Bernie Sanders is a Centerist

What taxes are you talking about? Federal income taxes? Is this information not correct:

quote:

---

The top 1 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted annual gross income of $480,930 or higher, pay about 39 percent of federal income taxes.

​

The top 10 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted gross income over $138,031, pay about 70.6 percent of federal income taxes.

​

The bottom 50 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted gross income of $39,275 or less, pay 2.83 percent of federal income taxes.
sauce

---

And, yet, the top 10% still pay 70% of the federal income taxes?How could these taxes have been shifted from the rich to the poor/middle if the rich are still paying most of the taxes?

Ah, I was potentially misreading RAZD with an unintended implication that would be analogously to: there has been a shift of *most* of the apples from you to me.If I had read: "there has been a shift of apples from you to me", I would have read that as being a significant amount rather than just one of 70 of them.

But the rate doesn't tell you how much is paid.The context was who was paying for it and you replied that there has been a massive shift in taxes from the rich to the middle class and poor.It looks like the rich are still paying for most of it even if their rates have gone down. And still, the top ten percent are paying 70% of the federal income taxes and the bottom fifty percent are paying 3% of them.So when you say a "massive shift" you are not talking about how much is being paid.Now, you're talking about the "burden" of the taxes in the context of the percentage of income that is taxed and how those rates have changed - and calling that the massive shift.But the changes in the rates doesn't tell you how much is actually being paid.So the question of who is paying for it isn't answered - and calling the change in rates a massive shift from one to the other is spin.

Then your argument wasn't in context.When I read your argument in context, it looked like you were saying that the amount of taxes being paid was shifted from the rich to the middle class and poor.It turns out that isn't true, and that isn't what you were attempting to say. Instead, you were talking about the changes in the percentage of income that is tax, but that doesn't address the question of who is paying for it. And yet, the rich pay 70% to the others' 3%. And yet, in you look at federal income taxes the rich are still footing the bill.This "massive shift" hasn't changed that.When you look at which group is doing the paying, there hasn't been a shift that can be called massive.You massive shift takes too much spin to see.

Okay, I'm talking about totals. Well, it depends. Hypothetically, the rate can decrease while the total amount increases if the income increases enough.You be talking about the rate going down when the result was that they paid more in total.It doesn't really matter to me how much the rate has changed since 1960. That the top 10% are paying 70% of the federal income taxes doesn't look like a problem of the poor and middle class having those taxes shifted to them. Especially when the bottom 50% are only paying 3% of the federal income taxes.If the rich are paying the vast majority of a tax, then it doesn't make sense to say that the tax has been shifted to another group.Sure, the rates have changed, but how much are people actually paying?Turns out, if you look at federal income taxes, the rich are paying the bulk of them. They have not been shifted to the poor and middle class.

I'm not exactly sure which problem it is that you're referring to.

I agree, focusing on just the rates is too small of a picture. Okay. So, you're talking about holdings now - we were talking about income. Just sayin'.I suppose an increase in holdings indicates an increase in income. I guess it makes sense that the rich are still paying most of the taxes even though the rates have changed so that some of the burden has been moved to the lower classes. But to the question of who is paying for it, the rates don't really tell you.As far as the "problem" of the rich getting richer, I'm not convinced that is an issue with tax rates. Like, that people stopped supporting their local businesses and instead just go to WalMart is not a tax problem. If we want the rich to stop getting richer, then how about we stop giving them our money?Giving them our money and then having the government force them to give it back in a roundabout way seems silly. Isn't that more of an issue with universities and health care than it is an issue with tax rates? I don't have much of an opinion on it, but a 70% tax rate is ridiculous.

Others, I get it.That phrasing threw me for a loop, though: if the rich get to keep more of their money... yikes that sounds like theft. I understand that. I don't doubt that some of the burden has been shifted.I wouldn't call it a massive shift because the rich still pay the most. That they're less burdened by it is an aside.And I'm not convinced that the rich getting richer is a tax problem. Nor am I convinced that taxes are the right solution.Hyperbolic spin doesn't cut it.

Actually, I'm just not arguing that. But the answer to the question of who is paying depends on how much people are paying and not how much their rates have changed. As I said, the rate could go down while the amount of payment goes up - and that would not be them paying less. I don't doubt that there has been some shifting - but I'm not buying your spin that it has been massive.Maybe it has been, but I haven't seen it yet.What was the amount of contribution from the top ten percent in 1960 and how does that compare to the 70% of today? Is it really due to that? How do you know? How do you know that's why?

Neither does the rate. The rate can go down while the contribution goes up if the income increases enough. What portion of the federal income tax was paid by the top 10% in the 1950s?* And how does that compare to the 70% of today?How much of it has been shifted?*totally googled that sentence before submitting. Found this:

quote:

---

In 1979, the top 10 percent of households, as measured by income, paid 40.6 percent of all federal taxes; other ninety percent paid 59.4 percent.

​

But by 2005, the top 10 percent accounted for nearly 55 percent of all federal tax revenues, while the rest of the population paid about 45 percent. sauce

---

That sounds like the tax is being shifted to the rich not from them - the portion they paid went from 41% to 55% to 70%.

Can you explain this: Is it really due to that? How do you know? How do you know that's why?

The solution to the WalMart problem is to stop spending your money at WalMart, not using the federal government to force your will upon them. Nobody is stopping you. Go start your company and get to work.

Do you? Yeah, so all this about the massive shift from the change in the rates is off. That ain't my narrative.

Not just you personally, the collective you, i.e. all of us.Last time I was in a WalMart it was packed. How many employees do you have? How do you go about democratically running your company so that decisions are made that support all the workers equitably? I'm not the one trying to solve the problem.But I understand that there are jobs that don't provide enough value to be worth a livable wage.
And that forcing compliance to your ideas via federal regulation is morally wrong.I'll just go with the status quo until someone convinces me they have something better.