Here's EPI elf John Irons. Recently he was reminding our federal senate that there is at least one cap Uncle oughta blow off, not put on -- and that one is now on our two-sided payroll tax. Irons wants to get rid of the cap on earnings taxable for Social Security.
I agree, of course -- though I hasten to add, in Paine's world we'd now be on payroll tax holiday till further notice.
But even in Paine's world, we'd enjoy scheduling a nasty 6% tax increase on all "upper earners" payroll, for the dark day when extraction recommences -- errr umh -- down the road somewhere, when we're flyin' through the endless main drag of hyperemployment city.
Some nice Irons tidbits:
"Due to growing income inequality, the share of earnings above the cap has risen from 10 percent in 1982 to over 16 percent in 2006. This is because incomes have grown strongly at the top while middle incomes have stagnated."Note the sloppy misleading use of terms here -- "income" and "earnings" -- as if they were interchangeable. But hey. Let's not quibble.
"Including the employee and employer shares of Social Security and Medicare taxes, earners in the middle fifth of the income distribution pay an average effective payroll tax of about 11 percent.Question: should "newly-taxed earnings above the taxable maximum" also raise these folks' benefits?In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners pay just 1.5 percent on average."
Paine's world's Solomon-like answer -- hell no!
Comments (15)
A rollicking good idea, including Paine's world's provision. I'd go for progressive rates for every kind of tax -- sales, income, property, estate. Maybe not cap gains -- they have to make some money somewhere!
Posted by hce | June 25, 2009 8:07 AM
Posted on June 25, 2009 08:07
Simon Pegg looks god in that pic.
Posted by Mike Hunt | June 25, 2009 9:06 AM
Posted on June 25, 2009 09:06
The payroll
Tax as u know
Is twins now
To uncap the corporate dark side twin
Would raise the "cost" of over cap
"Compensation"
By the current 6 plus rate
The .bright side
Twin could remain cap-ed why I don't know
Abstruse toy models
imply lower marginal taxes
Lead to more "output"
I like the notion actually
We see it in overtime premia
There to prohibit not reward of course
What with our viscious spontaneous job rationing system
Not a bad crude device
But in paine world
We'd be levied
On an individual soul's human capital just
Like on his/her house
Ie
On aseessed value
If sold for 2000 hours per annum
Marginal tax zero
I suspect this won't get read
Except maybe by hce
Too bad
My hu cap tax
With it's
oppressive productivist job fetish molloch socialism notions
So lovingly embodied
Would doubtless make for some nice pinko howls if it were
Where's the next van dingo
Posted by op | June 25, 2009 10:56 AM
Posted on June 25, 2009 10:56
Typical lefty, pie-in-the-sky, utopianism, entirely compatible with unlimited growth traditional economics. My point is to stop growth, un-reward effort, encourage barter, scrounging, hunting and gathering, reading poetry.
Posted by hce | June 25, 2009 12:31 PM
Posted on June 25, 2009 12:31
Hce
Cultivated marginal rentiers
Can advocate anything
Toasting
a craving for human flesh
Is not beyond the fringe for portfolio-ites
Posted by op | June 25, 2009 4:00 PM
Posted on June 25, 2009 16:00
"income" and "earnings" -- as if they were interchangeable.
Is it like Booku to BoKu (the end of Richard Lewis's acidic lime light)
Posted by Son of Uncle Sam | June 25, 2009 5:03 PM
Posted on June 25, 2009 17:03
The Hu-Cap tax sounds infinitely horrible, but if you based it on successful passage through the credentialization sector and achievements in the affiliation-mongering sector, and used boastful CVs as its basis for upward adjustment, we might see a significant net decrease in gloating, cheese-moving managerial tricks, smirking, yuppie tantrums in Fair Trade coffee shops, self-inflicted Asperger's and other Hu-Cap negative externalities.
Posted by Al Schumann | June 26, 2009 2:05 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 14:05
As usual super Al
Grasped the upshot of the head cap levy
And also per usual
Bangs it alond a stress fracture with a
Gem hammer
Posted by op | June 26, 2009 4:31 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 16:31
No one ever asks me
But the shaving mirror
But acting is okay
Class struggle wise
But I'd really like to tax
Posted by op | June 26, 2009 4:38 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 16:38
Hey
The HCT
Is pure Gotha
To each according to his work
From each acoording to her ability
Posted by op | June 26, 2009 4:44 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 16:44
Why have just one
but
when you can have three
Posted by op | June 26, 2009 4:55 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 16:55
The Hu-Cap is pretty good. When I pore over the justifications for disproportionate reward structures, I'm deeply impressed by the degenerate vulgar marxism that's crept into the bootlicking industry. They really believe in the most juvenile conceptions of incentivization and human nature! I dislike negating their world view -- every servile asshole, and every parasite's parasite, is entitled to an opinion after all -- but I do want to help carry the logic through to its natural conclusion. To its deeply salutary conclusion.
Once the Hu-Cap tax has worked its magic, possibly for a few hundred years, or much less if its efficacy is left to Owen's thoughtful ministrations, the vulgar marxists of the bootlicking industry will be free to embrace gainful employment. Their patrons will have the chance, at long last, to get in touch with their more sensitive side. Fair Trade coffee shops will be scenes of peaceful debate, happy murmurs and light-hearted laughter. Cheese will continue to be moved, this time literally, by the former patrons as they work off their Hu-Cap debts.
Posted by Al Schumann | June 26, 2009 5:32 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 17:32
"Cultivated marginal rentiers
Can advocate anything" (OP)
Hey, it was a joke!
Posted by hce | June 26, 2009 11:14 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 23:14
hce
"un-reward effort, encourage barter, scrounging, hunting and gathering,"
reward meager means ingenuity ???
a joke ???
i kinda liked your axiology
vide
a j liebling series in NY
"getting by"
Posted by op | June 28, 2009 8:06 AM
Posted on June 28, 2009 08:06
No, the joke was calling your HuCap musings "pie in the sky utopianism".
Posted by hce | June 28, 2009 11:34 AM
Posted on June 28, 2009 11:34