The Fifty Minute Hour approvingly quotes from this New York Post columnist:
On the campaign trail, he’s in favor of raising taxes on everybody who makes over $200,000 a year. Unless, of course, he’s the one being asked to pay more, in which case, forget about it.
We know this because of a little whoopee cushion recently inserted into the income tax forms of his home state of Massachusetts.
Weary of liberals always clamoring for higher taxes on other people, an anti-tax group managed to place a line on the tax form giving Bay Staters the option of paying at the old, since-repealed 5.85 percent rate, rather than at the current 5.3 percent rate.
For two years now, John Kerry has had the opportunity to pay his ‘fair share.’ But like some Benedict Arnold CEO, the Democratic Party candidate for president has taken the money and ran.
Really, though, what’s happening is a version of the prisoner’s dilemma.
It’s not that Kerry, as a rich person, is unwilling to pay high taxes. It’s that he’s unwilling to pay high taxes unless all the other rich people pay high taxes, too.
This is a perfectly consistant position on Kerry’s part. He doesn’t want to pay higher taxes for their own sake; he wants to pay higher taxes for the sake of having more and better government services. If every rich person in Massachusetts paid higher taxes, then Massachusetts would be able to afford more and better services. So raising taxes on everyone in Kerry’s bracket makes sense – and Kerry is willing to pay a higher tax in that circumstance.
However, it doesn’t make sense for an individual rich person to voluntarily pay a higher tax rate, when it’s clear that almost no one else (not even other rich people) will do the same. For Kerry and a handful of other wealthy folks to pay 5.85 percent rather than 5.3 percent just won’t make enough of a difference to be worthwhile.
What The Fifty Minute Hour is saying is that because Kerry is willing to raise taxes on all rich folks (himself included) in exchange for a gain in services, he’s a hypocrite because he’s not willing to personally pay more in exchange for no significant gain in services. Could there be a more ridiculous critique of Kerry?.
Huh. I had wondered about that line on the MA tax forms. (Being a starving grad student, I stuck with 5.3%.)
Please never ask questions like “Could there be a more ridiculous critique of Kerry?” The GOP is only warming up.
Background info, I’m from Canada so I’m confused on this tax issue.
(1) how can someone volunteer to pay taxes as opposed to “So sayeth the Government”
(2) what is this 5.3%, 5.85% on? Your gross income? Capital gains?
If I understand what I pay here in Canada (and I’ll admit up front I’m no expert), your income tax is tiered… so you pay 22% on your first 33thousand dollars, then 28% on your income between 33 and 35, and so on, and I think you end up paying something between 40 and 50% on anything over around 100k… it varies according to province.
(http://www.taxtips.ca/tax_rates.htm#FederalTaxRates)
So what is this 5.3 or 5.85% on, and how can that possibly be a difference that makes a difference? Like, seriously, that’s half a percent, on say an income of say, 100k (just to make it seem huge) that’s 500$ difference between the two rates.
I obviously don’t understand the problem, can someone explain it to me? I (a) don’t understand what this tax is on, since I can’t believe it’s income, it’s so ridiculously low and (b) I don’t understand how the “gap” could make much of a difference.
When are you going to switch over to the new server? Is this the new server? And btw, this is a ridiculous critique of Kerry.
Wookie, I believe the figure referred only to the state-level income tax; Americans pay most of their income tax to the federal government, not the state government.
Shakti, believe it or not, I’m still working on getting amptoons.com aimed at the new server. It’s proven to be much more difficult than I expected, due to a combination of my tech incompetance and lack of help from the old server.
Wookie, federal and state taxes are cumulative, and the 5.x% state tax is assessed a percentage of roughly the same adjusted gross income as the federal tax. Thus, one might pay 28% of one’s income in federal income tax and then another 5% in state income tax. There are some differences in how one’s adjusted gross income is calculated for each (for instance, you can deduct your state-tax amount from your federal adjusted gross income, but not from your state adjusted gross income), but the principle is the same. Not every state has a state income tax, by the way.
Your understanding of the difference between the two Mass. tax rates is correct. Bear in mind that Kerry’s income (like Bush’s, of course) was far in excess of $100K. At some point, even half a percentage point becomes real money.
I couldn’t agree more…and in fact, said so here. (It’s so rare that I get to anything before anyone else that take the opportunity to plug myself.)
Tom T.
A half percent of my meager salary is real money as well.
If I earn my living off capital gains however, my tax burden will be less.
Am I confused for thinking this isn’t a fair system?
Actually (and this is why most people favor a graduated income tax), $50 generally means far more to someone living on $10,000 a year than $500 means to someone living on $100,000 a year. At $10,000 a year, almost everything purchased is a neccessity, while at $100,000 a year, most people will have a significant budget for luxuries.
Why is this argument so ridiculous? On the margins, every dollar in helps pay for more services.
Kerry refuses to pay what he thinks is his fair share because he cannot coerce others to do so? This is the essence of contemporary liberalism.
I’ll stick to giving as much as I can to charities. Oh, I forgot leading dems have had trouble with that too.
I guess I should welcome the new Coulterite troll to Alas a blog, with the illogical reasoning and the often call to “liberalism” in blanket term that can mean anyone to left of Franco. I look forward to ignoring your insane volatile rants.
Please keep it polite, Raz.
Anony, taxation is only “coercion” in the same sense that speed limits, property lines, and all the other things that are determined through representative democracy are “coercion.” I agree that representative democracy is not perfect; but it works pretty well, and it’s certainly less coercive than any other type of real-world government that I know of.
On the margins, every dollar helps; but if you want to help significantly, you’ve got to make more than a marginal difference. For that, you need some kind of assurance that you’re not going to be the only one contributing. I don’t see anything extraordinary about saying “I’m willing to do my share, but only if everyone else is going to do their share, too.”
Finally, I agree with you that Kerry’s charity-giving record is an embarassment. It’s not like I’m a big fan of Kerry. (For readers who don’t know, Kerry tends to give much more in election years, or so the Post article I link to in this post claimed).