newsobserver.com projects - Cotham: House could tax rich - Comments

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

piperscot — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:47:49 -0400

Okay, Mr. Harrison, let's make this a real simple learning moment. 3.9% of filers are paying 41% of income taxes. As a percent of filers, they are paying ten times the amount of other segments. For instance, the bottom 50% of filers are paying only 10% of the total income tax. Regardless of rate, the burden is already on the higher income filers. Additionally, your example does not work because the $100K filer pays at a top rate of 6.5% while the $1M filer pays at 7.5%.

Time for basic math

scharrison — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:54:11 -0400

"they are already paying at a ratio of 10 times their share of all income that is taxed"

For the purpose of simplicity, we'll round up the income tax rate to 10%. A person making a million dollars per year pays $100,000. A person making $100,000 per year pays $10,000. They are each paying the same percentage, but one pays 10 times more because he made 10 times more.

Are you saying it would be "fair" if they both paid $10,000? One giving 10% of his salary while the other only gives 1% of his salary?

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

Jimblackmustgo — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:52:39 -0400

If 80% of NC's businesses are small businesses then they would be paying more under a income tax hike so you're not taxinng the "rich" as much as you think. Another comical aspect of this approach is that she wants to tax the rich but she hasn't said anything about the loopholes that the banks use (her district)? So while big companies cheat NC out of hundreds of millions per year she wants to tax small businesses ...this will really get the fat cats!

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

piperscot — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:20:17 -0400

According to documents released by Democratic Sen. Clodfelter, currently 40.1% of income taxes collected in North Carolina are paid by just 3.9% of filers, generating $4.1B in revenue. That is for filers above the $199K AGI level. Each additional $1B in tax revenues generated on the "rich" raises their "fair" share of total tax revenues by 10%. I'd like to understand Rep. Cotham's position but they are already paying at a ratio of 10 times their share of all income that is taxed. Now she wants that to go higher???

Mind your inferences

jonoflocke — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:42:54 -0400

"... as self-defeatingly silly as that sounds to me, some actually opt for that tack ..."
"It would be fodder for serious public-policy debate, unless one were so deplorably unimaginative as to rely only on cheap invective as a way to navigate political uncertainty and attempt to persuade."

There are no personal attacks there.

Also, and perhaps this wasn't as clear as I thought it was, my comments directed at your post began after "As for this" followed by your quote. ;)

Okay, Jon

scharrison — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:22:27 -0400

I guess since I'm so "deplorably unimaginative" and "self-defeatingly silly" I can't recognize what is or is not a personal attack.

Thanks for the guidance. ;)

Criticizing ad hominem tactics is not engaging in ad hominem

jonoflocke — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:23:07 -0400

I'm happy to leave it to the individual readers to decide for themselves whether this news item discussed tax increases or just the budget shortfall, and therefore whether my links were off topic or relevant.

I freely admit the sarcasm of my first post. The rest of your charges are obvious wishful thinking. E.g., a charge of "a barrage of ad hominem" would be more devastating were there any truth to it. Assertions of that sort would probably be more believable were the truth contra not right there for people to see.

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

omg4real — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:40:00 -0400

Man you guys are missing the point. If all the cuts stand to Health and Human Services, it will be a disaster. Not only with NC citizens lose needed services but many of your fellow citizens will lose their jobs. Hundreds of small business will be forced to close. When that happens, you have less people paying taxes and more drawing unemployment checks. Don’t you get what kind of impact that will have on our budget deficit? For those who say do away with services make sure you know who it will impact. The folks that go without services will be the mentally and physically disabled. Without the services they will end yup in our state facilities, ERs and our prison system. So you are going to pay one way or another.

Climb down slowly

scharrison — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:06:05 -0400

off your high horse, lest you fall and break something. Your first post on this thread was both sarcastic and inaccurate, so don't give me any crap about engaging in logical fallacies when you started out with a dicto simpliciter position yourself, followed by a barrage of argumentum ad hominem attacks in your latest post.

You want to talk about the budget, we can talk about the budget. But you chose to post a link to an article that talked about cutting taxes in a thread that's about the budget deficit, and you got called on it.

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

jonoflocke — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:54:13 -0400

While we're on the subject of things we've grown accustomed to and things that surprise, I've grown accustomed to certain segments relying on completely fabricated smears in discussion, but I admit I still find it surprising that any supposedly thinking adult would opt for such shoddy, passive-aggressive tactics or introducing those smears in the off-hand, petitio principii manner. It must be difficult, I guess, to acknowledge that someone with different ideas about government from you is a thoughtful, principled individual with many of the same basic values and goals as you but decidedly different ideas as to how those are ultimately prized and accomplished. It must therefore seem easier and tidier just to cast the other as some sort of cartoonish villain who Totally Hates People — as self-defeatingly silly as that sounds to me, some actually opt for that tack, and gleefully so (even as their own ideological allies are having the same argument among themselves as the one taking place here).

The Locke Foundation has published a budget proposal with ways to manage the current crisis as well as address the underlying problems behind it. It would be fodder for serious public-policy debate, unless one were so deplorably unimaginative as to rely only on cheap invective as a way to navigate political uncertainty and attempt to persuade.

As for this:

So the JLF's solution to the budget deficit is to get rid of the corporate income tax and the additional (sin) taxes on cigarettes and alcohol? :o

I leave it to the individual readers to decide for themselves if what has been suggested as the bulk of the recommendations really is, or if it is merely one part of a larger bundle. (The above linked budget would fit into this discussion as well.)

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

scharrison — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:06:43 -0400

Sure, why not? Unemployment's already bad; let's make it worse.

So the JLF's solution to the budget deficit is to get rid of the corporate income tax and the additional (sin) taxes on cigarettes and alcohol? :o

What a novel idea! Increasing the budget deficit by a couple of billion dollars, in an effort to balance it. Coming soon from the John Locke Foundation's new Healthy Living Advisory Council:

"Need to lose weight? Eat more, exercise less!"

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

Gosh — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:36:05 -0400

Kudos to Paul Terrell for being willing to comment in his own name. A lot of hot air coming from folks hiding behind anonymity.

Skip Stam, is that you?

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

jerimee — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:58:34 -0400

While I've grown accustomed to conservative organizations' attacks on low-income families as lazy, ignorant, and inferior, I'm surprised that the John Locke Foundation would want to include the elderly and infirm in the category of expendable people.

Kudos to Paul Terrell for being willing to comment in his own name. A lot of hot air coming from folks hiding behind anonymity.

More on Rep. Cotham's efforts to stand up for the vulnerable here:

http://bluenc.com/18000-teachers-be-fired

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

rkolar — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:51:42 -0400

Not only is Cotham right, she is brave.

I wish more representatives had the strength to voice these unpopular truths.

Re: Cotham: House could tax rich

RobSchofield — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:10:16 -0400

Cotham is right.

Here are some salient facts:

The combined, effective state and local tax rate on the poor and middle class in North Carolina (after all federal deductions, etc.) is around 10%.
The rate on the richest 1% of North Carolinians is around 7%.

Even if Cotham's idea succeeded, the rich would still pay much less.

The only "class warfare" going on in North Carolina is clearly top down.

Cotham: House could tax rich

bniolet — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:18:06 -0400

State House Democrats could consider raising taxes on North Carolina’s wealthiest taxpayers as they struggle with a record budget shortfall, a Charlotte lawmaker said Friday morning.

Democratic Rep. Tricia Cotham made the statement in a conference call on the budget with more than 50 constituents, elected officials and others, Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer reports.

Cotham said Democrats, who control the House, are considering a package of income and excise tax hikes to offset a shortfall that now stands at $4.6 billion.

"We are not talking about taxing the working class," she said. "We’re looking at 3 to 5 percent of North Carolina’s richest income earners."

To those making more than $250,000 a year, she said, "You’re going to have to pay more – and I think you should."

Cotham offered a bleak assessment of proposed cuts. For example, she described what she called "absolutely devastating" cuts in education spending that could amount to $1.8 billion and "set back education at least a decade."

More after the jump.