Jon Stewart is Class War Crazy!

The Coffee Shop
41

this seems to arrive at the same point. the amount of money you raise from taxing the rich - seen as not worth the trouble by republicans

is the same as the amount you get from taxing the poor.

if anything stewart made it seem less ridiculous than you have just made it seem.

so which facts were misrepresented?

I was referring to the 700B dollar comment of taking half the bottom 50% wealth, which of course has nothing to do with income tax.

In realty raising the income tax rate on the top 1% by 4.1% raises 70B a year. Raising taxes on the bottom 50% by 6.5% raises the same amount of income.** **Raising taxes on the 25-50% group by the same amount as the top 1% raises the same 70B a year.

~Matt

42

I could be wrong, but I think, Matt, that what you’re saying is that he was misleading the audience by redirecting the focus of the conversation on how little wealth the bottom 50% of Americans actually control rather than focusing on if they pay their fair share of taxes.

Yes that’s a fair summary and the point I was trying to make. In essence he was purposefully misleading the audience to attempt to make some correlation between taking half of the bottom’s wealth to a couple percentile increase on the top 1% or “The rich”.

Now, where are you getting the numbers you posted here?

From HERE

The bottom 50% took in a total AGI of of ~1.1T while the top 1% took in ~1.7T. The 25-50% group also took in ~1.7T.

The increases I posted on each group would all bring in the same 70B a year.

However at present Each of these groups have a VERY different effective tax rate.

~Matt

43

Maher is a hater and decidedly not funny :stuck_out_tongue:
.

44

DId you even get the major point of Stewart’s piece? It was primarily about Republicans decrying what they perceive and portray as class warfare, when they are guilty of the same.

No I guess I didn’t even get that as a point.

The points made were.

Buffet’s claim amounted to class warfare. 700B is not alot of money yet they want to cut smaller amounts from the budget and 700B is the same as half the wealth of the bottom 50% of earners.

I guess I don’t see how any of that points out how Republicans are “Waging class warfare” unless you consider cutting NPR’s budget as “Class warfare”.

Seriously I don’t see how you can get that point from this piece.

Republicans are constantly accusing Democrats of playing class warfare, yet they do the same when it suits their position.

And I wouldn’t disagree with that, I honestly did not see that point being made at all.

The piece was only secondarily about actual tax policy.

Actually I thought the piece was entirely about “How buffet took a reasonable stand” and how that should become tax policy and how Republicans fly off the handle when someone makes a reasonable point. Again I saw nothing about the hypocrisy of both sides and in fact saw nothing that put the Dems in a bad light at all.

You probably agree with Stewart’s point about the ridiculousness of the rhetoric, but true to your M.O., you’ll take a secondary and minor issue, blow it out of proportion, and argue it to death.

I completely agree with Stewart’s point about rhetoric. My main point was that I think Stewart actually joined into this rhetoric by completely, as I was corrected in another response, misleading the audience.

700B of wealth from the bottom 50% of wealth holders has NOTHING to do with tax code. THAT is purely rhetoric from Jon Stewart. Something he vehemently went after some other news casters for in an interview. I’m nto even commenting so much about the tax policy here as I am the hypocrisy of Jon Stewart.

Either your comedian, or your a newscaster. If you’re a comedian stay away from facts and policy issues that give the audience the impression you are given them actual correct and factual data.

The fact that he has gone after newscasters of doing EXACTLY what he did in this skit is what is far more irritating to me than the fact that he’s doing it in the first place.

~Matt

45

this seems to arrive at the same point. the amount of money you raise from taxing the rich - seen as not worth the trouble by republicans

is the same as the amount you get from taxing the poor.

if anything stewart made it seem less ridiculous than you have just made it seem.

Actually I don’t think the stand is “Not worth the trouble” but rather "If you’re going after the rich why not go after the poor as well and everyone in between? Combined with 70B is 4.2% of our deficit.

I don’t think you’ll find to many Republicans saying “Hey let’s raise the rates on the poor so we can get 70B a year”. I think the Reps will typical respond to “Let’s raise the rates on the rich” with “Well why not raise the rates on the poor too?”** **More precisely I think there is almost no argument that Reps don’t want to raise taxes AT ALL.

Raising taxes 70B a year is “Not worth it” in the sense that 70B a year amounts to 4.2% of our total deficit. If we are going to attempt to make the deficit disappear on revenue why not raise everyone’s taxes? If we raised EVERYONES effective tax rate by 5% we could bring in 421B a year and only have to cut the budget by 1.2T. I mean if we really are serious about this revenue thing why we going after only one group?

My personal stand is the same as it has always been. Show me you can control you obvious spending control issues and then come back to me for more money.

~Matt

46

In realty raising the income tax rate on the top 1% by 4.1% raises 70B a year. Raising taxes on the bottom 50% by 6.5% raises the same amount of income. Raising taxes on the 25-50% group by the same amount as the top 1% raises the same 70B a year.

The bottom 50% took in a total AGI of ~1.1T while the top 1% took in ~1.7T. The 25-50% group also took in ~1.7T.

Using 2008 numbers, the top 1% paid an effective tax rate of 23.3%. If we bumped that up 4.1% that would be asking them to pay 17.6% (4.1/23.3) more than they are now. The bottom 50% paid an effective tax rate of 2.6%. If we bumped that up 6.5% that would be asking them to pay 250% (6.5/2.6) more than they are now. Could you imagine the outrage if you asked them to pay 250% more in taxes! Someone would have a coronary.

Of course, all of that was just an example of how politicians can/would spin the numbers. 6.5% vs 4.1% doesn’t sound so bad. But 250% vs 17.6% sounds absurd. They do this same kind of bullshit when talking about the budget. They always talk about the deficit as a single year number ($1.7T), but they always talk about savings or cuts as the total over 10 years ($700B). Do they think people really don’t know that they’re f*cking multiplying one of the numbers by 10 to make them sound like they’re closer than they really are! For any of them to pretend like they have any real interest in balancing the budget makes me want to crotch punch them all.

47

Yes of course just about any number could be thrown out there and someone would find a way to spin it and make it look bad or good for their side if they want.

Of course this keeps getting back to my main bone of contention with our government spending and tax code as a whole.

There is absolutely NO connection between consumer and purchaser. There is absolutely NO way to even attempt to place a “Value” on the tax dollars and attempt to figure out who should pay, how much and why.

Until we do this any group, at any time, will be able to throw up any number for any reason and claim "This is what the rate should be because of "

We are and will be in a continuous battle over this until we come to some national consensus on what the governments job really is and who should pay for it and why.

I don’t see that ever happening because it’s not to to many peoples advantage and everyone sees the current system as a massive slot machine. Put in your coins, pull the lever and see if you get more out than you put in. We keep putting in our coins and hoping, despite the fact that the house is always going to win and we’ll likely never get back what we put in despite a few doing so.

~Matt

48

I don’t think you’ll find to many Republicans saying “Hey let’s raise the rates on the poor so we can get 70B a year”. I think the Reps will typical respond to “Let’s raise the rates on the rich” with “Well why not raise the rates on the poor too?”

What Republicans are you listening to? Sounds to me that they have a plan to reduce the deficit by giving wealthy people more tax cuts. Get it? That’s some funny stuff! Who said republicans aren’t funny?

49

DId you even get the major point of Stewart’s piece? It was primarily about Republicans decrying what they perceive and portray as class warfare, when they are guilty of the same.

No I guess I didn’t even get that as a point.

The points made were.

Buffet’s claim amounted to class warfare. 700B is not alot of money yet they want to cut smaller amounts from the budget and 700B is the same as half the wealth of the bottom 50% of earners.

I guess I don’t see how any of that points out how Republicans are “Waging class warfare” unless you consider cutting NPR’s budget as “Class warfare”.

Seriously I don’t see how you can get that point from this piece.

Republicans are constantly accusing Democrats of playing class warfare, yet they do the same when it suits their position.

And I wouldn’t disagree with that, I honestly did not see that point being made at all.

The piece was only secondarily about actual tax policy.

Actually I thought the piece was entirely about “How buffet took a reasonable stand” and how that should become tax policy and how Republicans fly off the handle when someone makes a reasonable point. Again I saw nothing about the hypocrisy of both sides and in fact saw nothing that put the Dems in a bad light at all.

You probably agree with Stewart’s point about the ridiculousness of the rhetoric, but true to your M.O., you’ll take a secondary and minor issue, blow it out of proportion, and argue it to death.

I completely agree with Stewart’s point about rhetoric. My main point was that I think Stewart actually joined into this rhetoric by completely, as I was corrected in another response, misleading the audience.

700B of wealth from the bottom 50% of wealth holders has NOTHING to do with tax code. THAT is purely rhetoric from Jon Stewart. Something he vehemently went after some other news casters for in an interview. I’m nto even commenting so much about the tax policy here as I am the hypocrisy of Jon Stewart.

Either your comedian, or your a newscaster. If you’re a comedian stay away from facts and policy issues that give the audience the impression you are given them actual correct and factual data.

The fact that he has gone after newscasters of doing EXACTLY what he did in this skit is what is far more irritating to me than the fact that he’s doing it in the first place.

~Matt

QED