Poverty in America

[Claeyt]

Mitt Romney's 10.4 percent on hundreds of millions in profits is proof. That is a regressive tax rate. You and I pay more than that.

Unless you have a fairly high income if you tend to pay more than around 10% income tax it likely just means that you are very bad at doing your taxes.

This is absolutely not true in America.

[DarkNacht]

Mitt Romney's 10.4 percent on hundreds of millions in profits is proof. That is a regressive tax rate. You and I pay more than that.

Unless you have a fairly high income if you tend to pay more than around 10% income tax it likely just means that you are very bad at doing your taxes.

This is absolutely not true in America.

Yes it is.

[Dallane]

Fun fact. Standing in line at HEB(grocery store). Some fine folks on WICK are stocking up as they should.....cept for the big ass cart of wine they also have. Good to see my money go to the "needy".

[TotalyMeow]

Well, talking to Claeyt has devolved into my getting called names while he tries to redefine words to suit whatever confusing point he's trying to make. I've lost the thread of that conversation to the point where I'm not sure what I was talking about anymore. So going back and finding some interesting things others have said...

If there is so much poverty in the USA, how do you keep society stable?
And how is there no uprising?

There is a great deal of poverty, but there are also plenty of people still with enough money to pay for our various social aid programs which then give money and other forms of help to enough of those who are in poverty that they don't revolt. The way we are handling and funding that welfare isn't doing us any long term favors, but it does at least keep things relatively stable.

3 or 4 rich people tax can cover the whole assistance of the us. (so said the Us guide itself while i was un US. No idea how to confirm this but it's not incredible)
THat's why the US system can't be successifully exported outside. There are many factors that prevent US from collapse. Lots of land to exploit

Not quite. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2015, the 574 highest paid people (.3% of US citizens) made a total of $1.82 trillion dollars income. That was 13.7% of all US income. They paid 33.1% of all taxes (including sales and other excise tax, payroll tax, income tax, business tax, and others) which IS a higher percent than anyone else paid. So, they payed 33% of all the taxes in the US, but Social Security, aid programs, and healthcare programs account for more than 60% of US spending altogether. To get that much, you have to add the next tax bracket of 984 people to get to about 1% of our population and a total of 18.7% of the income and 64.6% of the taxes paid. Of course, everyone who pays in specifically pays for certain things like Social Security or Medicaid so it's not actually fungible.

Here's a link to the government study I referenced: https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4763.Take a look at table A-6. If you'd rather see it in graph form, you can find that in this article: http://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-much-do-people-pay-taxes, which shows the % of income each person in a tax bracket paid to income tax in the first graph and all taxes, including sales taxes and the like, in the second graph. A fair visual of where the taxes go can be found here: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/, near the bottom where there is a pie chart with 'All Federal Spending'.

Yes they do, that's what poor desperate people do. I'm not saying it's right or justified that they steal or sell drugs or murder cops I'm saying that that's exactly what you would do if you were poor and desperate and Black.

Honest questions: Is there a work shortage in the US? Is it absolutely impossible to survive without resorting to crime? If yes, sure, no argument here. Survival. Also why do you feel necessary to mention skin color? That's kinda racist. Don't you have "white trash" kind of demographic too?

Since this got basically ignored, I'll take a crack at it now. There was a work shortage in the US and there still is. A few years ago, there were too many people looking for jobs in almost every sector of the workforce and that had been going on for at least 10 years. Now, we have some jobs coming back, though they're not always the jobs we have people trained for anymore. A lot of kids, for example, didn't go into engineering in the last decade because you could shake a tree and 5 engineers desperate for work would fall out, but now we need them again and no one has the skills. So yes, there's a work shortage, and a work imbalance, but it's better than it was and getting slowly better.

It's entirely possible to survive without resorting to crime. We have way too many aid programs intended to keep people alive for anyone to be needing to steal or murder to survive. And though it would be better if those programs also had the goal of getting such people to independence, what we do have works well enough when used properly.

The demographics of welfare look like this:

Code: Select all

                  White   Black   Latino  Asian  Other
% of Welfare       38.8     39.8    15.7     2.4   3.3
% of Population   63.7     12.2    16.3     4.7   3.1

So, there is a discrepancy, but it would be a fallacy of causation vs correlation to say that they are on welfare because they are black. I can believe that Claeyt would believe this though.

[Dallane]

Lawyers are another job that is WAY overpopulated.

[Claeyt]

Not quite. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2015, the 574 highest paid people (.3% of US citizens) made a total of $1.82 trillion dollars income. That was 13.7% of all US income. They paid 33.1% of all taxes (including sales and other excise tax, payroll tax, income tax, business tax, and others) which IS a higher percent than anyone else paid. So, they payed 33% of all the taxes in the US, but Social Security, aid programs, and healthcare programs account for more than 60% of US spending altogether. To get that much, you have to add the next tax bracket of 984 people to get to about 1% of our population and a total of 18.7% of the income and 64.6% of the taxes paid. Of course, everyone who pays in specifically pays for certain things like Social Security or Medicaid so it's not actually fungible.

Here's a link to the government study I referenced: https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4763.Take a look at table A-6. If you'd rather see it in graph form, you can find that in this article: http://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-much-do-people-pay-taxes, which shows the % of income each person in a tax bracket paid to income tax in the first graph and all taxes, including sales taxes and the like, in the second graph. A fair visual of where the taxes go can be found here: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/, near the bottom where there is a pie chart with 'All Federal Spending'.

You are SO WRONG on this I don't know where to start...........................

FIRST, 1558 people (574+984) is not 1% of our population. You've mistranslated this graph a lot. Let me try and correct you.



The number 574 is not people it is actually 574,000 tax returns (not individual people) showing income over $1,000,000. THIS INCLUDES BUSINESS AND CORPORATE TAX RETURNS. This is .3% of all tax returns. You are correct in their amounts made and payed but they ONLY PAYED 21.6% OF ALL COMBINED FEDERAL TAXES INCLUDING PAYROLL AND INCOME TAXES NOT ALL TAXES AND not 33.1% of ALL taxes like you posted. This does not include state, local, sales (it does include federal gas tax), or property taxes. Their average tax rate was 33.1% of their income.

You are even more wrong with the number 984. It is actually 984,000 tax returns showing income between 500,000 to 1 million which were .6% of all tax returns. They contributed 7.5% to all federal taxes and WERE TAXED AT 31.5%. They did not contribute 31.5% of all taxes.

So let's align this.

The top 1% of all tax returns (the top 2 levels are actually .9% but lets do the math) made 18.7% of all income in the U.S. (13.7%+5%). The top 1% of all tax returns payed 29.1% of ALL combined federal income, payroll, gas sales and any other federal taxes (21.6%+7.5%). THEY DID NOT PAY 64.6% OF ALL TAXES IN THE U.S. LIKE YOU SAID AND THEY DID NOT PAY THAT SHARE OF ALL TAXES IN THE U.S. INCLUDING STATE, LOCAL, SALES AND PROPERTY TAXES. THEY PAYED 29.1% OF ALL FEDERAL TAXES.

to myself: ((((okay Claeyt, breath, she just go it wrong, it's fine.... breath in, breath out, sigh, It's all water....It's all water...It's all water....)))))

SECOND, the second graph from your second link does not show ALL TAXES. It shows combined federal taxes including payroll and income taxes for individuals and families. It does not show other federal taxes or tax rates for corporate taxes, business taxes or other federal sales taxes. Also; State, local, property and sales taxes are not included anywhere in there.

THIRD, income tax, capital gains tax and corporate tax do not cover social security or medicare. Social security and Medicare payroll taxes cover them. They are self sustaining if left alone and would have trillions of extra dollars in them if they had not been used for the general federal budget. They were not supposed to be connected to the budget or touched by discretionary spending or military spending. Nixon tapped it back in the 70's and it's been connected to the overall federal budget in some ways since. Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment are all PAYROLL TAXES NOT INCOME TAX. Social security tax (6.2% up to 200,000) covers social security and medicare tax (1.45% up to 200,00) covers medicare. You've INCORRECTLY translated that to the entire federal budget. There is a tax cap on income for social security. It's at 200,000 dollars. This means that you can add 7.65% (6.2% social security, 1.45% medicare) to the taxes of everyone making under 200,00 and a smaller amount for those making over it as a proportion of their income.

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751.html

So, in conclusion. The richest 1% (actually .9%) actually only pay 29.1% of all federal income and payroll taxes (not all taxes). This is lowered by the inclusion of all the other taxes that the vast majority of Americans pay on a daily and yearly basis.

Edit: Unemployment benefits are also not covered by income tax. It is also a payroll tax like Soc. Sec. and medicare but run by the states.

This means that 48% of our government spending (social security and medicare) is actually covered by the rest of us. Government benefits such as SNAP, medicaid, and all the other programs make up only 12% of total government spending which is covered by the general federal taxes.

The demographics of welfare look like this:

Code: Select all

                  White   Black   Latino  Asian  Other
% of Welfare       38.8     39.8    15.7     2.4   3.3
% of Population   63.7     12.2    16.3     4.7   3.1

So, there is a discrepancy, but it would be a fallacy of causation vs correlation to say that they are on welfare because they are black. I can believe that Claeyt would believe this though.

No, they don't correlate of course not. Darwoth and Dallane are the ones saying they commit crimes because they are black or that their culture promotes crime.

It's important to mention here that crime is way down in the United States and at historic lows and comparable to the 70's in total numbers much less as a percent of population.

[Darwoth]

it is a complete and total waste of time to continue engaging claeyt in discourse about american issues as he himself said a few pages back he was born and raised in canada, this means he is not even a real american and after whatever state he eventually was **** out into that his formative years and life in general was largely influenced by foreigners. he holds zero american values which is evident every time he cut and pastes some drivel off of a democratic underground thread.

[Inotdead]

No, they don't correlate of course not. Darwoth and Dallane are the ones saying they commit crimes because they are black or that their culture promotes crime.

Actually YOU were the ONLY person to mention poor black people as criminals in this thread.
Here is the quote in case you forgot:

I'm not saying it's right or justified that they steal or sell drugs or murder cops I'm saying that that's exactly what you would do if you were poor and desperate and Black.

You are outright saying that if I were black I would steal and murder cops.

[TotalyMeow]

Claeyt brings up an error in my last post and I'm editing as he suggested. He's right, the tax burden isn't nearly so high on the richest as it seemed. I suppose, then, that Flame's tour guide was wrong or was perhaps saying that the net worth of the few richest people in the country could pay all our government aid programs. Which might be true, but then they would no longer be so rich. :/

But just look at this table. I'm glad he went to the trouble to paste it here:



Look at the columns for Average Tax Rate. They clearly show the relative percent of income for each tax bracket increasing, which is an important fact to understand when trying to decide if the poor are being over taxed or the rich under taxed by comparison with others.

The demographics of welfare look like this:

Code: Select all

                  White   Black   Latino  Asian  Other
% of Welfare       38.8     39.8    15.7     2.4   3.3
% of Population   63.7     12.2    16.3     4.7   3.1

Darwoth and Dallane are the ones saying they commit crimes because they are black or that their culture promotes crime.

Except that table was made in response to Inotdead asking why you felt the need to specify 'black' as part of the reason someone would be on welfare or commit a crime. That sort of comment and this further attempt to blame Darwoth and Dallane for your racism is a big part of why it's so hard to talk to you about anything serious.

it is a complete and total waste of time to continue engaging claeyt in discourse about american issues.

It may be a waste of time to try to actually convince him of anything, but I find it very useful to see what he comes up with and then look up the truth myself. I learn a lot when talking to Claeyt by virtue of being spurred to do my own research on various subjects I might not otherwise have realized I was deficient in knowledge about.

Until today, I thought we spent considerably more than 16% of taxes on the military. I had thought it was over 30%, but it turns out that was a bit of propaganda. I also didn't realize such a whopping ~65% went to assistance programs. Geez. I feel like with numbers like these we really should be able to afford at least one little coast to coast high speed train.

[Claeyt]

Edited my post during your post. Please go back and read all your mistakes. You made huge math mistakes.

Claeyt brings up an error in semantics in my last post.

This is not an error in semantics. This is a fundamental error in both your math and what you say these tables show. They do not just show federal tax returns of individuals. The graphs also show tax returns including business and corporate tax returns.

You got the math wrong again. They payed 29.1% of all federal taxes not 65%. You're combing their tax rates for the 65% not their percent of taxes payed. Also it's not people it's tax returns. So .9% of all tax returns (not people, these tax returns included business and corporate tax returns) payed 29.1% of all federal taxes (not all taxes).