Seven Top Republicans Who Taxed the Super Rich
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 00:58
VIEWED: 1473
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Including the Republicans' Great God Reagan, who wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected today:Quote:
The debate over taxing the rich has ratcheted up, with Democrats this week proposing a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires to pay for President Obama’s jobs program and Republicans responding with charges of “class warfare”.
Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that raising taxes on the rich was unfair and misguided and would only discourage small businesses from creating new jobs. Obama replied on Thursday at his White House news conference that far from engaging in “class warfare,” the Democrats were “simply asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.”
To a large extent, the debate is about politics, rather than economics. Each side believes that it has the support of a majority of Americans, but both can’t be right.
Historically, taxing the rich has been supported by both parties across the ideological spectrum. Even Thomas Jefferson, whom many Tea Party members worship, supported higher taxes on the wealthy. In an 1811 letter to Thaddeus Kosciuszko, he defended the tariff because it would force the rich to pay more. “The rich alone use imported articles,” Jefferson wrote, “and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. The poor man, who uses nothing but what is made in his own farm or family, or within his own country, pays not a farthing of tax to the General Government.”
It was Republican Abraham Lincoln who created the first federal income tax to finance the Civil War. And it was Republican William Howard Taft who helped enact the 16th Amendment to the Constitution to overcome constitutional objections to a permanent income tax. And it was Republican Herbert Hoover who raised the top income tax rate from 24 percent to 63 percent in 1932 when the Great Depression decimated federal revenues.
Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to raise taxes on the rich in 1935 as a matter of equity in a time of economic suffering. In a message to Congress on June 19, he said, “People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which government itself contributes. Therefore, the duty rests upon the government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.”
Privately, Roosevelt worried about the growing support for crackpot schemes to end the Depression. To keep them in check, he had to increase the perception of fairness in the capitalist system. “I want to save our system, the capitalistic system,” he told an emissary of the archconservative newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. To do so, Roosevelt said, “It may be necessary to throw to the wolves the forty-six men who are reported to have incomes in excess of one million dollars a year.”
In the 1950s, Republican Dwight Eisenhower fought his own party to keep the top tax rate over 90 percent, saying it was needed to help balance the budget. Republican Richard Nixon signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which raised the capital gains tax rate from 25 percent to 35 percent and created a minimum tax to ensure that the rich could not escape taxation through the use of tax loopholes. Republican Gerald Ford supported the Tax Reform Act of 1976, which raised the minimum tax and further restricted tax loopholes for the wealthy. On signing it into law, he said, “We are moving toward a tax system under which each taxpayer bears his or her fair share of the overall tax burden.”
Republican Ronald Reagan supported taxing capital gains as ordinary income – they are now taxed much less – and supported higher taxes on corporations. Defending his tax reform proposal in 1985, Reagan said:Quote:
We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair s
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Quote:
Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that raising taxes on the rich was unfair...
Rappy really needs to have one of his "Who ever told you that life is FAIR?" talks with Cantor, it sounds like.
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Thanks for posting this. It was extremely informative.
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither....
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The Super Rich have and should pay taxes, and to suggest they don't, is beyond silly. They pay far more than their fair share, and that's a fact. No one , save for maybe Warren Buffett or Tim Geithner, is for the top earners paying NO taxes.
The nation's problems don't stem from the Rich paying too little in taxes, and it sure as hell won't solve the problem to raise their taxes any higher.
Anyone who thinks that it will solve, or help solve our economic issue, is a fool.
" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "
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Quote:Meanwhile, in THIS universe, actually presenting a coherent point is shown to increase the chance of your way of thinking getting a look-in.
Originally posted by AURaptor:
No one , save for maybe Warren Buffett or Tim Geithner, is for the top earners paying NO taxes.
"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"
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Uhhh, Warren Buffet is for rich people paying no taxes? Did I miss something, or has Raptor actually gone so far off the deep end he can't even keep up with HIMSELF? Or I should say "keep all his "points" straight?"
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Uhhh, Warren Buffet is for rich people paying no taxes? Did I miss something, or has Raptor actually gone so far off the deep end he can't even keep up with HIMSELF? Or I should say "keep all his "points" straight?"
This is too gorram easy...
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Owes Taxes Going Back To 2002
A little over two weeks ago, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, the third-richest person in the world, penned an op-ed critical of the low tax rates for the superrich. It would seem his own company hasn't prioritized paying its rightful share in a timely fashion either.
Berkshire Hathaway, the eighth-largest public company in the world according to Forbes, openly admits to still owing taxes for years 2002 through 2004 and 2005 through 2009, according to the New York Post. The company says it expects to "resolve all adjustments proposed by the US Internal Revenue Service" within the next year.
It's no big deal though, Niki. B-H only owes about A BILLION $ in back taxes. It's not what is said, but what is DONE that you should pay attention to.
" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "
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Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Uhhh, Warren Buffet is for rich people paying no taxes? Did I miss something, or has Raptor actually gone so far off the deep end he can't even keep up with HIMSELF? Or I should say "keep all his "points" straight?"
This is too gorram easy...
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Owes Taxes Going Back To 2002
A little over two weeks ago, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, the third-richest person in the world, penned an op-ed critical of the low tax rates for the superrich. It would seem his own company hasn't prioritized paying its rightful share in a timely fashion either.
Berkshire Hathaway, the eighth-largest public company in the world according to Forbes, openly admits to still owing taxes for years 2002 through 2004 and 2005 through 2009, according to the New York Post. The company says it expects to "resolve all adjustments proposed by the US Internal Revenue Service" within the next year.
It's no big deal though, Niki. B-H only owes about A BILLION $ in back taxes. It's not what is said, but what is DONE that you should pay attention to.
The company owes back taxes, not Buffet. There is a world of difference. It is not the uncommon for large companies to owe back taxes mainly because their tax filings are so large and complicated they often don't get completed until well after the original due date.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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Good to see you're sticking up for the billionaires there, nickerson.
" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "
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Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Good to see you're sticking up for the billionaires there, nickerson.
It is funny that you think I have a problem with billionaires. I have no problem with people like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. See they do things like this...
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/08/04/40-billionaires-sign-the-gates-
buffett-giving-pledge/
or
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx
...plus these are the people who don't have a problem paying more in taxes because they know it will help this country.
If everyone on the right is like you the left has nothing to fear. You don't even understand what our arguments are.
You should listen to Sun Tzu...
"One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles.
One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes win, sometimes lose.
One who does not know the enemy and does not know himself will be in danger in every battle."
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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