[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2015-October-20, 06:49, said:

I am not sure who that 60% rate applies to. The kid who earns a few bucks mowing lawns for neighbors?

Nobody pays 60% of their income as income tax but if you have a high income you will get close to paying 60% marginally, i.e. if your tax due is f(x) where x is income, then df/dx(X) where X is your income will be close to 0.6. This will be the case if earn more than 311.000 kroner/year after deductions and you live in a high-tax municipilaty. For lower incomes the margina tax is typically 39%, and 45% for intermediate incomes. Very low incomes like that of your lawn-mowing kids are not taxed.

You will probably pay more tax in Denmark than in USA but then again you don't have any costs for health insurance and for sending your kids to college. You don't have to save as much for retirement as you will get some free pension (though not enough for a good living so saving a bit yourself is recommended). Same with insurance for disability and unemployment. Public transit and child care are subsidized.

Since the government spends little money on interests and defence, you could say that Danish people get most of their taxes back in the form of services so effectively they pay less in tax than in the USA.

You could also say that the government forces you to pay for some things that you might not pay for if given the choice. You can't chose not to have health insurance but at least you can chose not to have children and not to use trains and busses.

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on 2015-October-19, 16:24, said:

Seems to me it's often the parents' established belief systems that teachers have to worry about, not the kids'.

Yes.

[kenberg]

helene_t, on 2015-October-20, 07:04, said:

Nobody pays 60% of their income as income tax but if you have a high income you will get close to paying 60% marginally, i.e. if your tax due is f(x) where x is income, then df/dx(X) where X is your income will be close to 0.6. This will be the case if earn more than 311.000 kroner/year after deductions and you live in a high-tax municipilaty. For lower incomes the margina tax is typically 39%, and 45% for intermediate incomes. Very low incomes like that of your lawn-mowing kids are not taxed.

This is along the lines i would have expected. Krugman's formulation was very careless, I read his words as a 60% tax rate, period. It seemed weird, but not living there I didn't know. He might have said "a top tax rate of 605" or, even better, "a top marginal tax rate of 60%".

If American voters read Krugman and conclude that Sanders thinks a flat tax rate of 60% is something to admire, he can go back to the Green Mountains (in Vermont) and take a hike., His run for the presidency is over.


Anyway, this shows the difficulty of bringing up what is done in other nations. .Firstly I can't even recall what Sanders said about Denmark. Secondly I misunderstood what Krugman said about Denmark. It seemed unlikely that he meant what I took him to be saying, but I didn't know. I could look the first up, and you provide clarification for the second (thanks) but still, it's off-putting to be focusing on Denmark for a US election.
Thirdly, it's Denmark and it may or may not apply here.

[gwnn]

I don't want to sound like an anti-American bigot or an anti-democratic (small or large D) weirdo, but what % of people who actually vote for president regularly read Krugman? What % of those people will have their vote change from Sanders to Trump or Jeb based on this presumed flat tax questions?

[Trinidad]

kenberg, on 2015-October-20, 06:49, said:

Imagine a national referendum on whether everyone's income will be taxed at the rate of 60%. What are the chances of passage?

Nill.

As Helene has pointed out, the real tax rate is not 60%.

But it doesn't really matter what the exact percentage is: people in Western Europe pay an awful lot of income tax (and a lot of other taxes). It is so much that it is hard to imagine for the average American (and also for the not so average American). Why aren't these Europeans revolting against these enormous taxes? Where are the Wilhelm Tells?

The crucial difference is that the Europeans trust and rely on their governments to take care of the things that are in (almost) everybody's interest. And Americans don't.

Ask Europeans or Americans who they prefer to manage their retirement fund: The government or Lehman brothers. That is where you see the difference between Europe and the USA.

Rik

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on 2015-October-20, 08:19, said:

This is along the lines i would have expected. Krugman's formulation was very careless, I read his words as a 60% tax rate, period. It seemed weird, but not living there I didn't know. He might have said "a top tax rate of 60%" or, even better, "a top marginal tax rate of 60%".

Indeed, carelessness is not good. Here's what Krugman actually wrote:

Quote

To pay for these programs, Denmark collects a lot of taxes. The top income tax rate is 60.3 percent; there’s also a 25 percent national sales tax. Overall, Denmark’s tax take is almost half of national income, compared with 25 percent in the United States.

But, as Helene pointed out, the Danes receive a lot in return for those taxes that folks in the USA either pay for themselves or miss out on entirely. And the point is that there is no reason to fear that the economy will collapse because of higher taxes, provided that those taxes provide real benefits to the citizens.

[billw55]

Trinidad, on 2015-October-20, 08:36, said:

The crucial difference is that the Europeans trust and rely on their governments to take care of the things that are in (almost) everybody's interest. And Americans don't.

Yes, I have also reached the conclusion that this is really the heart of the matter.

I live in USA. And while I would support tax increases for some programs I believe in, many government units (federal, state, and local) have often shown that they do not handle the money productively or responsibly. It is especially bad in my own state, Illinois, where the state government has been miserably incompetent, irresponsible, and corrupt for decades. And then they want tax increases to fund it all. So for me it is simple: first prove that you can handle and use our money responsibly. Then I will consider the new taxes you ask for. It amounts to treating them like children, which is really all they have earned.

[kenberg]

PassedOut, on 2015-October-20, 08:49, said:

Indeed, carelessness is not good. Here's what Krugman actually wrote:


But, as Helene pointed out, the Danes receive a lot in return for those taxes that folks in the USA either pay for themselves or miss out on entirely. And the point is that there is no reason to fear that the economy will collapse because of higher taxes, provided that those taxes provide real benefits to the citizens.

You are right, my mis-read. I ust have been so stunned by the 60% I didn't see more.


As penence I will look up what Sanders actually said about Denmark.

[andrei]

hrothgar, on 2015-October-19, 16:12, said:

Fox News is claiming that Biden is going to enter the race? This seems ridiculous. I find it really hard to believe that Biden is this delusional.

Other than dead relatives, I find it difficult to understand what he is planning to campaign on...

Weren't the last 7 years a success?

[y66]

gwnn, on 2015-October-20, 08:25, said:

I don't want to sound like an anti-American bigot or an anti-democratic (small or large D) weirdo, but what % of people who actually vote for president regularly read Krugman? What % of those people will have their vote change from Sanders to Trump or Jeb based on this presumed flat tax questions?

First question: Between 0 and 0.5 percent. But that doesn't matter as long as people on Sanders' staff and Clinton's staff do; they're probably closer to 100 percent. My mom was a capital D Democrat and heavily involved in local politics. She never read Krugman. She preferred Art Buchwald and Bob Levey.

[hrothgar]

andrei, on 2015-October-20, 12:24, said:

Weren't the last 7 years a success?

I agree that the last 7 years were a success. Moreover, I believe that Biden was a good to great VP.

The US would have been much better off had we partitioned Iraq as Biden suggested.
Biden was far ahead of Obama and Clinton with respect to gay marriage.

However, these differences are at the margins. Biden occupies nearly the precise same policy space as Clinton, she already has the money locked down, and with the exception of South Carolina, is going to run much stronger in the South.

I think that Clinton's debate performance has erased a lot of the buyer's remorse that was fueling speculation about Biden.
An entry now seems nonsensical.

[andrei]

hrothgar, on 2015-October-19, 16:12, said:

Other than dead relatives, I find it difficult to understand what he is planning to campaign on...

hrothgar, on 2015-October-20, 16:56, said:

Moreover, I believe that Biden was a good to great VP.

Make sense.

[hrothgar]

Hey, look at that...

Biden announced that he isn't running.

[Winstonm]

hrothgar, on 2015-October-21, 11:03, said:

Hey, look at that...

Biden announced that he isn't running.

That's a good choice and good for the Democratic party, not because Biden would not be a viable candidate but because he would be a viable candidate, and this is not the time to create dissent within the party.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2015-October-21, 12:07, said:

That's a good choice and good for the Democratic party, not because Biden would not be a viable candidate but because he would be a viable candidate, and this is not the time to create dissent within the party.

If not now, when?

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2015-October-21, 14:30, said:

If not now, when?

When the House and Senate are controlled. Until that occurs it is imperative to have a Democrat in the White House.

[blackshoe]

Is your objective to ram Democrat ideology down the throats of the citizenry, or to prevent the Republicans from ramming their ideology down our throats?

Ben Franklin, when asked by a neighbor "what kind of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin?" is alleged to have replied "a Republic, madam. If you can keep it." IMO the experiment is failing, if it hasn't already failed.

[y66]

ty Joe

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on 2015-October-21, 16:45, said:

Is your objective to ram Democrat ideology down the throats of the citizenry, or to prevent the Republicans from ramming their ideology down our throats?

Ben Franklin, when asked by a neighbor "what kind of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin?" is alleged to have replied "a Republic, madam. If you can keep it." IMO the experiment is failing, if it hasn't already failed.

My objective is prevent a Right Wing ideological theocracy - i.e., to save and even increase the social safety nets and slow defense spending, corporate subsidies, and regressive taxation.

[y66]

Quote

Eric Schmidt, the tech billionaire who is now the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, started investing in a political technology startup over a year ago. Now the company, Groundwork, is a key player in the Clinton campaign’s digital strategy. This Quartz piece takes you inside that somewhat secretive effort. -- Nick Corasaniti, NYT Politics Reporter

Quote

Are startups the new Super PACs?

Today, corporations and wealthy donors have many ways to seek influence with politicians. While their donations to campaigns are limited to a maximum of $5,000 or hundreds of thousands to national party committees, they can also now set up Super PACs with unlimited money for political activities, so long as they don’t coordinate with the official campaigns.

That unlimited money is all well and good for many things a campaign needs—TV advertising, for example, and even field work. But if you want to help make a campaign more tech-savvy, it gets harder: a super PAC, nominally independent under byzantine campaign finance laws, can’t pay for tech infrastructure.

That’s the beauty of the Groundwork: Instead of putting money behind a Super PAC that can’t coordinate with the campaign, a well-connected donor like Schmidt can fund a startup to do top-grade work for a campaign, with the financial outlay structured as an investment, not a donation.

Schmidt, a major political donor, did not give money to Clinton’s campaign in the first half of this year, though a campaign official says he has visited the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters and is supportive of her candidacy.

With tech policy an increasingly important part of the president’s job—consider merely the issues of NSA surveillance and anti-trust policy, not to mention self-driving cars and military robots—helping to elect yet another president could be incredibly valuable to Schmidt and to Google.

And Schmidt’s largesse is not something that other candidates, either rival Democrats like Bernie Sanders or the crowded field of Republicans, will be able to easily match. The billionaire Alphabet executive chairman now boasts a growing track record for funding politically-minded tech startups. The jobs these create could make it easier to attract top engineers to political work without asking them to sacrifice pay and equity for a brief campaign sabbatical.