Lawmaker wants the rich to be drug tested before receiving high-dollar tax deductions

[Masark]

someone does not know the difference between income and capital gains.

Yeah, one gets taxed at a preferential rate. But there's no good reason for that preferential rate.

[Alydael]

Well, you're a better person than me. I don't care if you are a crackhead, Until you ask me(by way of the govt) to waste money on feeding, clothing and housing you. By paying your way, I'm an enabler to your habits and depending on your habits, you may never be a useful member of society. I have no love loss for drunks and drug addicts, they are pissing their lives away and I'll never willing agree to offer them a free ride. If they starve, it is a path they choose for themselves, and no one will guilt trip me into feeling sorry for them

On the flip side, If you're a legit poor person, someone down on their luck, someone trying to catch a break and even the above mention folks trying to clean up. I'm completely fine with Uncle Sam being generous with support. When someone says they are too good to take a simple drug test for help, all I hear is "I want to do whatever I want to do and you owe me food and shelter, because you have it and I want it and because I'm a human, it's owed to me"

Fortunately grumpy old people like me will die off in another 20 years or so, and the softer gentler folks will be in charge.

You are not enabling a crack head by feeding them. A crack head is not going to give up crack because you decided not to give them food. They are still going to do crack. That is why they are a "crack-head."

Look, I don't like crack heads or drug addicts anymore than you do. I just think it is a massive waste of money to try and stop people from doing drugs. It is just not going to happen. Prohibition didn't work either.

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There are a couple striking differences between these things and heroin. Can you spot them?

I would be surprised if there was even a single example of an American starving to death without having an eating disorder. Food is plentiful, even for those with no money or government subsidies. Starvation is not a real problem even for the indigent.

Occasionally I forget that I'm just a self-righteous dick for showing up to my job, paying taxes, and not shooting heroin all day. My bad.

Hey, if showing up for work makes you a self righteous dick, then I guess I am too. That is not what I am saying at all. You missed the first couple of posts in the conversation. What I am saying is:

1) It is a waste of time, energy and money to try and stop people from doing drugs. It has been proven time and time again not to work.

2) There should be a food bank where anyone can just walk in and take food if they need it. They show an ID and if they actually make enough money to pay for the food they took, the government takes that money at tax time.

This country has spent untold billions (and sacrificed the lives of good people (cops, etc) on the war on drugs and it was a total waste. There are now more people than ever doing drugs. It is basically a total failure. I would like to change our national focus from stopping crack heads from doing crack (who really cares anyway?) to spending the billions, energy, time and people's lives on more important things. And guess what, if a crack head wants to wander into the food bank I proposed above and take a loaf of bread, then let them...

[PosPosPos]

So basically, supertony51 feels that the rich should be allowed to subvert the law and given special treatment, by virtue of being rich.

Color me shocked.

[Tempguy]

Yeah, one gets taxed at a preferential rate. But there's no good reason for that preferential rate.

There is actually. I learned about it when I looked up WTF capital gains were.

The goal is to encourage investment. People will invest less if all their returns get cut into too much. If that happens only the rich will keep doing it since they can afford the big numbers needed to actually make decent money.

Capital gains applies to everyone. That dude who bought 1/100 share of Apple stock as well as the guy who owns half the company in stocks.


Truth me told. The tax system is pretty liberal in nature. The only benefit the rich have is they can pay accountants to take take advantage of every damn loophole in existence. If everyone had access to that you would find we all pay way more than we ought to. There are people out there who don't even know that being a first time home buyer gives you huge breaks.

[PosPosPos]

Truth me told. The tax system is pretty liberal in nature. The only benefit the rich have is they can pay accountants to take take advantage of every damn loophole in existence. If everyone had access to that you would find we all pay way more than we ought to. There are people out there who don't even k kW that being a first time home buyer gives you huge breaks.

Re: bold
Yes, and what makes you think the majority of them don't do precisely as you have mentioned?

It's not like they can't afford it.

Re: italics
They don't need to, that's why they hire people who do.

[Masark]

The goal is to encourage investment. People will invest less if all their returns get cut into too much. If that happens only the rich will keep doing it since they can afford the big numbers needed to actually make decent money.

That presumes that investment needs encouraging and that low taxes are actually a means of doing so.

The data suggests that investment and the capital gains tax rate have basically zero link. The only effect of a preferential capital gains rate is lower revenues and tax burden being shifted from those that can afford it to those who can't.

[Tempguy]

To the first, it's like you don't even read past whatever point you want to refute. I was explaining that if there was some subsidy that allowed normal people to get access to good accounting; we'd be able to take advantage of many tax breaks we are not aware of. Your post is literally irrelevant to the point I was making. It was addressed in n the post you quoted.

No shit normal people can't afford Harvard accountants.



To the second.

I'll give you that. I see no reason the tax rate in gains can't fluctuate with the economy. I was only explaining the reasoning behind the lower tax rate. It may not apply now, but at the time it was implemented it did. It isn't low just to help the rich.

That may be the effect with lobbying and congress' hooligans. But that was not the initial goal.

[PosPosPos]

To the first, it's like you don't even read past whatever point you want to refute. I was explaining that if there was some subsidy that allowed normal people to get access to good accounting; we'd be able to take advantage of many tax breaks we are not aware of. Your post is literally irrelevant to the point I was making. It was addressed in n the post you quoted.

Maybe it's because I wasn't refuting, not completely anyway. I thought you were insinuating that, based on "...they can pay accountants..." rather than "they pay accountants", that you did not think that most rich people have not already done that.

And if you didn't feel this way, then sorry for misconstruing your intentions.

To the second.

I'll give you that. I see no reason the tax rate in gains can't fluctuate with the economy. I was only explaining the reasoning behind the lower tax rate. It may not apply now, but at the time it was implemented it did. It isn't low just to help the rich.

That may be the effect with lobbying and congress' hooligans. But that was not the initial goal.

Well, at least we can agree that money corrupts.

[Masark]

I was only explaining the reasoning behind the lower tax rate. It may not apply now, but at the time it was implemented it did. It isn't low just to help the rich.

And that "reasoning" is bullshit. It never applied and the presented "reasoning" ("trick down economics") was just scam and propaganda, as all it did was benefit the rich.

[PosPosPos]

And that "reasoning" is bullshit. It never applied and the presented "reasoning" ("trick down economics") was just scam and propaganda, as all it did was benefit the rich.

You don't know that for sure.

Maybe it was truly implemented out of misguided intentions to do good.

No one can know except the person(s) involved. Not that the intention itself matters of course, the important fact is that trickle down economics is currently among the top factors of suffering in the US.

[Jaransan]

Never said that id want to keep someone from getting a roof over their head or food. I don't want them to sell said food or roof for drug money.

that's why I like the idea of random drug testing for those receiving Gov't assistance.

Thats an acceptable way to think over all but random drug testing doesn't help those people stop getting screwed on it's own. I agree with you for the most part, but I feel like their should be more to it than 'youve done drugs screw you'. Possibly a secondary program like a rehab institute or compound that provides all the same benefits of welfare but that also works to help people break habits. That way if those people wash out and end up dead with a needle in their arm you can say you tried to help them. I mean at this point we actually treat and provide our prisoners with more support and assistance in things like obtaining education and food than we do our poor people who have yet to do anything wrong

[Bodakane]

someone does not know the difference between income and capital gains.

Golly you got me.

Someone doesn't know how the wealthy were structuring their pay to avoid as much income tax as possible, hence the EFFECTIVE tax rate of 15%.

But please, keep making a fool of me....

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That presumes that investment needs encouraging and that low taxes are actually a means of doing so.

The data suggests that investment and the capital gains tax rate have basically zero link. The only effect of a preferential capital gains rate is lower revenues and tax burden being shifted from those that can afford it to those who can't.

The only time CG rates were near to the low they are today was leading up to (and during the first part of) the Great Depression. We very nearly hit another depression during the time of this low rate.

Also, as the number ahas dropped to the lowed 20's and progressively further since 95, our GDP is steadily going down as a overall (according to that chart).

[Xar226]

if paying taxes is "giving back", she should love these super rich folks that she wants to drug test! High W-2 income people pay a lot of taxes - look at them giving back!

That is exactly what they claim to begin with, so I'm not sure what your point is. She has a job for which she gets paid, and she got that after a hand up from the welfare system. It's not going to convince anybody who already hates the whole thing, but it certainly undercuts the argument of welfare recipients as dregs of society.

Boy is that ever going to come up short when an equally plausible narrative is "look at me, you gave me a hand up and I spent the next 30 years drawing a federal income to not show up to vote!".

If you choose to be cynical about everything, I suppose. Her constituents elect her. If they continue to elect her, they're fine with her job performance and being that she is their representative, I don't see how what you or I think matters. The fact that you seem to think being a Congressman is somehow not a legitimate job is certainly not on her.

[Orlong]

So a former welfare queen is pissed because people like her shithead son who gets arrested slashing tires and likely is on drugs wouldnt be able to continue to receive welfare

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She's paid a hefty salary out of tax money and does very little for the money; as I linked earlier, she tends to be one of the more absentee politicians. Someone taking tons of government money that barely does their job saying that they "give back" because they pay some portion of it back in taxes is incredibly hollow. As near as I can tell, Moore has never actually produced anything in her life, going straight from welfare to sinecures.

Exactly. The only reason she even ran for office was because she would get a higher check from the tax payers for doing nothing than she was when on welfare. And probably only won because there was likely nobody else on the ballot

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No one is telling you to do heroin. You are chosing to do heroin. We are just providing food for people that are hungry with no judgements attached. Listen, you can't stop people from doing drugs, it is a pointless endeavor. The war on drugs is an admitted failure, despite billions spent. I would rather spend billions trying to feed people and help people with diseases instead of wasting it on trying to stop people from doing drugs. Honestly, I don't even care if you do drugs; I really don't. It is shocking to me how much people care about what people they don't even know are doing.

I agree. Instead of giving people money to buy shit with we should just give them the actual food. That way they cant spend it any other way.

[Youarefired]

Ha! So many rich people do hard drugs. This would be hilarious.

[Alydael]

So a former welfare queen is pissed because people like her shithead son who gets arrested slashing tires and likely is on drugs wouldnt be able to continue to receive welfare

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Exactly. The only reason she even ran for office was because she would get a higher check from the tax payers for doing nothing than she was when on welfare. And probably only won because there was likely nobody else on the ballot

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I agree. Instead of giving people money to buy shit with we should just give them the actual food. That way they cant spend it any other way.

Exactly.....!

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Ha! So many rich people do hard drugs. This would be hilarious.

Not even hard drugs, I bet they do a ton of pharms from their docs too.

[Deleted]

Truth me told. The tax system is pretty liberal in nature. The only benefit the rich have is they can pay accountants to take take advantage of every damn loophole in existence. If everyone had access to that you would find we all pay way more than we ought to. There are people out there who don't even know that being a first time home buyer gives you huge breaks.

If everyone done that then the loopholes would be closed and new ones opened where only a few would know about.

[Deleted]

the drug testing is just stupid all round imo.

i use to be in favour of drugs testing welfare recipients, but after seeing the stats of how low a % were ever found to be using drugs, i dropped my support for it. I could support it being used on recipients that have had a history of drug abuse, but thats about it.

[Rudkobing]

This seems a little silly.