PD uses professor to dispense RW talking points about Taxing the Wealthy.

[HughBeaumont]

"Won't Someone Think of the Poor, POOR RICH people? They're already PAYING their fair share!"

http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/123943885780280.xml&coll=2

Kent State Accounting professor Mark Altieri belches out an article with ASTOUNDINGLY poor taste, which as usual with Republican talking points, misses the point entirely. Speaks NOTHING of the painfully lax job creation on Bewsh's watch, which the premise of lower taxes on the rich was BASED on, and DIDN'T happen. Idiot.

Anyone who starts their article off with the sentence that he does, you know a Talking Point-a-palooza is going to follow. Read on.

When I was a good young socialist in the 1970s, I thought progressive taxation was wonderful: Rob from the rich to pay the poor. As I grew older and possibly wiser, I confronted basic economic facts as an academic and a tax practitioner that highlighted a glaring deficiency with progressive income taxation: Income tax rates that are too high are a disincentive to the most entrepreneurial wealth creators in our country (they won't net enough wealth after taxes to justify continuing or increasing their productivity). That's why the Obama administration - if it is truly interested in enhancing federal revenues to lessen the impact of the debt the federal government has taken on since last fall - will not raise income tax rates on the rich.

(snip)

Did the Bush tax cuts have similar results? You would never know it from listening to the mainstream media "reporting," but until just a few fiscal quarters ago, federal revenues from income taxes were at an all-time high, again most markedly, when focusing on the richest top percentiles of taxpayers. According to a 2008 Wall Street Journal article based on 2007 Treasury Department numbers, the richest 1 percent of income-tax payers in 1990 paid 25 percent of the nation's income taxes. By 2005, the richest 1 percent paid 39 percent of the nation's income taxes. The numbers are even more astounding if we go back to 1980, prior to the Reagan tax cuts, when the top 1 percent of income taxpayers paid only 18 percent of total income taxes.

Even if profits are retained within the business (as they frequently are) to fund working capital needs, the profits still are taxed at the owner level under the individual income tax rates that we have been talking about. What that means is that successful small businesses (the true engine of American entrepreneurism and job creation) frequently are thrown into the "rich" class and, on rolling back the Bush tax cuts, will suffer significant additional taxation.

That, in turn, will mean what it always means when a large additional cost of any kind is thrust upon American small businesses: a cutback in working capital, entrepreneurial wealth creation and employees.

(snip)

Another reason is simple emotion and class warfare. During the primaries earlier in 2008, when newsman Charlie Gibson asked then-Sen. Obama about the phenomenon of capital gains revenues going way up when capital gains rates were cut, the senator seemed to acknowledge the fact, but concluded that if the rich got richer, the only "fair" thing to do would be to raise the tax rate on them.

These points should be heavily debated before the rates are jacked up. It's not that the rich aren't paying their fair share; they are, and then some, and have been paying progressively more dollars as a byproduct of creating more wealth. That's OK with middle-class me, because if we go in the other direction, people like me ultimately will be compelled to make up the shortfall directly, through increased middle-class taxation, or indirectly through even greater deficit spending.

Uh . . . read the NEWS much, Markie? What WEALTH are they creating? Seen the jobless numbers? Where was the HIRING as a result of the tax-lowering? The top corporate rate is the lowest it's been in SEVENTY FIVE YEARS!!!! And you're laughingly proposing that a FOUR percent increase to Clinton levels would be bad news?

Simply Stunning.

[GoesTo11]

1. When a professor offers an opinion it must be true

Occupational hazard.

[HughBeaumont]

3. This is the argument the "Global Warming Hoax" crew uses.

"If we just get enough scientists and professors on our side, then we've got ammo!"

One could argue that "The Laffer Curve" took a great deal of research to come up with. Doesn't make it correct or proven effective by any stretch.

Then there's Milton Friedman and the Right's unscrupulous lifting of his worst ideas to justify their rampant cronyism, whiskey-throttle warmongering, gutting of social programs and deregulation to the nth degree. They use the fact he was a brilliant and celebrated scholar, economist and educator as their "out"; that we can't argue with him even though his ideas have proven catastrophic.

"But he's a noted and prize-winning economist, and you're just an armchair pundit! His theories created wealth! Where are YOUR credentials?"

"Appeal to Authority": dangerous in SO many ways.

[drm604]

2. Can they be any more transparent?

When I was a good young socialist

:rofl:

He not only starts out with a straw man, he claims to have been that straw man in an attempt to increase his credibility on the issue. "I know whereof I speak." :rofl:

[Ikonoklast]

4. So the 1% that own 90% of this country's assets

shouldn't have to pay taxes back to the government that allows them to be incredibly wealthy.


Gotcha.


I aren't the smartest feller in the room, but I know when someone is pissing on my foot.

[HughBeaumont]

6. And that's the "Entirely Self-Made millionaire" argument coming into play.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/07/5075

What sounds so appealing to the selfish of the world is wrong in principle AND in practice.

To see what's wrong with this idea, it's easiest to start with criteria that ought to disqualify a person from claiming to be "entirely self-made." After we've applied these criteria, we can see who's left in the pool. So, then, let us scratch from the list of the self-made anyone whose accumulation of wealth has been aided by any of the following:

* Laws concerning property or contracts, and the public agencies that enforce such laws
* Public schools or employees educated in public schools
* Employees or customers who rely on public transportation
* Roads, bridges, airports, sewers, water treatment plants, harbors, or other utilities built and maintained at public expense
* Mail systems built and operated at public expense
* Public hospitals and government-licensed physicians
* Health and safety regulations created and enforced at public expense
* Police and fire protection provided at public expense
* Public libraries and parks
* Any public amenities that add value to commercial or residential real estate
* Government contracts
* Government-provided business incentives
* Regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission, that sustain trust in the stock market
* The Internet
* A form of currency legitimated and backed by a stable government
* Social welfare programs that keep the poor from rebelling
* The U.S. military

If we use these criteria to determine who can legitimately claim to be "entirely self-made," the Forbes number drops dramatically. It's not 270 out of 400. In fact, it's precisely zero.

Forbes and the economic class it represents would like us to forget that wealth always depends on collective effort. Why? Because of what the "entirely self-made" myth implies: If I have amassed a fortune solely through my individual talent and hard work, then it is wrong for the government to take any of it away. By further implication, taxation is wrong, and progressive taxation is really wrong.

[jody]

5. Altieri received his Master of Laws in Taxation from New York University. He is also an Ohio

Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Management Accountant, and a Certified Financial Planner.

See http://business.kent.edu/FSD/faculty.aspx?id=24650

He is not what one normally considers a scholar in a professorial sense and it's unlikely his views on the economy, manufacturing, science, and engineering are any more credible than a typical college graduate.

It's more likely he is informed about the myriad of laws and accounting standards that together guide those who perform accounting functions in a business.

[jody]

7. Since this is Easter we should recognize a leading character in that episode Judas Iscariot.

In John 13:29 we learn “Judas had the bag”, i.e. he was the banker and financial manager for Jesus.

Today our economy has been destroyed by bankers and financial managers, modern-day Judases who had the bag for “We the People”.

Jesus also warned you can’t serve both God and mammon.

Is Altieri a lackey for the High-Priests of Mammon?