Second debate

**deathgodusmc** · 10-17-12, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by Morningfrost

It's not that I'm thinking about the number of people paying taxes being a finite number, just that the overall pool of taxes being collected needs to add up to 100%. If the wealthy are paying 60% of all taxes, but the share being paid by the middle class is reduced (say from 30% to 25%, provided by the office of pulling numbers out of my ass), then that share of the "pool" has to be picked up somewhere else. I mean, I understand theoretically what he's trying to do: bring down the actual tax rate itself for people, and I don't have a problem with that if he can make the math add up. My main question is that if the wealthy pay 60% of all taxes, and businesses, middle and lower classes pay the other 40%....and then the share paid by the middle class is reduced (he mentioned doing that multiple times), then the share paid by another group is going to rise as a percentage of total taxes collected. The actual amounts of taxes paid my not rise, but the percentage of total taxes collected from that group will.

I don't know if I'm explaining this in a way that makes sense or not lol, so I'm gonna give it one more try and hopefully I can get it out in a coherent way.

Let's say for example (these numbers are almost certainly wrong, I'm making them up as I go) that the wealthy pay 60% of all federal taxes, businesses pay 20%, the middle class pays 15% and the lower class pays 5%. That all adds up to 100% of all collected taxes. If, however, the middle class' share of the taxes is reduced to 12%, the pool no longer adds up to 100%. So who ends up paying the increased share?

I'd like to re-iterate that I'm not implying the amount of money being paid by anyone will increase, only that SOMEone's share will rise, based upon my understanding of the plan.

~Morningfrost

Romneys entire plan revolves around closing loop holes. Im all for that but i'll just say its not the first time i've heard it.

**Fovezer** · 10-17-12, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Romneys entire plan revolves around closing loop holes. Im all for that but i'll just say its not the first time i've heard it.

Really? He told you what loopholes he was going to close and how he was going to make the math work without exploding the deficit? Then congratulations, because you're the first person he has told. Tell him what he's won, Bob!

**Morningfrost** · 10-17-12, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by Fovezer

Really? He told you what loopholes he was going to close and how he was going to make the math work without exploding the deficit? Then congratulations, because you're the first person he has told. Tell him what he's won, Bob!

Erm, Fov....DG didn't say Romney had said WHICH loopholes, only that the plan revolved around the closing of loopholes lol. And everyone and their mother's heard that at this point.

And DG, I'm all for the closing of loopholes too, but even if he manages to do that there's a LOT of professional tax people that say it doesn't work mathematically. That there's not enough loopholes to cover the cuts he wants to make as well. I'm just trying to get a handle on what it is he wants to do outside of "closing loopholes", cause I think those are the things more likely to actually get accomplished. Call me jaded, but I have a hard time believing Romney's constituency allows him to actually close loopholes that they make gigantic profits from.

~Morningfrost

**triggerhappy2005** · 10-18-12, 06:04 AM

Originally Posted by -Lazarus-

Hate to interrupt you boys' little circle jerk here,

Do you speak like this at church?

**Fovezer** · 10-18-12, 07:54 AM

Originally Posted by Morningfrost

Erm, Fov....DG didn't say Romney had said WHICH loopholes, only that the plan revolved around the closing of loopholes lol. And everyone and their mother's heard that at this point.

And DG, I'm all for the closing of loopholes too, but even if he manages to do that there's a LOT of professional tax people that say it doesn't work mathematically. That there's not enough loopholes to cover the cuts he wants to make as well. I'm just trying to get a handle on what it is he wants to do outside of "closing loopholes", cause I think those are the things more likely to actually get accomplished. Call me jaded, but I have a hard time believing Romney's constituency allows him to actually close loopholes that they make gigantic profits from.

~Morningfrost

Meh, for the most part I was just being silly. But it's a fact that Romney's plan revolves around closing loopholes which he will not tell the people which ones he will close because even if you close ALL the loopholes you still can't pay for his proposal. Not to mention he'd be increasing the tax burden on normal middle class people by thousands of dollars while cutting it for those on the top.

**deathgodusmc** · 10-18-12, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by Morningfrost

Erm, Fov....DG didn't say Romney had said WHICH loopholes, only that the plan revolved around the closing of loopholes lol. And everyone and their mother's heard that at this point.

And DG, I'm all for the closing of loopholes too, but even if he manages to do that there's a LOT of professional tax people that say it doesn't work mathematically. That there's not enough loopholes to cover the cuts he wants to make as well. I'm just trying to get a handle on what it is he wants to do outside of "closing loopholes", cause I think those are the things more likely to actually get accomplished. Call me jaded, but I have a hard time believing Romney's constituency allows him to actually close loopholes that they make gigantic profits from.

~Morningfrost

Not that i disagree with your point but there are a few loop holes, deductions, and credits that could be eliminated that would create a whole bunch of money in taxes. However closing or getting rid of them would most likely create a big issues. Trust me i just as jaded as you are on this but we do need to close those holes that let companies pay in 0 while earning billions in profit.

**deathgodusmc** · 10-18-12, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by Fovezer

Meh, for the most part I was just being silly. But it's a fact that Romney's plan revolves around closing loopholes which he will not tell the people which ones he will close because even if you close ALL the loopholes you still can't pay for his proposal. Not to mention he'd be increasing the tax burden on normal middle class people by thousands of dollars while cutting it for those on the top.

Not true but i think we both know it will play out that way.

**-Lazarus-** · 10-18-12, 08:01 AM

Originally Posted by digital

Once again pointless to keep discussing this.

Romney is going to lose.

End of line.

Sent from my Motorola Photon Cannon!

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/th...n-gallup-poll/

And this is with an over sampling of Democrats which has skewed this poll all year.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

**-Lazarus-** · 10-18-12, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by Fovezer

Really? He told you what loopholes he was going to close and how he was going to make the math work without exploding the deficit? Then congratulations, because you're the first person he has told. Tell him what he's won, Bob!

Keep being smug Fov. That'll end in November.

**-Lazarus-** · 10-18-12, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by Morningfrost

It's not that I'm thinking about the number of people paying taxes being a finite number, just that the overall pool of taxes being collected needs to add up to 100%. If the wealthy are paying 60% of all taxes, but the share being paid by the middle class is reduced (say from 30% to 25%, provided by the office of pulling numbers out of my ass), then that share of the "pool" has to be picked up somewhere else. I mean, I understand theoretically what he's trying to do: bring down the actual tax rate itself for people, and I don't have a problem with that if he can make the math add up. My main question is that if the wealthy pay 60% of all taxes, and businesses, middle and lower classes pay the other 40%....and then the share paid by the middle class is reduced (he mentioned doing that multiple times), then the share paid by another group is going to rise as a percentage of total taxes collected. The actual amounts of taxes paid my not rise, but the percentage of total taxes collected from that group will.

I don't know if I'm explaining this in a way that makes sense or not lol, so I'm gonna give it one more try and hopefully I can get it out in a coherent way.

Let's say for example (these numbers are almost certainly wrong, I'm making them up as I go) that the wealthy pay 60% of all federal taxes, businesses pay 20%, the middle class pays 15% and the lower class pays 5%. That all adds up to 100% of all collected taxes. If, however, the middle class' share of the taxes is reduced to 12%, the pool no longer adds up to 100%. So who ends up paying the increased share?

I'd like to re-iterate that I'm not implying the amount of money being paid by anyone will increase, only that SOMEone's share will rise, based upon my understanding of the plan.

~Morningfrost

Now I understand what you are saying. This is an interesting point Frost, I had kind of been paying attention to these specifics but hadn't thought much about what the implications really are and now I'm kind of excited about it after reading your comments. Let me explain.

First, Romney is proposing an across the board tax cut, but he intends to effectively keep the tax burden the same for the top 5%. In this way, Romney will transfer more of the tax base to the top 5% after cutting taxes. the reason for this is that if you cut the tax rate for the top tier as well, the most successful small businesses get a tax cut they would not have normally had.

As the middle class tax base grows and pays a higher percentage into the tax base, Romney proposes removing loopholes specific to the top 5 percent, including removing the property tax exemption for them only (and not the middle class). If you don't understand that specific set of loopholes, it represents a huge sum of money. The wealthy have protected their money from taxation by dumping it into real estate for many years. Congress set this up for themselves really... You'll find that just about every member of congress is heavily invested in real estate for this reason.

A couple of years ago I was studying how to best amass wealth, and the idea I came away with was that the best way to do it was to emulate what the leaders of the country were doing because they would always legislate to protect their own investments, and therefore they would protect yours too. Doesn't matter if they are rep. or dem., they all have this in common.

My only concern about that particular part of Romney's plan is that it kind of makes Romney an outsider in a way (though it is also something that intrigues me about Romney too). Congress will be especially resistant to the idea of going after tax exemptions related to real estate, yet Romney keeps going back to that as one of the ways he will keep the same share of the burden on the top 5%. Very interesting stuff going on there. This is partly why his own party has been critical of him at times - he intends to crack down on everyone in the upper to protect the middle. This is exactly the sort of thing Reagan did to kill the Carter recession.

Remember that this is a guy who gives something like about 65% of his income away between taxes and charity so he doesn't exactly see wealth the same way as a typical Washington fat cat republican or liberal does. Certainly no matter how much bluster you see Obama show about what he will do to collect and spend other people's money, he never gives these kind of specifics as a way to demonstrate how the tax burden will shift to the top tier of taxpayers without harming job growth. This has been a huge flaw in his plan.

Now on to spending. Don't forget the impact of putting a stop to spending on stimulus and other failed attempts by government to prop up failing businesses. As the marketplace is allowed to grow more robust and competition is allowed to thrive, more companies will be paying much more into the tax base rather than representing a cost to taxpayers. Also corporate tax revenues will increase as the same loopholes Romney is describing are removed.

The market simply needs to be allowed to thrive and the tax revenue from small and large businesses will increase as a result, even with a lower rate of taxation.