Democratic contenders hoping to run on soaking the rich

The headline of the article must have been written by someone sympathetic to the billionaires! Why does it seem so bad that people making enormous sums of money, pay more in taxes. Nobody wants to take everything they have and make them destitute, just pay what is fair. But when we get headlines like "soaking the rich", it really pits the lower and middle class versus the 1%.

Democrats lost their way and became republican light as republicans took a right turn towards crazy town. Now Dems are finding their way back to FDR policies that made this country great. Finally!!

Personal income taxes for the rich and corporate taxes are at a historic low for the last 50 years. No wonder there's an outcry to raise them.

Soak the rich: what a joke. The poor little rich boys and girl who got a hefty tax cut from Trump.

Item: Under Eisenhower the wealth tax was 91% and supported by both major parties. What our latter day "soakers" are demanding is modest by comparison.

Lots of Dems throwing their hat in the ring. And what about the Dem establishment? Doesn’t seem to me that they’ve cleaned their house yet so I’m expecting full support by the establishment of the annotated one, whoever that may be, probably Biden, and any serious outside contender to get the Bernie treatment.

It think it was Margaret Thatcher who once said "socialism is great until you run out of other people's money."

I think you are talking about the same woman who squandered an incredible amount of money to pay for the ‘socialist’ welfare state she bloated by her policies.

Wasn’t it Bush 1 who called trickle-down economics “voodoo”?

And you heard this where?

It's call trickle down economics, an economic theory you won't find in any economics book since the GOP invented it. It's where you give tax cuts to the rich and then wait for them to spend more and hire more until it trickles down to the lower classes.

It think it was Margaret Thatcher who once said "socialism is great until you run out of other people's money."

you’ll have another stagnant Obama economy slump

Obama inherited a car crash of an economy after it had shot off the cliff under Bush 2 who you and your non-partisan historians regard as a successful president.

If the economy goes south under Trump, will you still be blaming the socialists?

Others targeting higher income earners include California Sen. Kamala Harris, who has proposed rolling back the recent GOP tax cuts for wealthier families to pay for tax rebates for middle- and lower-income earners.

The GOP will never stand for this. Even the working class GOP members have been taught that giving tax cuts to the rich first is better for them personally.

Just another lie by the GOP.

Have you ever heard that tax cuts pay for themselves? Another GOP lie.

Have you heard that businesses will spend more on hiring and investments if we reduce taxes on their overseas profits? Another lie by the GOP.

I'm not rich, nor do I have much compassion for them. But I think that going anywhere over 48% tax is not smart. It's already bad enough that the wealthy abuse tax loopholes and do other shady methods to not pay their fair share, but jacking up taxes to 70% and more is an absolute failure. The issue is that the Democrats aren't looking at the real problems that are creating the income inequality. The gap has been created by the grotesque legislative practices that large corporations, wealthy political donors, and lobbyists have inspired both political parties to put into practice that skews in favor of capitalist greed instead of healthy competitive capitalism.

US was and still cold be a land of "opportunities" where those that are willing to take the "challenge" are "rewarded. The rich and the wealthy are so, because of those opportunities taken and a job well done or because they have exploited the system, the laws and the people.

But there also many foreigners that are rich and wealthy that do not reside nor care about the US that do not pay taxes but have huge businesses that profit from the US consumers and companies alike.

Then there are domestic and foreign companies that simply avoid taxes by evasion and / or conducting non-visible and non-accountable "cash" business or even do open register cash transactions where the income is not registered and recorded for tax purposes.

There are many that are NOT open and visible that do not pay any taxes.

So why penalize those that do..?

Given all that, interestingly, it has been proven that the very rich have paid more "total tax dollars" than the combines total of all other tax paying citizens.

What that illustrates is NOT the amount taxed, or the percentage taxed, but HOW and WHERE and For WHAT and WHY so much taxed money is needed and USED. It is a fiscal BUDGETING and PRIORITIZATION of USE of taxes that has been and is still the "PROBLEM".

It would be extremely desirable to see is Congress "represent" the NATION and all the citizens and just not their States or constituents or special interests when they allocate and prioritize expenditures, using a much more pragmatic and practical approach instead of some idealized objectives that "hopefully" may get some results, or just to keep the people "happy" getting the called "benefits" without "earning" them or "contributing" to society or to use such in a "responsible" and "justifiable" way.

jacking up taxes to 70% and more is an absolute failure.

70% seems overboard to me.

That said, it's not a blanket 70% they've been pushing, it's any income earned over $10 million, that is to be taxed at 70%.

Dems can never decide what tax rate is “their fair share” they just know it’s more. And whenever they get their big tax increases on the rich they always put in loopholes to prevent their preferred industries and individuals from paying the rate they claim to have forced them to pay. Then inevitably, year after year lobbyists and interest groups chip away at the tax code. Before you know it you have an inefficient and corrupting mess all over again.

The problem is that the government is allowed to discriminate against some citizens and for others with the tax system. Progressive taxation is regressive taxation. Arbitrarily taxing some people and industries differently than others is discriminatory. A flat rate with an across the board exemption and no loopholes or exemptions is the only “fair share” system. In such a system, a person who makes 10 times more than someone else will pay very close to 10 times more in taxes. That is their fair share. No more and no less - no deductions and no loopholes that allow lobbyists and interest groups to buy off politicians.

There's been too much emphasis on income tax when talking about tax reform. What really needs to change is capital gains taxes. Investments are where the uber wealthy make their money and get an unfair advantage. Democrats can make a more convincing case by prioritizing labor over capital. People who actually work for a living deserve rewards, not those who sit around collecting on their investments or those who were simply born lucky. That doesn't mean "soaking the rich", simply making a society in which real upward mobility is no longer just a myth.

Likewise, Democrats should propose legislation for a law similar to what Germany has, where companies with a certain number of employees must have at least 40% employee representation in corporate decision-making. When people are invested in their workplaces, they do a better job and everyone benefits. I imagine this would get broad support among working people of any political persuasion.

Let me tell you about the rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote. They are different from you and me. Let me tell you about the American rich. They are greedier and meaner and, yes, richer than the rich in places like Western Europe and Japan. American rich people are just plain mean and have gotten progressively meaner.

Here is one way the American rich get richer. The most expensive drugs and and health care in the world. The U.S. is the only developed country without universal health care for all.

The U.S. rich destroyed public transportation so you had to buy a car. (I know, it's coming back but hardly fast enough.) The U.S. has nothing like the Shinkansen, so you have to fly.

When Ronald Reagan became president he made Social Security taxable and then gave the rich a tax cut. The beginning of a nasty trend.

Billions of dollars are wasted on what President Eisenhower called the Military-Industrial Complex, but teachers have to take second jobs to make ends meet.

American poverty is not a rich people concern except in one area: For-profit prisons. A homeless person on the street is of no use to the rich, unless put into a for-profit prison. The U.S. is the nation with the high percentage of its citizens in prison.

What about food stamps and the idle poor. A great percentage of food stamps got to the working poor, that people who get low wages from their very rich employers.

And the gun industry that gets rich from lax gun control laws.

Soaking the rich? More like splashing them with a little holy water.

That's the problem. The more you try and make the rich - or big companies - pay their fair share of tax, the more they use whatever tactics they can to shift their money about to avoid it.

If the Congress did not have the power to treat individuals and companies differently with tax rates and loopholes there would not be the problem of wealthy billionaires and companies not paying their fair share. The Dems and Republicans have seized the power to give benefits to certain interest groups, companies and people on an unequal basis. Tax rates must be flat and loopholes must be eliminated by prohibiting the ability of Congress to give benefits that aren’t available to all.

It’s not the companies and billionaires that are to blame. It’s the corrupt system and politicians that use their power to give away benefits to those they prefer over those they disfavor. No one, no matter their beliefs, are immune to the possibility of corruption. That means the power of government must be limited.

As long as the government has different sets of rules within and for different groups of people, organizations and businesses (which remains the case with the current progressive tax system) there will be corruption and the claim that some are not paying “their fair share”.

And the Democrats arethe dumbest party in the world I’d they think they can try that BS again because you’ll have another stagnant Obama economy slump and no one wants that

No sense re-inventing the wheel:

Obama inherited a car crash of an economy after it had shot off the cliff under Bush 2 who you and your non-partisan historians regard as a successful president.

Trickles down from the “tippy top”?

"Tax other people!" will prove to be a populist failure strategy. Are the dems trying not to win?

Its strange, the 70% was once mentioned by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while others like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have much lower tax rates, but once again people go screaming into the night that they are coming to take all your wealth away.

I agree there needs to be real change in America to make the tax code fairer, having companies pay their fair share, and the dems are just as guilty as everyone else. But I still see no reason to raise the taxes on people making huge amounts of money.

Nobody would ever play for the mega millions/powerball lottery tickets in the US again LOL!

Doubtful. If people were really that insightful/foresightful, the lottery tickets in EVERY country would never get sold.

When you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than you do of winning it big in a lottery, yet every week millions upon millions of tickets are sold, you understand what one economist called the lottery: A tax on the stupid.

Study after study has proven this. Yet still... people keep lining up and plonking their dollars down for lottery tickets. And that's in the US, in Japan, in every country that has a national lottery.

Obama inherited a car crash of an economy after it had shot off the cliff under Bush 2 who you and your non-partisan historians regard as a successful president. 

And Trump inherited a stagnant sluggish economy of under 3% GDP and your point, sir?

If the economy goes south under Trump, will you still be blaming the socialists?

Last week the jobs reported over 300,000 new private sector jobs, if this trend continues, we probably won’t have to worry about them ever getting in.

The GOP will never stand for this. Even the working class GOP members have been taught that giving tax cuts to the rich first is better for them personally.

And you heard this where? Which liberal institution was this SCC? Lol

That said, it's not a blanket 70% they've been pushing, it's any income earned over $10 million, that is to be taxed at 70%.

Yeah, that's the "tippy top" according to AOC.

Yeah, raise taxes on the rich, that'll get the economy going!

We need to take back the House and keep the Democrats from ever again gaining control of the Senate and the White House.

It's call trickle down economics, an economic theory you won't find in any economics book since the GOP invented it.

You are so right. Which produced more wealthy people than any other system and since every IT Tech company and the liberals that created them in sunny silicone valley have greatly benefited from this theory, it proves that it works and works well.

Just another lie by the GOP.

liberals keep telling that lie, they think that expanding the government and handing out entitlements will create prosperity for the country. Just look at SF and LA. Democrats have absolutely no plan whatsoever, they don’t know about reducing taxes, growing the private sector, encourage self-reliance. They think taxing people as much as 80％ make up for their shortcomings when it comes to job creation

So what happens when the rich have brought down and their ill gotten gains have been redistributed to the poor? Who's going to pay for all the social programs when the rich are not rich anymore? Who's next? There are always going to be people that are poor. Do we just keep going until everybody is living in the same state of poverty?

It sounds like the Democrats are demonizing the wealthy in America and building the case for what amounts to the confiscation of their wealth and redistributing it to people who have less than them. Kind of like Robin Hood. But it should be noted that Robin Hood was a thief.

Now Dems are finding their way back to FDR policies that made this country great. Finally!!

Really? There aren’t any moderates left. Biden won’t be President and the Socialists, if you call these people the pinnacle of FDR’s policies, I will have to greatly deal with you. The man wasn’t a socialist.

Personal income taxes for the rich and corporate taxes are at a historic low for the last 50 years. No wonder there's an outcry to raise them.

And the Democrats arethe dumbest party in the world I’d they think they can try that BS again because you’ll have another stagnant Obama economy slump and no one wants that, also we can move our money, get up and relocate anytime and anywhere. Poor people can’t do that and if these socialists think they can skate by and just snag our money, they really are going to lose in this endeavor and then the country will lose ultimately or mainly the poor.

Even at $10million is excessive. Nobody would ever play for the mega millions/powerball lottery tickets in the US again LOL! Now a multi-billionare who is making over $100 billion USD a year I could kind of understand.