Cotham: House could tax rich

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%.

"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?

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!

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???

• "... 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. ;)

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. ;)

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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!"

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?

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

Not only is Cotham right, she is brave.

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

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.

This is a ridiculous proposal that is pure class warfare hatred at it's worse. Rep. Cotham is a elitist at it's worse definition.

We are in this situation because of people like Cotham and her fellow liberals who have badly mismanaged this state. It is time we call out these irresponsible people.

Lets see if some of her Democrat comrades in competitive districts feel the same way.

Sure, why not? Unemployment's already bad; let's make it worse. What's the alternative: cutting the state's budget? Anathema. Every last budget item is vital to the state, including all the new spending items put in it over the last four or five years.