Is Healthcare a "right" and should it have limits on how much is consumed and by whom?

[Shad]

Pretty much every economists disagrees with you.

If those economists are not rich their opinion is worthless.

They have worked out how much it costs us, as a nation, per year to have sick people without health care, how much it costs industry, and how it effects the GDP. All the math indicates it is way more expensive and worse for the economy to not have health care.

Practice vs paper. Heard of it?

And, FYI, those new people are also going to get sick, and a business model that functions on discarding people when they are sick is going to spell disaster because it's going to bring law suits, an extremely high turn over rate, and a potential employee base of only the most desperate because everybody else won't work under such conditions.

Who said discard?

All we need is access to healthcare

They have access to healthcare no one stops them.

and paid time off,

Which is part of the contract under vacation and sick leave. However there is a point in which the employer should not be paying for a person that does not work. If someone needs a year for a medical problem their employment is terminated for good reasons.

and encourage them to stay home, rest, and heal.

To what point? 1 month? 6 months? 1 years? 5 years? Again there is a point in which the employer cuts their losses and has no obligation to pay the wages of someone that does not work

 

[Lyndon]

Why should I? In Israel they don’t take tax my money or require me to pay for others health care. In Israel you are given a choice to buy whichever health insurance plan you want. The Israeli system is one of the best!

Then you must not be living in Israel because is you were they'd be taking everyone's tax money to pay for the national health scheme.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

not to privide them in the first place.

The very act of allowing them and preserving them as rights is the state acting to provide those rights and providing protections for those rights. After all, there is no reason they actually have to give us the freedom of speech, protection against unwarranted searches, or a speedy trial by peers.

Do we need to fix it? Sure. Can the government take it over? Not a chance. National Health Care in the USA will turn into the VA and the Post Office, with the worst of both agencies showing up..........and costing more than we have.

The USPS has basically been getting one crap deal after another since Nixon. It was made into a semi-private organization, made to make its own deals and make its own money, and it has to prefund employee retirement in steep amounts that no other organization is obligated to do (it's the main source of its financial woes).
And who is advocating for the government to take over and call the shots? What goes on between a clinician and client, doctor and patient, it is all medical records, which are sacrosanct to the point that even a judge has to jump through loops to obtain them. It will still be between a doctor and patient.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They have access to healthcare no one stops them.

The inability to afford it can. And does.

Which is part of the contract under vacation and sick leave.

Not everyone gets those things.

If someone needs a year for a medical problem their employment is terminated for good reasons.

Actually their job would be protected, and for good reason. If someone needs an extended medical leave, we already have laws in place.

 

[dianaiad]

The very act of allowing them and preserving them as rights is the state acting to provide those rights and providing protections for those rights. After all, there is no reason they actually have to give us the freedom of speech, protection against unwarranted searches, or a speedy trial by peers.

That right there is the basic misunderstanding. Government cannot 'give' us 'the freedom of speech, protection against unwarranted searches, or a speedy trial by peers." The founding fathers...the constitution...recognized that we already have those things. Look at the language of the first amendment, for instance:

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Please note: there is no language in there about government giving people something they didn't already have. It was all about preventing the government from INFRINGING...or taking away...those rights. It's telling the government that "you can't say 'no'" when people exercise the rights they are born with, simply by the act of being born human. At least, that was the idea.

Government gave us NOTHING, in other words. Human rights aren't about begging the government to give us stuff; they are about telling the government to get out of the way when we exercise our rights; to not make laws that would interfere with them.

As in...Congress (and everybody else) shall stay out of the way, and the legal system is there to see to it that our rights are recognized (not GIVEN, but RECOGNIZED) by everybody else.

The USPS has basically been getting one crap deal after another since Nixon. It was made into a semi-private organization, made to make its own deals and make its own money, and it has to prefund employee retirement in steep amounts that no other organization is obligated to do (it's the main source of its financial woes).
And who is advocating for the government to take over and call the shots?

Everybody who wants universal, government provided health care, especially a single payer system.

What goes on between a clinician and client, doctor and patient, it is all medical records, which are sacrosanct to the point that even a judge has to jump through loops to obtain them. It will still be between a doctor and patient.

Really? Ask Canadians, Australians and Brits....who might indeed get care from their physicians, but who ALSO have to run that care past government loops (committees, regulations, oversight groups...) to see if they will be paid for. Can a seventy year old get a bone marrow transplant?

Er....probably not, in many, if not most, nations that provide universal health care. Costs too much for 'too little return.'

Never mind that the doctor says 'yeah, it is the best option for you; you are in good shape, you'll survive and probably go into a really good remission..." doesn't matter. AGE is what counts; that number on some report to some committee or computer.

...........and no, this isn't me being personally bitter. I got my bone marrow transplants. I can't have another because of specific medical reasons that apply specifically to me, and that's fine. Two of those in a life time is sufficient, thankyouverymuch.

However, I know of several people who live in universal health care nations who, simply and only because of their age, were denied the procedure. One of them is considerably more physically fit and 'healthy' otherwise than I have ever been; rides his bike forty miles every day, runs marathons at least four times a year....but he is 72. His government won't pay for it. Because of his age.

So don't tell me that it would be 'between the doctor and the patient," because under universal health care, especially a single payer system, it wouldn't be. It couldn't be....and there would be no recourse.

At least in the UK one CAN, if one has the means, go to a private health provider. What is being proposed by the far left in Congress is the total elimination of that option.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

That right there is the basic misunderstanding. Government cannot 'give' us 'the freedom of speech, protection against unwarranted searches, or a speedy trial by peers." The founding fathers...the constitution...recognized that we already have those things. Look at the language of the first amendment, for instance:

And they where very wrong on that because if the state represses those things or doesn't grant them we don't have them as rights. And indeed the state has stripped various rights from various people over the years, if not outright deny them. And if they can deny and remove a right, that inherently means they allow for those rights to exist in the first place.
In all reality, we don't have rights, all we have are privileges, privileges we must be vigilant to protect lest we risk losing them, because they can be restricted and taken away.

 

[dianaiad]

And they where very wrong on that because if the state represses those things or doesn't grant them we don't have them as rights. And indeed the state has stripped various rights from various people over the years, if not outright deny them. And if they can deny and remove a right, that inherently means they allow for those rights to exist in the first place.
In all reality, we don't have rights, all we have are privileges, privileges we must be vigilant to protect lest we risk losing them, because they can be restricted and taken away.

That is, however, how the founding fathers saw things: that we DO have those rights and that the only thing a government can do is destroy/abrogate them. Indeed, they were all very clear about that particular point of view

And this, I believe, is the problem with the way our society has gone and continues to go; we no longer view government as the necessary 'evil,' that is there for the purpose of handling things like the military, roads and such...and in terms of 'rights' it is there to PROTECT the rights of people from the very thing you mentioned: restrictions and being 'taken away.' The founders never intended for the government to be the powerful 'deity' from which all good things emanate. The whole idea was to keep the government from getting into that role.

But now? All I see around me, at least on the left, are cries of "GIMMEE!!!" They don't have rights that need to be protected FROM the Government; they look at the government as the provider of those rights, not the system taxed with keeping people from messing around with those rights. It's a very, very basic, and very telling, mindset.

The thing that makes this an appropriate conversation for this thread is this: 'healthcare' is NOT, as I have mentioned before, a "right."

Really...all the other rights in the constitution are things that people had before they wrote that constitution. They did not write it in order to gain those rights. They wrote it in order to protect them; in fact, to keep the government itself from thinking it CAN issue rights, and from the mindset you are reflecting...as though without the government we would have no rights.

But we do have them. Freedom of speech? Can the government invade your home and arrest your babbling 2 year old for talking too much, or saying the wrong thing when she does? Does SHE think that in order to say what she thinks, that she has to get permission from the government first?

Healthcare is not something you have, intrinsically. It must be provided to you by someone else...someone who might actually be able to provide it. The Government is not; it wasn't set up to do so, and the constitution is pretty clear, at least in my book, that providing rights is not it's job. Protecting them...the ones already acknowledged as part of the desired human experience, is.

Health care would be horrific...VA level....if were to be administered by the Federal Government. It mucks up almost every other program it has touched, what would make healthcare any different?

Again, do we need to do something about healthcare? Yes. We do...but that 'something' needs to be more about preventing companies from scalping us, the patients, than in being Lady Bountiful with the ever flowing cornucopia of goodies. Some insurance companies are being very bad news, indeed. THEY are abrogating our ability to have formal healthcare. WE aren't. But the government is sure as shootin' going to punish us for it anyway.

Heath care should be reformed and revamped by the people who provide it, and the government should 'step in' only when it is obvious that someone IS abrogating our health care for their own profit margins.

I would agree that healthcare shouldn't be treated as a service performed by private, captitalist (and when I use that word, it is absolutely NOT a swear word...to any really left wingers out there ) groups. Anti-trust laws to keep 'big pharma' from charging three times as much for a medication now than they charged for it in 2010, all while attempting to do an end run around the government and keep the patents for that medication even though they should have lost that patent and handed it over to the generic researchers six years ago.

And yeah, I am thinking of a specific medication: revlemid; a very expensive 'immune therapy,' which cost $600 in 2006, but costs nearly $36,000 today, for the same pills. This company hasn't done any more research....has done very little indeed to the medication itself. I think they made have changed from gel capsules to very big soiid tablets. Maybe.

Certainly. Perhaps I will see you....when I see you.

But the government's roll, I think, clearly is about keeping others from making health care impossibly expensive, not in providing healthcare itself. After all, with the Veteran's Administration on their resume, I'm surprised that even the lowest IQ, the one stuck between two paparazi in the second row, Any Senator/congress person, would be classed as incredibly sexist operation.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

That is, however, how the founding fathers saw things: that we DO have those rights and that the only thing a government can do is destroy/abrogate them. Indeed, they were all very clear about that particular point of view

They tended to believe we naturally have those rights. When they wrote "endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," they heavily reflected the Enlightenment approach towards the natural state of humans and our rights bestowed upon us in a natural state. But rights aren't natural, they are purely and entirely man-made concepts that exist only our minds, and unless the state allows for them they are not rights and we are not allowed to indulge in freedom to assemble and protest, we aren't entitled to a trial of any sort, and we have no protections or compensation should the state seize our property. And when it comes to groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, and Japanese Americans, the concept of "natural rights" simply did not apply or exist
as the government consistently denied and stripped rights of those groups.
There is no getting around this. The state and the state alone grants and denies what we call rights, providing them just as it provides legislation. And it has nothing to do with "Left wing/Right wing" politics. If the state says we can't assemble protest anymore, guess what? We no longer have the "right" to assemble and protest. If the state says you get no trial by peers or due process, you get no trial by peers and no due process. Unwarranted searches and seizures by police throughout the nation also demonstrates and proves just how frail and fragile our rights are, that they are not naturally bestowed upon us, and that we must continue to fight in order to preserve them. Or else we lose them like the privileges they are.

 

[dianaiad]

They tended to believe we naturally have those rights. When they wrote "endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," they heavily reflected the Enlightenment approach towards the natural state of humans and our rights bestowed upon us in a natural state. But rights aren't natural, they are purely and entirely man-made concepts that exist only our minds, and unless the state allows for them they are not rights and we are not allowed to indulge in freedom to assemble and protest, we aren't entitled to a trial of any sort, and we have no protections or compensation should the state seize our property. And when it comes to groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, and Japanese Americans, the concept of "natural rights" simply did not apply or exist
as the government consistently denied and stripped rights of those groups.

You may be correct, but....which approach is the best one for the population at large? Is it the one where the people form a goverment that is charged with protecting rights they already have/have assumed for themselves, and that is not supposed to interfere with them,

OR

A government that is in charge of everything and is responsible for granting us those rights?

It is a fundamental difference. Whether it is, according to some moral/ethical position that none of us have anything that a government body doesn't hand us, or that we are actually born with those rights and the government's best use is to stay out of the way of our using them...both, in reality, are arbitrary.

The first (where government is, in effect, god), is, in my view, dangerous. Dictatorships run on that principle. In fact, every repressive and nasty government on earth runs on that principle; that the government (or rather, the people who run it) have the power, 'right' and ability to force their views on everybody, and can hand out or deny rights as it pleases. That is precisely what the founders wanted to avoid.

And, in spite of all the stumbles and very bad choices, it's done a better job of it than anybody else has. What's that addage: Democracy is the worst government in the world, except for everything else?

What we CHOOSE to do in terms of government, that it should stay the heck out of our rights, rather than be the ONE who we beg to give us those rights? Well, I think that's a better way of dealing with the issue than any other method.

There is no getting around this.

Of course there is. We, the people who do the electing, say so and that's that. It may be 'arbitrary,' and it may be counter intuitive to non-theists, but it works. More or less.

The state and the state alone grants and denies what we call rights, providing them just as it provides legislation. And it has nothing to do with "Left wing/Right wing" politics. If the state says we can't assemble protest anymore, guess what? We no longer have the "right" to assemble and protest.

Yeah, we do. We grab those rights back and do what our founders did. Indeed, THAT possibility is the reason for the second amendment. I think you will notice that the most important thing to our founders wasn't exactly getting the government to hand us rights, but to protect us (and those rights they claim we were born with) FROM the government.

If the state says you get no trial by peers or due process, you get no trial by peers and no due process. Unwarranted searches and seizures by police throughout the nation also demonstrates and proves just how frail and fragile our rights are, that they are not naturally bestowed upon us, and that we must continue to fight in order to preserve them. Or else we lose them like the privileges they are.

I'm not sure what your point is, here, but the conclusion is one I agree with. WE have to be vigilent, and make certain that the government doesn't infringe upon our rights. Whether you think those rights were given to us within the constitution, or are inborn simply because we are human, either way, it is WE who must continue to resist any attempt to interfere with them..

And this idea that healthcare is a 'right' that CAN be given us by the government is a very big step in the wrong direction. We have to fix it some other way.

 

[ecco]

I would think eating would be more of a "right" than health care. Maybe we should force the farmers to put food on our tables for free.

NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!

Oh, the kid is sick. Too bad. Let the parents sell their house to provide medical care.




HYPOCRISY

 

[BSM1]

NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!

Oh, the kid is sick. Too bad. Let the parents sell their house to provide medical care.




HYPOCRISY

Kinda thought Obamacare was going to do away with a scenario like this....hmmm.

 

[Salvador]

NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!

Oh, the kid is sick. Too bad. Let the parents sell their house to provide medical care.


HYPOCRISY

We've granted affordable health care for years to our senior citizens by way of Medicare; and now is the time to provide everybody with this same care.

My proposed expansion of Medicare A into universal hospital insurance coverage (with $2,500 deductible per insured) would result in $900 billion of annual spending in current dollars on Medicare A that would correspond with a $600 billion elimination of annual federal spending on medicaid in current dollars. Medicare payroll taxes at current levels of taxation would pay the remaining $300 billion yearly. A public option for Medicare B coverage would be financed completely with user premiums. ....

**Edited to add details of my proposed public option plan for Medicare B coverage**

I'd favor allowing any legal U.S. resident to buy into Medicare Part B ( with a $5,000 annual deductible ) coverage at a $100 minimum monthly premium plus 2 percent of his/her most recent reported annual adjusted taxable income with a maximum monthly premium paid at $400/month. Medicare Part B premiums paid by a parent for Medicare Part B health insurance coverage ( with a $5,000 annual deductible ) of his/her child or legal dependent would cost merely $100/month.

My proposed Medicare Part B ( with $5,000 annual deductible per person ) buy-in option would not be mandatory; it'd be optional for those who couldn't find affordable health insurance for his/her child or for himself/herself through his/her employer or on the private market.


The approximate $1.14 trillion annual cost for a $400 monthly Universal Basic Income (UBI) benefit would be partly offset by a $469 billion reduction of federal government annual spending with a $127 billion elimination of spending on food stamps and agricultural subsidies. $112 billion on the elimination of federalized spending on education, $41 billion elimination of urban housing and development spending, elimination of $33 billion of federal spending on unemployment compensation, $60 billion reduction of social security disability payments, $3 billion elimination of renewable, fossil fuel, or nuclear energy subsidies, $23 billion reduction in foreign aid spending, $5 billion elimination of U.S. department of labor spending on job corp, job training services and community services for senior citizens , $65 billion elimination of military spending by way of ending the overseas contingency. So then, the net annual current cost of this $400/month U.B.I benefit is approximately $671 billion.

The overall estimated $671 billion annual current net cost of my proposed $400/mo U.B.I. benefit program along with universal medicare A coverage (with $2,500 deductible per insured person) could be paid for with the following modest tax hikes :

Increasing the top marginal federal income tax rate from 37% to 43% along with increasing the second highest top marginal federal income tax rate from 35% to 38%, an increase of the corporate tax rate from 21% to 25%, an additional 80 cent/gallon fuel excise tax, an additional 50 cent tobacco excise tax on each pack of cigarettes, a 50 percent increase of excise taxes on adult beverage alcohol content, a doubling of federal excise taxes on air travelers and national park visitors, **a doubling of Medicare Part D premiums**, and the reduction of the exemption on the federal estate tax from $10 million to $5 million , and a new tax that'd be a modest 4 percent national retail sales tax on new vehicle purchases.

Edited to add **doubling of Medicare Part D premiums**

Once anybody, who isn't in the top one percent of income earners, realizes he/she would receive far more in benefits ($4,800 a year in universal basic income along with hospital insurance coverage) than he/she would pay with my proposed federal excise tax hikes, he/she should be in favor of my proposed $400/mo. U.B.I. benefit with universal hospital insurance coverage and Medicare Part B public option plan. ....

 

[ecco]

ecco said: ↑
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!
NO ABORTIONS!

Oh, the kid is sick. Too bad. Let the parents sell their house to provide medical care.​

HYPOCRISY​

Kinda thought Obamacare was going to do away with a scenario like this....hmmm.

It was on its way until the Repubs nibbled away at it. Just like they nibble away at abortion rights.

 

[dianaiad]

We've granted affordable health care for years to our senior citizens by way of Medicare; and now is the time to provide everybody with this same care.

Good grief. You actually use Medicare as an example of 'affordable' and efficient health care?

Well, that says a great deal.

 

[Salvador]

Good grief. You actually use Medicare as an example of 'affordable' and efficient health care?

Well, that says a great deal.

Medicare is a very popular program; if it's good for our senior citizens, then I believe we should make it widely available to everybody. This could be done now in the way I've proposed with only an approximately additional current annual $670 billion of spending, which would simply require my proposed modest tax hikes as well as my proposed modest 4 percent national sales tax on new vehicle purchases ...

Once anybody, who isn't in the top one percent of income earners, realizes he/she would receive far more in benefits ($4,800 a year in universal basic income along with hospital insurance coverage), than he/she would pay with my proposed federal excise tax hikes, he/she should be in favor of my proposed $400/mo. U.B.I. benefit with universal hospital insurance coverage and Medicare Part B public option plan. ....


I've provided a link that addresses your concerns about the cost effectiveness of Medicare:

Is Medicare Cost Effective?

There are three essential tenets of the program:

1. Its universal coverage nature creates the ability to redistribute benefits to those who are neediest.

2. It pools risk in order to share the burdens of health care among the healthy and the sick.

3. Through Medicare, the government protects the rights of all beneficiaries to essential health care.

 

[Shad]

The inability to afford it can. And does.

You said access. Access does not require affordability.

Not everyone gets those things.

Standard is 2 weeks in even the worst jobs.

Actually their job would be protected, and for good reason. If someone needs an extended medical leave, we already have laws in place.

So in your mind... forever. No limit?

Government offers disability not job protection for an unknown amount of time

 

[dianaiad]

Regarding the 'taxing the wealthiest...' You do know that from WWII on up throw the seventies, the income tax rate on the highest income was 94% (in WWII, for taxable income over 200,000 bucks) , eventually coming it at 60 or 70 percent, until it was eventually cut to 36 percent, plus or minus...but not until the '80's. You remember what happened to our economy in the 80's, right?

What happened to all that money the government should have received from the 'wealthiest' Americans? It never showed up. It seems that rich people have enough money to, well....travel. Leave. Park their money in off shore, non taxable bank accounts. So they did. By the droves. What they did NOT do was invest their money into the economy here. They did not begin businesses, they didn't invest in the nation's future. "little' guys had a really hard time becoming 'big guys,' because as soon as they made enough money to do something 'real' with it, the government 'tax bracketed' them.

The standard analogy to be used here is this: If you have a bunch of pies, you get many more pieces of pie if you take a little from each one than if you take all of the pie from one tin, no matter how big that one tin might be.

The FACT is, that confiscatory taxation from the 'top 1%" won't pay the bills. Not even if you took everything they have and leave them penniless. However, if you take just a little bit...a fair percentage...from the upper and middle 60%, you will get a LOT more money. Don't just take my word for this. Do the math. Getting the 'rich' to pay their fair share?"

A. They probably are already, and
B. Changing the law and confiscating everything they have, or 94% of what they earn, or even 70%, will result in them;
1. leaving and/or
2. retrenching and refusing to do anything to make any MORE money. You know, like investing in businesses, or buying stuff.

Believe me, I'm not wealthy. I don't even get enough money to put me in the 'middle class' arena. I am right at the federal 'poverty line.'

..........and it still makes no sense to me, the way the liberals are claiming that taxing the rich will fix anything. I was around when 'taxing the rich' was simply the state of affairs. The top tax rate (anything over $200,000) was 91% in 1960. The tax rate on the richest Americans, in 1964, was 77%. Remember 1964, anybody? the 'War on Poverty?" The richest were taxed at an extremely high rate, and 19% of Americans lived in poverty.

I remember my father actually turning down a job offer, because the raise that went with it put him in a higher tax bracket, and at that would have left him with less money than he made with the job he already had. Fortunately, the company came back with a better offer, and he took that one. But think about it: do you really want a return to a society where people don't dare invest, or make more money, or be more ambitious, because if they did the government would confiscate everything?

The very wealthy at that time plunked their money elsewhere and sat on it. They lived elsewhere and only visited the US. They sure didn't do a whole lot of investing.

Hey....here is an example of how taxing the rich actually works: awhile ago (1990) there was a 'luxury tax' of sorts, applied to the purchase of really expensive stuff, like yachts and private planes and jewelry. Let's just go with the boats, OK?

What happened is that the wealthy simply stopped buying yachts from American builders. they would buy used ones and refurbish them, or, well....go to Costa Rica. So most of the American builders went out of business and lost pretty much everything. One very profitable company that, until the tax was imposed, had something like 400 employees, went utterly bankrupt and its owner lost the business, his home and everything he had. A boating company in Costa Rica bought most of his tools, and his customers went there. Costa Rica had no such tax.

this tax was repealed two years after it was imposed, but far too late to save most of the boat manufacturing and private aircraft companies, including Beech aircraft, which had to sell its name and all its property to "Raytheon" (or something like that) in 1992. The name "Beechcraft" keeps popping up, but the original one that the tax killed off? Doesn't exist.

TODAY, the top federal tax rate is around 40%, and the poverty rate is 12%. Gee, I wonder if any of you can tell me if 'taxing the rich' and 'making them pay their fair share" fixed the poverty rate?

I mean, if you listen to the liberals, it SHOULD have done so. But it didn't.

But lowering those taxes DID lower the poverty rate. People who don't have to pay money to the government invest it to make more money. Invested money in business creates jobs. Which pay people. Who then get out of poverty, and then buy things.

Which makes the rich people richer. It makes the middle class richer, too, and pulls those in poverty up into the 'middle class,' so that they can buy things too.

What raising taxes does NOT do is raise income for the government. It does precisely the opposite, because if taxes are too high (like more than half of one's income, for instance) people will simply stop earning and/or take their money and run.

We KNOW this, because that's what people have done every single time the taxes got too high. That's what they are doing now, and that is what they will always do.

....and I, for one, don't blame them one little bit.

 

[Salvador]

Regarding the 'taxing the wealthiest...' You do know that from WWII on up throw the seventies, the income tax rate on the highest income was 94% (in WWII, for taxable income over 200,000 bucks) , eventually coming it at 60 or 70 percent, until it was eventually cut to 36 percent, plus or minus...but not until the '80's. You remember what happened to our economy in the 80's, right?

What happened to all that money the government should have received from the 'wealthiest' Americans? It never showed up. It seems that rich people have enough money to, well....travel. Leave. Park their money in off shore, non taxable bank accounts. So they did. By the droves. What they did NOT do was invest their money into the economy here. They did not begin businesses, they didn't invest in the nation's future. "little' guys had a really hard time becoming 'big guys,' because as soon as they made enough money to do something 'real' with it, the government 'tax bracketed' them.

The standard analogy to be used here is this: If you have a bunch of pies, you get many more pieces of pie if you take a little from each one than if you take all of the pie from one tin, no matter how big that one tin might be.

The FACT is, that confiscatory taxation from the 'top 1%" won't pay the bills. Not even if you took everything they have and leave them penniless. However, if you take just a little bit...a fair percentage...from the upper and middle 60%, you will get a LOT more money. Don't just take my word for this. Do the math. Getting the 'rich' to pay their fair share?"

A. They probably are already, and
B. Changing the law and confiscating everything they have, or 94% of what they earn, or even 70%, will result in them;
1. leaving and/or
2. retrenching and refusing to do anything to make any MORE money. You know, like investing in businesses, or buying stuff.

Believe me, I'm not wealthy. I don't even get enough money to put me in the 'middle class' arena. I am right at the federal 'poverty line.'

..........and it still makes no sense to me, the way the liberals are claiming that taxing the rich will fix anything. I was around when 'taxing the rich' was simply the state of affairs. The top tax rate (anything over $200,000) was 91% in 1960. The tax rate on the richest Americans, in 1964, was 77%. Remember 1964, anybody? the 'War on Poverty?" The richest were taxed at an extremely high rate, and 19% of Americans lived in poverty.

I remember my father actually turning down a job offer, because the raise that went with it put him in a higher tax bracket, and at that would have left him with less money than he made with the job he already had. Fortunately, the company came back with a better offer, and he took that one. But think about it: do you really want a return to a society where people don't dare invest, or make more money, or be more ambitious, because if they did the government would confiscate everything?

The very wealthy at that time plunked their money elsewhere and sat on it. They lived elsewhere and only visited the US. They sure didn't do a whole lot of investing.

Hey....here is an example of how taxing the rich actually works: awhile ago (1990) there was a 'luxury tax' of sorts, applied to the purchase of really expensive stuff, like yachts and private planes and jewelry. Let's just go with the boats, OK?

What happened is that the wealthy simply stopped buying yachts from American builders. they would buy used ones and refurbish them, or, well....go to Costa Rica. So most of the American builders went out of business and lost pretty much everything. One very profitable company that, until the tax was imposed, had something like 400 employees, went utterly bankrupt and its owner lost the business, his home and everything he had. A boating company in Costa Rica bought most of his tools, and his customers went there. Costa Rica had no such tax.

this tax was repealed two years after it was imposed, but far too late to save most of the boat manufacturing and private aircraft companies, including Beech aircraft, which had to sell its name and all its property to "Raytheon" (or something like that) in 1992. The name "Beechcraft" keeps popping up, but the original one that the tax killed off? Doesn't exist.

TODAY, the top federal tax rate is around 40%, and the poverty rate is 12%. Gee, I wonder if any of you can tell me if 'taxing the rich' and 'making them pay their fair share" fixed the poverty rate?

I mean, if you listen to the liberals, it SHOULD have done so. But it didn't.

But lowering those taxes DID lower the poverty rate. People who don't have to pay money to the government invest it to make more money. Invested money in business creates jobs. Which pay people. Who then get out of poverty, and then buy things.

Which makes the rich people richer. It makes the middle class richer, too, and pulls those in poverty up into the 'middle class,' so that they can buy things too.

What raising taxes does NOT do is raise income for the government. It does precisely the opposite, because if taxes are too high (like more than half of one's income, for instance) people will simply stop earning and/or take their money and run.

We KNOW this, because that's what people have done every single time the taxes got too high. That's what they are doing now, and that is what they will always do.

....and I, for one, don't blame them one little bit.

My proposed tax hikes shouldn't be considered as confiscatory, because it'd allow us privilege class citizens to keep half our earned income, while much of our taxes would go directly to working class folks for medical insurance as well as for them to have money promptly at their disposal if need be for them to make it through times of financial struggles. ...

Employers will have the benefit of not having to provide health insurance benefits for their employees.

Half of my proposed tax hikes are on consumption rather than income tax hikes, so these taxes couldn't be avoided by way of stashing money aside in tax shelters.

With a $400/month U.B.I. benefit and universal Medicare health insurance coverage, very few people would ever need to become financially bankrupt because of an unfortunate injury or medical illness.

 

[ecco]

I remember my father actually turning down a job offer, because the raise that went with it put him in a higher tax bracket, and at that would have left him with less money than he made with the job he already had.

Anecdotal evidence is not worth very much.
For 2018
Salary Rate Tax
82500 22% 18150
82501 24% 19800
Tax Difference 1600

So, yes, if someone was making 82,500 and was given a 700 annual raise, they would be losing 900.

On the other hand, if someone was making 82,500 and was given a raise of only 700, they probably should take the hint and start looking for another job.

In the vast majority of instances, a raise gives you more spending power.

 

[ecco]

What happened to all that money the government should have received from the 'wealthiest' Americans? It never showed up. It seems that rich people have enough money to, well....travel. Leave. Park their money in off shore, non taxable bank accounts.

You forgot to mention the number one thing wealthy people do: Hire really good tax accounts to take advantage of the tax loopholes that wealthy legislators built into the tax code.