Sorry, Pal, You're Rich

sgollus: I get your point, but remember that my family which made about $70,000 last year has all teh same responsibilities yours does. I pay for my own health issurance at about $600/mth, I pay social security on ALL of my income - I don't get to reach the cap and then pay nothing. I wish I had enough at teh end of the month to pay into a 401K, but with student loans and a college student inmy household it is simply cutting too close to the bone (gas, groceries or retirement) that I cannot participate at this point in time. I'm glad you have teh opportunities to get where you are in life congrats on your accomplishment, you must have been blessed with good health and plenty of opportunites to get all those degrees and teh means to move around as needed. But you are not being punished for being successful. You are participating in the social experement that is the US. If you have a horrible illness and everything you have vanishes, it's great that we have in place some sfety nets that will help hold you up until you can get back onyour feet. I understand that once everything is taken into account you bring home less tan you make. Guess what same thing happens to everyone who works.

Surt: Luck has nothing to do with it. Well almost nothing. Its choices and willingness to step out and risk. You could do my job and make more, but you haven't yet made that choice, and that's OK, but don't say I should pay twice as much as you because I have made better financial choices along the way. Flat tax is the only way to be fair.

I am sorry Mr. Gross, but you are completely shortsided on this issue. My wife and I both work. We have 2 kids, at preschool age. We need a full time babysitter (going rate there is over $16/hr). We live in southern Connecticut about 50miles outside of NYC, in a town very close to some of the towns on your top 25 list. We have no public pre schools to speak of so private is necessary). Here is what you miss: My wife's occupation requires her to work in and around NYC- (her occupational skills set requires her to be there, not Paducah, KY). We need a full time babysitter because we both work. In order to give our kids a head start, we send them to pre-school (we want to put them in a position to make a lot of money later in life so they can give most of it back to the government). We pay the same high gas and oil prices as everyone else (CT actually has some of the highest in the country). We pay the same high prices for groceries. And perhaps one of the biggest faults of your agument is that you forget that the reason the median income is so much lower outside of certain metropolitan areas, is that the high paying jobs just aren't there, and there is limited opportunity and potential to move up. Increasing taxes is the easy way for the government to push their problems on to the public. The question really should be, how are we educating those people on welfare in order for them to get better jobs? When are we going to stop paying $900 for a hammer? When are we going to train those receiving disability payments to do jobs that they are physically able to do? Fix these problems internally before you come to me and my family to bail you out. And last but not least, did you forget that by taxing America's so called "rich", you are decreasing their gross spending dollar, which limits the amount that go back into the economy, limits the amount that we can save for college, and limits the amount we can save for retirement, all problems that the government is supposedly trying to fix. The cashier at the supermarket is not receiving any favors by limiting my family's ability to spend more at the grocery store. We have worked hard for what we have. We are nowhere close to being able to afford retirement, and we are being penalized for working hard, being somewhat successful and doing right by our kids. I am thoroughly disgusted by the democrat's version of their so called "American Way".

My wife and I have two children; own two homes, three cars and pay a lot of taxes ???on what WE EARNED???. What sucks is we work hard and made our money the hard way "we worked" and never ask for hand outs. The sad part is we make only 200K combined and the Dem???s think we are rich? I had to take a personal loan to pay my taxes; even after I maxed out my holdings and invested in my 401k. I personally would like the DEM???s to look at my checking account and call me rich...we are not rich, but we pay a lot of people money to teach our children, work on our cars, work on our houses, dinners, clothing, etc, etc, etc. We are not rich, but I aspire to be rich ???it???s my God given right???!!!

Fact is, we are the middle class people that are paying for the lazy "hand-out taking, non-working, excuse making" losers that look for the loop holes in the system and take my/our hard working money. The non-working lazy people are the real criminals, not the people who make money!!! Tell me? Why should my family get punished for making honest money? There is nothing more depressing than to see a bonus and/or commission check that you worked hard for; get cut in half because you did your job and earned money for your family!!!

What is truly sad is we live in a country that if you work hard and make honest money; you get losers that look down on you because you worked hard and they didn???t!!! Think about it we live in a world that we give children trophies for just showing up at a soccer games and the truth is they are not good enough to earn that trophy. We punish coaches for being hard on our children by pushing them to do better and/or telling the kid the truth ???they are not good enough to play or the didn???t make the team??????Does that mean we give everyone ???A???s??? for just showing up to school or better yet give everyone in the class ???C???s??? on tests after half the class failed and the other half studied hard and got ???A???s/B???s???, it doesn???t sound right??? I???m sorry, but our world is being run by the Soccer Mom???s and Dad???s that want everyone to win, so Jonny???s feelings don???t get hurt. The same goes for the working ???grown up world???. We are raising and training hand-out taking kids that graduate collage and instantly expects to make the same or more money than the senior hardworking guy/gal earned, by climbing the latter of success over years of hard work.

If you earn it and work hard for it, than you should be rewarded. Not everyone is a MVP! We should stop rewarding everyone trophies and make them earn it the hard way and ???yes??? get their feelings hurt!!! And for you people that say they got dealt a bad hand???I was one of five with one parent and dropped out of collage to raise our first child. If anyone has an excuse I did; but, I still never asked for hand outs and that is more rewarding than a fat bank account. Well maybe not, but it sounds good!!!

Unless one makes or inherits enough money to a point where it is no longer an issue, people making, say, $250,000. or more have to watch how they spend it like the rest of us who make a lot less. If someone making 250K lives beyond that amount that's their problem. Anyone with half a brain should be able to do quite well as long as they realize how far it will go and not go beyond what is prudent.

Ignorance at its best. Fact: The top 5% of income earners in this country paid 60.1% of the total income tax for the entire country. To be in the top 5% your adjusted gross income was greater than $153,500. Meanwhile folks in the bottom 50% of all filers paid only 3% of the total income tax. The lowest actually had a negative income tax rate because of the Earned Income Credit. So when you hear "thats another tax break for the rich"

Just charge everyone the same, and its all good. No argument

I won't try to say that 250K is or is not alot of money. RB below said that there was a time when 15K was a good sum of money. Let me tell you, for most peope...15K is still and will always be alot of money. Give 15K to families and you can save their home, buy transportation, save a life, pay for education....you can do alot with 15K. The question is how many people that "work" in this country have a disposable 15K? Not as many as you might think....or that I would hope for. I'm 33 yrs old, and I have worked since I was 15. I have gone through very rough times as a child, and good times as well. Today when I make my 60K a year at my desk job, it doesn't seem to feel like much. I'm single, with no dependents. I want to live a certain way, and everyone does...but I can't live the way I want to on 60K. It's enough for a 2 bedroom condo, a car, and a TV as I watch 25% of my gross pay for Cheney's limo. People make decisions in their lives based on how much money they , and how they want to live. Making 250K for a single person is wealthy....for a single working parent with 4 kids, it's affordable...but just barely. And let's not forget, that those that make 250K now have a significantly better chance of making more than 250K the following year. I will look forward to my little 3%. And I don't understand the statement made by "RobertBabione"...."Is it the person who makes a good living's fault that the other person did take advantage of a college education, etc." I assume he means "did NOT take advantage"....and that implies that the opportunity was always there, just waiting for you. Fault me for having a 3.8 GPA all through my private school years from 1-12, and then the lack of funds for my undergrad years. Scholarships not offered to me because my father made too much money? What did I not take advantage of? I have worked hard all of my life, with my hands, and my head. Hold your judgments about whats right for you vs me, when you don't know me...and you don't know anybody else. The president, good or bad, must make decisions that will have an affect on all of citizenry as a whole. Some it helps, some it hurts...the question is how do you help everyone in "some" way, if not the "same" way.

Who really cares, anyway? Unless, of course, your goal is to "level the playing field" by punishing success through taxation. There is no shortage of places where everyone has about the same amount of stuff by governmental decree, and where there is no risk of losing your shirt, but also no chance to be a gazillionnaire. Those places are just not what the U.S. is. Neither way is wrong - they're just different. So I guess I am a bit tired of all this talk of who is and isn't "rich". It isn't a contest. I am working my tail off and I'm trying to do everything I can to give my family everything I can possibly give them. Presumably, that's what other Americans are doing, too. So why even make an issue of it? Oh, yeah. Because if your voter base is formed exclusively from the class-envious and chronically jealous, you must stoke the fires continually. As for me, the decision is not about whether I should buy an Escalade or a Range Rover, as seems to be the implication here. Instead, I spend my time wondering if I should continue pursuing the American dream, trying to make the most of what my hard work and a little bit of luck can produce, or whether it is simply time for Atlas to shrug. Then I can fall back into the welcoming arms of those who will pay for everything for me. The cost of membership? My consistent vote and my perpetual and very vocal misery.

Many of these "rich" people are the ones who take extreme economic risks to incur large debts to start small businesses. These are the businesses that employ the "median income workers". Just because you may have a large salary in a particular year doesn't mean that you're wealthy. It may take years of salaries in the $250,000 range to pay off debts incurred in starting small businesses. Go ahead, increase our tax burden and see how it impacts the economy. If we lose a larger portion of profits to taxes, that leaves less to invest in the future of our businesses. This will hit first at the very people that Obama's tax plan is trying to help.

I guess I understand that you have to set a bar somewhere, but to gross over $250,000 in a 2 income family is not that difficult. Throw in the mandatory Social Security, Medicade/care and state tax deductions (remember, we are in the top tax bracket), contribution to our own 401K (because we know there is no way in h**l Social Security will be around when we retire) , deductions for our own health care insurance, and you would be surprised how little of that actually makes it home. I woked very hard for multiple Masters degrees, relocated where good paying jobs are, and my husband is retired from the military. Now we are being punished because we worked hard, by increase taxes on a salary that we don't even actually get to see. Something is just not right.