Forget raising taxes on the rich, do this instead...

[Takket]

If you believe this:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/11/news/economy/wealth-net-worth/index.html

The top 1% of people in this country have an average wealth of about $16 million.

If you figure the USA is 300,000,000 people, the top 1% consists of 3,000,000 people.

3 million times 16 million is 48 trillion of wealth

I say, tax them all 1/3 of their wealth, and pay off the national debt RIGHT NOW. One lump sum, with a few caveats....

The top 1% will then be EXEMPT from ANY taxes for the rest of their lives. Federal, State, Sales, capital gains, don't even make them pay to renew their drivers license. This will allow them to conduct their business and gain back much of their wealth.

Next, pass a balanced budget amendment and eliminate defecit spending. Institute a five trillion dollar "rainy day" fund for the federal government to finance any diasters/wars we enter in to. Government will collect taxes until the 5 trillion is in place, then lower taxes to the level where it only collects what it needs.

Treat the 1% of national heros, for sacrificing so much to allow our nation to hit the "reset" button.

I know there are probably some flaws here, like if a 1%ers net worth is all in real estate you can't just cut 33% of his land off and liquidate it so easily, and also I don't if, even with the interest on the national debt gone, if you could still collect enough taxes for a surplus without taxing income on the top 1% at all (you may need to still tax them a little) but the principle is basically the same.

If 1 out of every 100 people made this sacrifice (which would still leave them filthy rich by the way, it isn't like they'd be in line at the soup kitchen), it would greatly benefit the other 99%.

Make any sense? Or would this just lead to disaster lol.

[MichiganVote]

1. Treat the very wealthy as the country's heroes? When r they anything else?

Never pay taxes again? Since they create the conditions for the debt, they can fucking pay for it as often as is needed.

[hrmjustin]

2. I doubt that the rich want to be known as national hero's.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. Sounds like a good plan. If you can't impliment it all at once, adopt an estate tax of 100% for all

estates over $5 million until the national debt is paid off or until your plan is implimented, whichever comes first.

[JDPriestly]

8. The plan in the OP would not work.

You can't give the richest in the nation a tax amnesty because if you do, they will make sure that the country just runs up an even larger debt that we have now.

The idea of taxing all estates over $5 million would be great, but I would tax them -- federal tax level of 50% -- with no loopholes, no trusts, nothing like that.

We probably don't want to pay off our entire national debt. It is healthy for the economy to have some debt. It allows ordinary Americans to invest in America by buying bonds. I know an elderly woman who holds almost all of her money in US savings bonds. Until the last four or five years, it worked out very well for her to invest in that way. But now, it is hard for her at her age to buy the bonds since the Federal Reserve has changed the way they sell them, and the interest on them is very low.

If our debt were half the problem that the Republicans claim it is, we would have to pay higher interest in order to get people, American or foreign, to buy our bonds. Fact is people want to buy our US bonds even when the interest rate is very low.

Our debt needs to be reduced, but the Republicans and Fox News have exaggerated this problem way out of proportion.

Our trade deficit and the manufacturing and skills deficits that our trade deficit represents are a far, far, far more serious structural problem.

[BlueMan Votes]

4. a lot of the 1% hold the notes to a big chunk of that debt anyway.

The biggest estates hold LOTS of funds in t-bills.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Grover ...hi

Ingenious I must say, but deluded.

[Warpy]

6. It makes sense if you're that rich

because the laws are all still tilted in your favor and you'll make that money back plus more in record time if you aren't facing the annoyance of having to pay your fair share.

A far better set of ideas are these:

First, make the tax more progressive, return it to Reagan's top rate of 50%. Raise that top rate on the most egregious pigs, those making over 10 million a year, indexed to inflation, to a rate that is a disincentive to that kind of greed.

Second, enact a transaction tax on all stock transfers. While the hedge fund managers will shriek like stuck pigs (which is what they will be), this will generate a huge revenue stream and they'll still get richer, albeit slower. It might make a lot of the computer trading done now unprofitable, unskewing the market and that is a good thing.

Third, start cutting the military budget 10% per year until it's in line with what other countries spend. Force the generals to start making tough decisions about overengineered toys and foreign bases that are strategic versus those that are merely pleasant. Above all, close that welfare office for arms contractors. Nail it shut.

Fourth, enact a confiscatory inheritance tax on estates over 10 million, indexed to inflation. It won't generate as much as the income tax or the transaction tax, but it will keep us from developing an inheritable aristocracy, something no democracy ever needs.

The key to all tax proposals as well as wage and benefits proposals is indexing them to inflation/deflation. That's the main reason the social safety net is a joke, no benefits were ever indexed and few have been addressed since the 1970s.

The right will howl, but they'll howl even if none of this is done and the Democrats keep feeding them their own programs to vote down. We might as well give them something to howl about.

[JDPriestly]

9. Good ideas. Thanks, Warpy. At least your ideas are headed in the right

direction.

[JaneyVee]

7. Riiiight, these idiots are already complaining over a proposed 4% tax hike.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

10. The top 1%

applies to income not population.

[aquart]

11. No.

[MrYikes]

12. This type of conversation is important.

Let us all continue this type of thought process.

My addition would be to eliminate all sales taxes. They are repressive to all middle and lower income households.

I would double or triple the gasoline and diesel taxes.

[kentuck]

13. But...but...but..?

What about those that say if you take everything that the top 1% have, it would only balance the budget for 4 months?

[lefthandedlefty]

14. Why not the whole world just go bankrupt

1/1/13 all debt erased on the whole planet no one no country owes any one anything.Then start over with a clean slate.

[BanTheGOP]

15. Taxes are NOT about obtaining income alone

I like your wealth repatriation idea, to a point. But the reason we have a major problem is NOT just in the collection of monies to pay off debt. Our major problem is because we ALLOW wealth to be accumulated in the first place. THIS is why we favor progressive tax rates, so we can level the playing field for ALL people. With your idea to exempt the rich for life, they can actually make a hell of a lot MORE money than they had, and you know there wealth is "created" from the sweat of the productive impoverished. You will only multiply that effect by TEN.

I would ultimately like to see 100% wealth compensation for all individual wealth over $10 million dollars. Nobody should be worth more than that. In addition, we should mandate higher tax rates across the board for everyone so we can effect our progressive society, NOT so we can just collect more in taxes. Everyone should have the same medical benefits, and we should have a single class: not multiple levels of class that only goes in one direction for very few (wealthy) or the other direction for the masses (poverty). But again, it's NOT just about collecting taxes for our needed programs. It's about instituting a progressive and benevolent society that, currently, is only stopped by the existence of the republican Party.