Liberal Forum

 Someone will definitely have pouty lips and say some stupid **** about percentages!

Every April, Americans spend more than 7 billion hours filing taxes and roughly the same amount of time arguing over them, almost entirely on the basis of several common myths. Here are the five most consequential. 

Myth No. 1: The Rich Don't Pay Their Fair ShareThis is the most repeated claim in American tax politics and one of the least supported by actual data. The top 1 percent of earners take in 22 percent of total income and pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 10 percent earn about half the nation's income and pay 72 percent of its taxes. The bottom half of earners, collectively, pay roughly 3 percent of the tax revenue. The United States, in fact, has the most progressive income-tax system in the developed world.   

Myth No. 2: We'll Fix the Budget Deficit by Taxing the RichWe simply cannot. The collective net worth of every American billionaire is estimated at somewhere around $8 trillion. The projected federal deficit over the next decade alone approaches $25 trillion. Even a one-time total confiscation of every billionaire's wealth wouldn't come close, and you only get to do it once. The real driver of America's fiscal crisis isn't a shortage of tax revenue from the wealthy. It's the structural growth of Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office projects that such mandatory spending and interest payments will permanently exceed all federal revenue starting next year. No amount you could tax the rich will correct an imbalance like this. 

Myth No. 3: If You Can't Tax the Rich, Tax CorporationsCorporations are the next most likely target for those who want large government without the middle class paying for it. The problem is that corporations don't actually pay taxes. Once you understand why, this starts to look like one of the worst ideas in America's tax code. Corporations write checks to the IRS, but they don't bear the tax burden. Every dollar collected for corporate tax comes from a human: the worker who's paid a lower wage, the shareholder who earns less, and the consumer who pays higher prices at checkout. Research shows that workers bear somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the corporate tax burden through lower wages. If you have a 401(k), you're paying it too, quietly, through lower returns on every stock in the fund.  Further, corporate profits are returns on investment. Tax them and you get less investment. Less investment means lower productivity, which leads to lower wages over time. Decades ago, economists Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka showed a better way: Replace the corporate income tax with a consumption-based system under which businesses deduct all wages and capital investment immediately. No double taxation, no penalty on investment, and revenue without unintended economic damage. The corporate tax survives because voters mistakenly believe someone else pays it. This belief is expensive. 

Myth No. 4: Capital Gains Should Be Taxed Like Ordinary IncomeThis proposal sounds like common sense, but it's bad economics. When a company earns a dollar of profit, it pays roughly 26 cents in combined federal and state corporate taxes before distributing the rest to its shareholders. When it's all said and done, the government has taken close to half of every dollar the company earned. That's not a tax on the rich—it's two taxes on the same income. Those who want to raise capital-gains rates assume the U.S. is a low-tax haven for investors. It's not. America's combined federal, state, and net investment income tax rate on capital gains already sits at 29.2 percent, well above the average of 19.1 percent in fellow Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) democracies. We're already an outlier, and not in a good direction. 

 up. https://reason.com/2026/04/16/the-rich- ... -wont-die/

 
 

Continued:

Myth No. 5: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
Politicians on the right have said this for 40 years. But it's not quite true. Tax rates affect behavior. Cut the marginal rate on work and investment, and you get more of both, which generates more revenue than a static calculation predicts. But generating more revenue than expected is not necessarily enough to cover the cost of the rate cut. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act proved it. Growth picked up, wages rose, business investment increased, yet the deficit still widened.

The honest argument is different: A tax cut that costs real revenue but improves the allocation of capital and raises long-run productivity is still the right policy. The question is not whether tax cuts pay for themselves but whether the economic growth is worthwhile. That's harder to fit on a bumper sticker, but it's the version of the conservative tax argument that actually holds up.

That said, we should always offset the loss of revenue when possible. There is plenty of spending to cut, and there are plenty of tax breaks to close for that.

BV's favorite source no less.

Evolving by genetic outcomes left alive tomorrow doesn't reproduce fair results, just balancing outcomes 24/7 regardless ancestral lineage characteristics from geographical location evolving one at a time since conceived to replace one's own previous ancestry lived in the last 2 centuries as 64 great great great great grandparents, 32 great great great grandparents, 16 great great, 8 great, 4 grandparents, one's biological mom and dad that added oneself and siblings.

Now after birth you and siblings have an equal opportunity to survive staying alive by heart beats forward now. Question is during your time evolving changing form from infant, toddler, adolescent, puberty, teen, adult have you conceived another generation gap placing 50% your DNA into each child. did your children become parents of another generation gap changing your status of evolving into 1 of 4 grandparents yet?

Is your mind dropping the pretense life isn't self evident yet or are you dead set on staying in character until extinction or death happens first?

Fuelman » 16 Apr 2026, 1:37 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 1:37 pm

 Someone will definitely have pouty lips and say some stupid **** about percentages!


 

I put this in AI to fact check. It gave it a C-. That kind of sucks. I mean, it's better than flunking I guess, but it is nothing to brag about either. 

This post mixes a few real numbers with stale data and a lot of spin.Yes, high earners pay a large share of federal income taxes. But the latest IRS-based figures are about 38.4% for the top 1%, 70.5% for the top 10%, and 3.3% for the bottom 50%—not the exact numbers claimed here. More importantly, that is federal income tax only, not the full tax system people actually live under, which also includes payroll, state, and local taxes. (National Taxpayers Union)The line that America has “the most progressive income-tax system in the developed world” is also recycled from an older OECD-based claim about a narrow measure, and even analysts discussing that finding warned it should not be treated as a broad present-day verdict on the whole U.S. tax system. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)On the deficit: yes, even confiscating all billionaire wealth would not erase the projected federal deficit. CBO’s current baseline puts 2026–2035 deficits at about $23.1 trillion. But that does not prove that taxing high incomes can never reduce deficits; it only proves that one dramatic one-time wealth grab would not solve the whole problem by itself. (Congressional Budget Office)And “corporations don’t actually pay taxes” is a slogan, not a fact. Corporations do pay taxes legally; the real debate is who ultimately bears the burden. Even CBO’s own allocation splits that burden 75% to capital and 25% to labor, which is a lot more nuanced than “workers pay it all.” (Congressional Budget Office)The strongest point in the post is the one about double taxation of C-corporate income. That part is real: Tax Policy Center shows corporate income can be taxed once at the corporate level and again at the shareholder level, producing a combined federal burden near 39.8% for top-bracket shareholders. (Tax Policy Center)So the honest summary is: this post is not pure fiction, but it is also not a clean statement of fact. It blends accurate ideas, outdated statistics, and ideological overreach, then presents the whole thing as settled truth. (National Taxpayers Union)

 
 

Vegas » 16 Apr 2026, 2:12 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 2:12 pm

I put this in AI to fact check. It gave it a C-. That kind of sucks. I mean, it's better than flunking I guess, but it is nothing to brag about either. 


 
 

the fact you use AI shows you won't navigate space one at a time now without defending a specific social consensus daily.

Vegas » 16 Apr 2026, 2:12 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 2:12 pm

I put this in AI to fact check. It gave it a C-. That kind of sucks. I mean, it's better than flunking I guess, but it is nothing to brag about either.

Thanks for doing that process. It's pretty sad when you literally have to fact check just about everything, then fact check the fact checkers.

So, can we assume everything posted by Reason.com (one of BV's favs) should be fact checked?


 

Fuelman » 16 Apr 2026, 3:39 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 3:39 pm

So, can we assume everything posted by Reason.com (one of BV's favs) should be fact checked?

Definitely. Anything that BV reads should be fact checked. All of it. 

Vegas » 16 Apr 2026, 4:09 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 4:09 pm

Definitely. Anything that BV reads should be fact checked. All of it.

 

ROG62 » 16 Apr 2026, 6:55 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 6:55 pm

:die:  

Here is my idea about fact checking context verse content existed so far.

Compare unique chromosomes spaced genetically apart to context defining life with relative time logistics life is categorically listed by rotation of the planet lived so far.

Adapting in plain sight is the act of living in plain sight, comparing who's who and whom ranks more important globally here doesn't navigate evolving equally alive in plain sight.

character matters not genetic outcomes are matter of fact, not theory and theology suggesting life isn't what it does now, evolves in ever changing form of shapes never duplicated twice inhabiting time, here.

Evolving process vs categorizing planned outcomes regardless who does or doesn't exist tomorrow.

Fuelman » 16 Apr 2026, 1:37 pm » wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2026, 1:37 pm

 Someone will definitely have pouty lips and say some stupid **** about percentages!

Every April, Americans spend more than 7 billion hours filing taxes and roughly the same amount of time arguing over them, almost entirely on the basis of several common myths. Here are the five most consequential. 

Myth No. 1: The Rich Don't Pay Their Fair ShareThis is the most repeated claim in American tax politics and one of the least supported by actual data. The top 1 percent of earners take in 22 percent of total income and pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 10 percent earn about half the nation's income and pay 72 percent of its taxes. The bottom half of earners, collectively, pay roughly 3 percent of the tax revenue. The United States, in fact, has the most progressive income-tax system in the developed world.   

Myth No. 2: We'll Fix the Budget Deficit by Taxing the RichWe simply cannot. The collective net worth of every American billionaire is estimated at somewhere around $8 trillion. The projected federal deficit over the next decade alone approaches $25 trillion. Even a one-time total confiscation of every billionaire's wealth wouldn't come close, and you only get to do it once. The real driver of America's fiscal crisis isn't a shortage of tax revenue from the wealthy. It's the structural growth of Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office projects that such mandatory spending and interest payments will permanently exceed all federal revenue starting next year. No amount you could tax the rich will correct an imbalance like this. 

Myth No. 3: If You Can't Tax the Rich, Tax CorporationsCorporations are the next most likely target for those who want large government without the middle class paying for it. The problem is that corporations don't actually pay taxes. Once you understand why, this starts to look like one of the worst ideas in America's tax code. Corporations write checks to the IRS, but they don't bear the tax burden. Every dollar collected for corporate tax comes from a human: the worker who's paid a lower wage, the shareholder who earns less, and the consumer who pays higher prices at checkout. Research shows that workers bear somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the corporate tax burden through lower wages. If you have a 401(k), you're paying it too, quietly, through lower returns on every stock in the fund.  Further, corporate profits are returns on investment. Tax them and you get less investment. Less investment means lower productivity, which leads to lower wages over time. Decades ago, economists Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka showed a better way: Replace the corporate income tax with a consumption-based system under which businesses deduct all wages and capital investment immediately. No double taxation, no penalty on investment, and revenue without unintended economic damage. The corporate tax survives because voters mistakenly believe someone else pays it. This belief is expensive. 

Myth No. 4: Capital Gains Should Be Taxed Like Ordinary IncomeThis proposal sounds like common sense, but it's bad economics. When a company earns a dollar of profit, it pays roughly 26 cents in combined federal and state corporate taxes before distributing the rest to its shareholders. When it's all said and done, the 

 up. https://reason.com/2026/04/16/the-rich- ... -wont-die/

Have you considered desisting from voting for fiscal profligates?

Myth No. 4: Capital Gains Should Be Taxed Like Ordinary Income

This is cute...

How about "Carried Interest"?
 

Blackvegetable » 17 Apr 2026, 7:20 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:20 am

Have you considered desisting from voting for fiscal profligates?

This is cute...

How about "Carried Interest"?

America is losing it's interest in carrying sorry asses like yourself. They're fleeing the tax happy blue states like the Bubonic Plague.

RebelGator » 17 Apr 2026, 7:28 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:28 am

America is losing it's interest in 

Your language skills have gone to hell.....is it from the constant blows to your head?

Writes itself...

RebelGator » 17 Apr 2026, 7:28 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:28 am

America is losing it's interest in carrying sorry asses like yourself. They're fleeing the tax happy blue states like the Bubonic Plague.

What can you tell me about "carried interest"...

Blackvegetable » 17 Apr 2026, 7:34 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:34 am

Writes itself...

Actually, the text editor wrote it,  but thanks for trying.
i can't keep track of all the mistakes with you contributing faster than one's ability to read.
 

Blackvegetable » 17 Apr 2026, 7:34 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:34 am

Writes itself...

How? Writes itself doesn't correct constant inaccuracies from omission of how evolving actually happens in series parallel time separating spontaneously alive simultaneously here, results as genetically present now inhabiting space uniquely here on a universal scale of location, located, dead or alive so far.

Blackvegetable » 17 Apr 2026, 7:34 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:34 am

Writes itself...

I fact checked my text editor AND YOU, appears the text editor was right, Hop Along.

The phrase "it's in America's best interest" is grammatically correct, commonly used, and standard English. 

RebelGator » 17 Apr 2026, 7:49 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:49 am

I fact checked my text editor AND YOU, appears the text editor was right, Hop Along.

The phrase "it's in America's best interest" is grammatically correct, commonly used, and standard English.

Your "text editor" sucks.

"It's" is a contraction, it's NOT the genitive form  of the pronoun.

You're a **** moron.

 
 

Blackvegetable » 17 Apr 2026, 7:20 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 7:20 am

Have you considered desisting from voting for fiscal profligates?

This is cute...

How about "Carried Interest"?

Without using any sources I'm going to take a wild guess and say it's a hedge fund tax accounting trick.

Blackvegetable » 17 Apr 2026, 8:03 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 8:03 am

Your "text editor" sucks.

"It's" is a contraction, it's NOT the genitive form  of the pronoun.

You're a **** moron.

#****

ROG62 » 17 Apr 2026, 10:25 am » wrote: ↑

17 Apr 2026, 10:25 am

#****

It's a direct, and pithy, reply to his post.