http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxe ... tm?cnn=yes

Should their voices be heard, or should they just shut up and be thankful they live in the land of plenty?

There is a federal payroll tax, no?

think of how many more guns we could buy with that loot!!

somebody's gotta do something about this!

um, SS and Medicare Tax? is there a way to get out of that i'm not aware of?

I think a more interesting statistic would be the number of people/families who receive more in payouts from the government than they pay in.

would this count services and the like too?

That would be tough to capture, but I think it would be interesting to know how many people are net beneficiaries of the government.

i would expect there to be a good amount, since taxes (obviously) spread costs out. i wouldn't be surprised if half or more than half all people are net benficiaries, counting services and schools.

Look jerk, not everyone is born without 10 facial piercings or a neck tattoo that says "Chocolate Factory".

As long as there are people making hundreds or thousands of times more than other people, the number of net beneficiaries will ALWAYS exceed the number of net contributors.

Deal with it.

Would it make everyone feel better to have a token income tax on these people, and then just increase government benefits accordingly? Or are we suggesting that they pay more taxes and not receive more benefits?

Honestly, I would very much like to hear some arguments on the poverty line, amount of benefits people at the bottom get, etc. Bleh, I don't have time to elaborate on this right now. What I'm asking is for someone to argue that people can live relatively high-quality lives with as much or less money than is the poverty level right now. This would include addressing issues of our materialistic dependency, etc.

You should have to fill out a financial disclosure affidavit to get a Blockbuster card.

You know, hunger is an excellent motivator.

also, these people do pay sales tax and property taxes. not federal, but the fact that a lot of federal funds are given to states to fund this or that program makes it sorta tough to really guage anything while splitting it up, doesn't it?

how do 1.5% of households making over a million dollars not owe any federal income taxes?

They're lobbyists.

They can have very full lives. And on holidays, they can look at you and I up on the hill.

Are you going to answer my question?

Are you talking about the way it should be, or just the way things are?

I have no problem with the idea of the rich paying more for things such as defense, transportation, and education (although I believe there should be a voucher system, monopolies are bad right?.) On these items, the rich probably benefit more than the poor or the middle class. They have more assets that need to be protected. It's the trucks that they own that destroy roads. They rely on the transportation network to amass wealth. They relay on the energy grid and power plants to obtain wealth. Even if you had a flat tax, the rich would still end up benefitting more and contributing 100X more than the poor.

The problem comes when you have the rich completely supporting the lives of millions of people so they can live in relative comfort and not have to lift a fucking finger. Do welfare recipients pay income taxes? Do HUD beneficiaries pay taxes? Are earned income credits taxable? The idea that a huge swath of the population should be able to be supported by a scant minority is absolutely repugnant.