What it takes to be a one percenter

[theejl]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/20/news/economy/top-1-percent/

Not that I am a 1%er, but this line caught my eye:

"There were 1.35 million households that qualified for entry. They earned nearly 19% of the nation's income and paid roughly 37% of its income tax."

My question is, if 1% of the population pays 37% of the income tax, why the demand they pay more?  Why shouldn't the other 99% pay 63% of the rest?  Isn't 37% a "fair share"?

Thoughts?  Maybe I'm missing something here.....

[LongBlade]

I'm sure it gets to the heart of the question: how much is enough and and what point are you not allowed to have what you're able to earn?

[Windigo]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/20/news/economy/top-1-percent/

Not that I am a 1%er, but this line caught my eye:

"There were 1.35 million households that qualified for entry. They earned nearly 19% of the nation's income and paid roughly 37% of its income tax."

My question is, if 1% of the population pays 37% of the income tax, why the demand they pay more?  Why shouldn't the other 99% pay 63% of the rest?  Isn't 37% a "fair share"?

Thoughts?  Maybe I'm missing something here.....

but what % of the total wealth does the 1% make?

[Windigo]

nm..... top 1% makes 19% of the income by that article.... seems to me that that seems fair-ish for them to carry proportionately more of the load.... but then I again I am a Flat-tax guy with a GST component...

[LongBlade]

Discussion of this won't be in a vacuum.

We could takes 100% of the wealth the top 1% make and it wouldn't fix our budget woes. Put aside the fact that the wealth would simply exit the country - all their wealth wouldn't pay for the programs we have.

Three things are needed to fix the US budget. In no particular order:

• Reduce spending.
• Expand the economy - more people working and making more money will produce more revenue.
• Expand the demographic so that more younger people are paying for the baby boom.

Without that the big picture shows it all working against us.

[Longdan]

Make the kids PAY!  That's the strategy the greatest generation
left us and we should pass it on.  Somehow, somewhen this
idea of various entitlements to be payed outstripped the money
to pay for them.  Somebody found they could spend money to
buy votes that wasn't even there.  Back in the day when the
gubmint started spending money that wasn't there the trend was
set.  And the Military-Industrial thingy... much of which was financed
out of thin air.  Generations of politicians saw this coming and
made sure it was never dealt with while they were on the payroll.
Even more of those pols lacked the arithmetic skills to even see it.
The first time money was borrowed without a tax hike to compensate,
the first time the Laffer Curve was scrawled on a cocktail napkin......
Anyway nothing can be done about that, it is passed into history.
What needs to be done now is gonna hurt but the kids are gonna hurt more.

[LongBlade]

Make the kids PAY!  That's the strategy the greatest generation
left us and we should pass it on.  Somehow, somewhen this
idea of various entitlements to be payed outstripped the money
to pay for them.  Somebody found they could spend money to
buy votes that wasn't even there.  Back in the day when the
gubmint started spending money that wasn't there the trend was
set.  And the Military-Industrial thingy... much of which was financed
out of thin air.  Generations of politicians saw this coming and
made sure it was never dealt with while they were on the payroll.
Even more of those pols lacked the arithmetic skills to even see it.
The first time money was borrowed without a tax hike to compensate,
the first time the Laffer Curve was scrawled on a cocktail napkin......
Anyway nothing can be done about that, it is passed into history.
What needs to be done now is gonna hurt but the kids are gonna hurt more.

Yup. This train has been decades in the making.

[Centurion40]

These are the only kind of 1%ers that I'll ever encounter:

[Longdan]

1% of what?  And whose little brother is that on the right?

[LongBlade]

And whose little brother is that on the right?

It's the little ones you have to be careful around.