Will higher taxes on the rich help reduce the deficit?

Hell no

This is one of those no-brainer answers. Might as well ask: "If your income goes up, do you get more money?"

The question is not whether it will help, because basic math proves it will, but the question really is how much it will help.

If you ask the one million richest Americans to pay an extra 3.5% in taxes on only certain types of income, after loopholes, you are not going to hurt anybody while you will get a few dollars more towards balancing the deficit.

However, the real deal here is that by finally turning the tide of wealth transfer back away from the rich, the middle class will be more likely to begrudgingly accept more taxes on themselves. Unfortunately, after eight years of the worst spendaholic incompetence in our history, the bill has started arriving. Like we told the Conservatives for the last thirty years, fiscal irresponsibility will come back to bite you in the behind, HARD!

The bill has arrived. The question is, are the ones who got the most off the table going to be allowed to dine & dash on the middle class again, or are they going to have to pay a little too?

Shared sacrifice is the American way. Idle rich freeloading is the fascist way.

"Shared sacrifice is the American way. Idle rich freeloading is the fascist way."

Wow. Do you really believe that? I feel for you my poor friend.......................

He is likely a recipient of someone elses "shared sacrifice".

First, it's not a sacrifice when it is forced from you. That's called a mandate and they are two different things. Secondly, when are those in the 40% who pay nothing in federal income taxes going to start sacrificing their fair share?

Tell that to the Greatest Generation, who all shared sacrifice, much of that forced upon them. They didn't pass on massive debt to the next generation despite the huge costs.

To your second point, what percent of that 40% actually have something to give? Your wasting your time trying to squeeze blood from a rock. However, since the rich weren't starving and the economy was booming back in the 50's, 60's, 80's and even the 90's when the top marginal rate was much higher, the historical evidence suggests that higher taxes on the rich is better for America.

They seem to be able to squeeze it out when it comes to buying lottery tickets, beer and cigarettes, just to name a few. Countless times I have seen people who use taxpayer funds to buy their groceries yet have enough cash to buy those items I listed above. However, when it comes to helping out with what the rest of us 60% have funded, nothing is available.

Yes, our poor are spoiled compared to the poor of most other nations. No doubt. Similarly, our rich are spoiled compared to the rich of most other nations.

One proof, to me, is that the world's rich and poor want to come here, less so in the middle classes of countries such as France, Japan, Germany, Britain, etc.

The rich and the poor get the best deals in America, while the middle class pays the most and takes the most risk.

Where we differ is in that I don't mind, to a degree, the poor getting subsistence living, even if they are abusing the system. They can make it on $1000~1500 a month and never bother me or my family, while stimulating the local economy with every dime they receive. It's the most efficient economic model we have actually. Not a dime to some out of state bank, and not a dime to some company that is moving jobs to China. And, it means that many less victims of less people in jail costing us $40K annually in taxes instead of the $15K +/- in handouts.

Everything I have read or seen shows that the entitlements to the poor pay off a heck of a lot more efficiently than the entitlements to the rich (like Bush's $1T tax cut during a time of war) and the entitlements to the corporations (like Big Oil).

The more money given to the government means less money to invest, to spend and to help the economy grow.

No, it will only lower the number of jobs offered or created by the companies owned by the "rich" and raise the costs of the products made by those companies - INFLATION!!

No: Congress will spend it on more entitlements

No. It will reduce the rich.

They're the ones who create the jobs.

Exactly! I have never gotten a job from a poor person. If we keep hurting the rich people more jobs will move off shore.

The rich never had so many entitlements and never had it as good as they did under Bush, and jobs moved off shore in record numbers.

I have never gotten a job from someone who did not get rich off the backs of labor, the ones who made every rich person rich.

And, it is not the rich who make most jobs, it is the small business entrepreneurs who actually have to work and innovate for a living that make most jobs. The rich are the ones who lend/invest at 20% +/-, often through proxies.

They already pay more taxes then the rest of us We need to extract some cash from the entittlement folks...who are quickly becoming the largest tax group or group that takes out..without putting in

Cancel welfare, that would lower the deficit. Cut all money and entitlements to illegals, problem solved.

The major problem that would create is to cut out a lot of voters for the Democrats.

Good point! Gee, what a shame.

Do you realize that if they legalise the 25 million illegals that our politions have allowed to stay here..it will cost 2.7 trillion dollars to pay them all social security in thei golden years

Yes, I do realize that. They haven't paid anything into our system, but just like parasites in animals they bleed us dry.
Let's hope that more states follow Arizona's lead.

Actually, the illegals who use false SS numbers have added billions to our social security system, billions that they will never see. If we were smart, we would be promoting that.

And with the way that SS/welfare work, if they don't add in, they don't get out later.

Moreover, there wouldn't be any illegals here if there weren't companies willing and eager to hire them. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper, safer, and easier to police the companies than the illegals, but our govt refuses to go there. Why?

No. Politicians will only piss it away.

No! Cause the more money the goverment gets,they find a new program to give it away.

They create slush funds and then funnel it into their friends family as well as their own pockets.Government has been robbing us since they started taxing us.Beck is right they should be serving instead of profiting more than the general population. That would not be service.

NO!!! Capital taken in the form of taxes in the hands of government, does not a job make, moreover not the shovel. Way to go Shep on Fox.

Yes. The rich will only figure out ways to defraud the government--hiding assets and money. The president intends to raise the tax rates rise for singles making more than $200,000 a year, and couples making more than $250,000. Greenstein says this will bring in $826 billion over the next 10 years.

Gee thats great ,that 3 trillion they need just to break even on healthcare, looks smaller already !

I suppose you're much more intelligent than those in the CBO. Amazing.

It seems to me anyone can be smarter than those guys.

I wonder if they spend their days watching the same computers as the SEC

" In 1965, as Congress considered legislation to establish a national Medicare program, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance portion of the program, Part A, would cost about $9 billion annually by 1990.v Actual Part A spending in 1990 was $67 billion. The actuary who provided the original cost estimates acknowledged in 1994 that, even after conservatively discounting for the unexpectedly high inflation rates of the early ‘70s and other factors, “the actual [Part A] experience was 165% higher than the estimate.”

I can see why you trust government estimates so much.

I love screwing with you guys. It's so much fun to see you get your panties in a wad.

Don't you mean supporting a President and Congress that is screwing us all. If what you said was worthwhile, someone other than you would listen to you and give it any credibility.

The folks in the CBO are like mushrooms....kept in the dark, and fed shit numbers by the Obama Admin.

This is intended for the page and not you the person. They intend to bankrupt this country.

You MUST stop SPENDING to increase Revenues and decrease the debt!
Econ 101

No, the problem is on the spending side of the equation, not the revenue side.

Shepard Smith? Thee Shepard Smith?

Higher taxes will cause the "haves" not to spend their money on the "have nots" so the end result with be less economic activity thus less revenue to the government. Reagan is shouting in his grave right now, "I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen!"

Yes, Shep is using SodaHead's polls....http://www.foxnews.c...