wealth transfer system.

“The result would be a large tax increase on high earners, even before other changes a Democratic administration might contemplate, such as increasing income tax rates or taxes on investment income,” New York Times writer Neil Irwin explains. “The top earners facing new Social Security taxes would not see their future benefits rise commensurately; rather it would amount to a transfer from high earners to low- and middle-income Social Security recipients.”
This could cause some political trouble for Warren and other advocates of payroll tax hikes because the higher taxes would be paid disproportionately in Democratic-leaning states, according to data from Moody’s. Irwin describes the tax proposals as “a test of what affluent liberals are willing to sacrifice to accomplish progressive goals.”

According to Warren’s tax plans, high-income households would also be hit by a 14.8 percent tax on investment incomes. This tax would apply to individuals with incomes above $250,000 or households with incomes above $400,000.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019 ... tax-hikes/

[_Analytics]

The current payroll tax system is a flat tax until your income reaches $132,900 a year, at which point it becomes regressive. The following numbers illustrate precisely how the current system works:

Income: $20,000. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $100,000. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $132,900. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $200,000. Tax: 8.24%
Income: $500,000. Tax: 3.30%
Income: $1,000,000. Tax: 1.65%

People who are working their asses off to earn $20,000 a year are paying 12.4% of their income in payroll taxes. Meanwhile, people with cushy jobs who make $1,000,000 a year only pay 1.65%. I don’t think that is fair.

I would hope that whether Republican or Democrat, "the rich" would recognize how unfair the current system is and support a system that made it more fair and balanced the budget.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

My only request on this to start is can we try to stick to the topic and avoid the temptation to inject race into this conversation.

Immediately brings race into a discussion he doesn’t want talking about race. K.

I won't be effected by increased taxes on people making $250k/year but I'm a PhD Republican voter so I don't really fit the stereotype either.

“PhD educated” and he never seems to understand the difference between ‘effect’ and ‘affect’, nor does the basic concepts of punctuation ever seem to be within his grasp. K. Whatevs.

Anywhey. Tax structures take all sorts of forms that pass the burden onto low-income earners in a disproportionate fashion. We’ve spent many posts, on many threads, breaking the concept of wealth down for you, and why wealthier people should shoulder a greater tax burden than the poor. You reject it every_single_time with some hand waving.

So, what’s the point? What do you want from us? You’re clearly entrenched in some fantasy about governance, gutting governance, and all the stuff where NatSocs and Alt-Right Libertarians magically work out their ideological differences to create an efficient, top-line, low-cost government agency that protects your ability to crush your enemies through the power of White might.

- Doc

[_Res Ipsa]

The current payroll tax system is a flat tax until your income reaches $132,900 a year, at which point it becomes regressive. The following numbers illustrate precisely how the current system works:

Income: $20,000. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $100,000. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $132,900. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $200,000. Tax: 8.24%
Income: $500,000. Tax: 3.30%
Income: $1,000,000. Tax: 1.65%

People who are working their asses off to earn $20,000 a year are paying 12.4% of their income in payroll taxes. Meanwhile, people with cushy jobs who make $1,000,000 a year only pay 1.65%. I don’t think that is fair.

I would hope that whether Republican or Democrat, "the rich" would recognize how unfair the current system is and support a system that made it more fair and balanced the budget.

Exactly, FICA is a tax on wages that is regressive because wages earned above the cap are not taxed at all. I haven’t gone through all the tax proposals, but raising the FICA cap is generally proposed as a was to address the problem of social security insolvency. I’m not familiar with what Warren’s plan would do with addition funds that would result from raising the cap.

Warren’s wealth tax is clearly a tax on the richest folks. I don’t know whether 1% is the right number, but it’s something like that.

If you have employer provided health insurance, for which you pay a relatively small premium, her tax increase to fund MFA will cost you more than you will save by not having to make any contribution toward the cost of the insurance. In theory, because the premium the employer is paying for your insurance is part of your total compensation package, your wages should go up by the amount your employer will save because it no longer has to pay the premium for your insurance. In practice, I’m skeptical.

One thing, Ajax, you’re over generalizing based on average. The average education level of self-identified Republicans and Democrats tells you nothing about the distribution of educational level within those groups. For example, that could be true and a bigger percentage of Republicans could have PhDs than Democrats. (Statisticians, please smack me if I’m wrong about that.) Knowing the distribution is just as important as knowing the average.

I always have to remember this example to minimize screwing thus stuff up. Four minimum wage workers are having a beer in a bar. Elon Musk walks into the bar. The average wage of people in the bar has skyrocketed, but none of the other four guys is making a red cent more.

[_ajax18]

The current payroll tax system is a flat tax until your income reaches $132,900 a year, at which point it becomes regressive. The following numbers illustrate precisely how the current system works:

Income: $20,000. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $100,000. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $132,900. Tax: 12.4%
Income: $200,000. Tax: 8.24%
Income: $500,000. Tax: 3.30%
Income: $1,000,000. Tax: 1.65%

People who are working their asses off to earn $20,000 a year are paying 12.4% of their income in payroll taxes. Meanwhile, people with cushy jobs who make $1,000,000 a year only pay 1.65%. I don’t think that is fair.

I would hope that whether Republican or Democrat, "the rich" would recognize how unfair the current system is and support a system that made it more fair and balanced the budget.

This is because FICA was sold to the voter as a forced retirement savings not a wealth redistribution mechanism. Given this is what FICA has become, I suppose you're right.

Warren’s wealth tax is clearly a tax on the richest folks. I don’t know whether 1% is the right number, but it’s something like that.

It's people making $250k or more a year. What percentage of these people vote Democrat?

The 1% is certainly people making a lot more than $250k/year right?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=percent+o ... 0+per+year

[_Xenophon]

It's people making $250k or more a year. What percentage of these people vote Democrat?

Based on 2016 exit polling the vote for those making $250k or more is roughly split down the middle 47/47 (plus or minus a few points depending on the source, if it helps even Fox has it at 46/46). Trump actually did worse with this crowd than Romney did in 2012.

[_ajax18]

Trump actually did worse with this crowd than Romney did in 2012.

So where did Trump get the votes to win? Was it just lower Democrat voter turnout?

[_EAllusion]

Wealthy people are not a large % of the voter pool Ajax. They're disproportionately powerful, but small in numbers. The majority of people with college educations are not wealthy.

[_EAllusion]

On a separate thought (Dr. Shades), it used to be the case that Democrats did really well among people with high school education and less and people with graduate and post-graduate degrees, but Republicans cleaned up among people with college and some college education to offset this.

Starting in the 90's and accelerating into the present, what happened is Democrats maintained their advantage among the educated elite, but also started gaining (and eventually winning) college educated people in general. This was offset by Republicans doing increasingly well among poorly educated whites.

The stereotype of the old order is still around, but we are increasingly looking at a partisan breakdown of the educated vs. the uneducated. That isn't good for society. You may or may not be aware that it is a common poli sci forecast that minority males are going to increasingly shuffle into the Republican fold in the medium term. That prediction is in part based on this demographic sorting trend.