Of course, there always will be a top 1%, so those in the Occupy Wall Street movement who want to demonize the top 1% always will have a cause.
But the numbers of millionaires who could be taxed to feed the demands of the proletariat is down in New York State:
Gannett’s Albany Bureau reported today how the number of New York tax filers earning more than $1 million a year dropped a whopping 22 percent in 2009 during the recession, according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance.
You can tax them all you want, but you can’t tax what isn’t there either because they have left for other states, have suffered income loss due to the economy, or just don’t think it’s worth it anymore.
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I read that somewhere earlier, and heard this on Hannity one day on the radio. As a New Yorker, he mentions often that the rich are fleeing the state. That is the reason often cited by many about why raising taxes won’t work – the targeted “rich” will just move – either to another state or out of the country. Or at least move their monies and companies out.
But the Democrats, as always, resist reality, and continue to push failed policies regardless of the FACTS. Isn’t that what the shellacking of 2010 proved? The party of projection and denial double and triple down, because they JUST DON’T CARE about people or our country.
Isn’t that what Obama has done since 2009? And Dirty Harry and Nancy?
Let New Yorkers suffer the consequences for their voting in these leftists over and over for decades. Just don’t ask the federal government to bail you out….. Yeah, riiiiiight.
The same people who have gotten onto the “Tax the Rich” kick, also want a transaction tax on every stock trade in the NYSE. Don’t they realize how their actions are going to drive business out of the state?
Oh wait. I forgot. They do know. That’s their intent.
A transactional tax on stock trades is never going to be allowed to happen. The registered representatives and firms would scream bloody murder. Also, the difference in arbitrage due to the tax would cause havoc in the financial markets.
It’s a populist balloon to try to say ‘we’re proposing something to soak all those rich stockbrokers and market-traders who don’t produce anything.’ What they don’t realize is that those traders allow for efficient use of capital.
Mr. Skinner of course a transactional tax will not happen, but not because people will scream!If they institute a tax, the market will move to London – Hong Kong – Singapore, etc. NYC would commit suicide if they instituted such a tax.
Prof. Jacobson: What is your take on Justiagate? Should we stop trusting online sources regardless of their prominent reputation in the real world? Thanks!
The real downside of taxing the “rich” more and more heavily is that in an economic downturn, revenues from these “rich” are going to go down .. while they may merely return to the upper middle class (a fate not worse than death), the governments taxing them go into a death spiral.
First they came for the top 1 percent, but I said nothing because I wasn’t in the top 1 percent….
Nice. I like it.
Good job Obama & OWS Co. !!! Some critics may say this “top 1%” class-envy ranting may be incoherent as policy, but it sure is getting results!
Too bad that far fewer resident millionaires will prove to be a cruel tax on New York’s poor.
Hey, how about an “exodus tax”?
Go Cassandra Lite! I would credit, if I knew who it was, the person who pointed out that “Bolshevic” meant “Majority” in Russian. Now, recall what happened to the Bolshevics after Lenin assumed power. The short story is that the Bolshevics were shot. 99%ers take notice!
Our political trajectory stinks. I pray for an epic electoral rejection of the Democrat Party in 2012.
Thanks, Professor.
DM
“New York’s disappearing millionaires”…
… reappearing in TX, FL or any state without an income tax… or outside the country.
With all their wireless iPads, iPhones, etc., I think the wireless OWS crowd will learn, as to their plans for the top 1% … mobility is a bitch.
“You see those bombers in the sky …
Rockefeller helped to build them,
So did I.”
Irving Berlin lyric during World War II.
It would be nice to have some data on how much of the decline is due to each of the three possible causes that Professor Jacobson lists.
There is rather a long list of reasons that I left Silicon Valley about a year and a half ago; the fact that state and local government viewed me as a flesh-and-blood ATM was certainly on the list.
[…] […]
At this rate, next year the OWS crowd will be part of the 1%….then who do they protest? One answer they’ll never give: Washington DC
The OWS crowd is developing its own 1%. Pretty soon the drummers will be the group’s own Zionist Jews in need of being run out of town:
From New York Magazine:
But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.
“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”
To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest,” he said. “They didn’t even give the drummers a say … Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”
The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”
“The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”
Shane doesn’t sound too bright….The ‘finance working group’ sounds more like the Feds–levy fines, act productive when all they really do is take from the productive–rather than the banks. The banks only take money GIVEN to them; the Feds use the threat of death and imprisonment to TAKE money from the producers.
But he’s young and dumb; hopefully he’ll grow up soon. …that used to be the excuse to force citizens to wait until they reached 21 before they could vote so they’d have a chance to gain some real experience in the world before trying to ‘change’ it.
Welcome to the real world, suckers. It was a given that some would assume power over others in this movement. Does anyone expect anything else from socialists, communists and nazis?
You know, I wonder if any of these #OWS morons have ever actually read Animal Farm and understood the message it was trying to deliver. The #OWS protests look more and more like the farm every day.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
It does bring me no end of amusement that a democratic socialist wrote probably the most damning allegory of why true socialism will always fail.
It will always fail, because there are going to be some who will try to take control of the system for their own ends and agenda over what could be best for the group, claiming it’s “for the greater good.”
Whoops. Quote should read:
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Socialism bleeds to death the horse it is riding.
I’m not a millionnaire, and I’m pretty far from the 1%. However, since last year, I have taken (legal) steps to specifically reduce my income tax liability to the lowest level possible. And it’s succeeded – I’m going to pay about 1/3 of what I paid the previous year. I’m not going to work for these blood-sucking parasites. That’s my little “F*** you” to Obama and now to the OWS crowd. That’s my John Galt move. Yeah, it’s only a few thousand, but it makes me feel better.
That’s on a personal note. On a larger scale, if those idiots do succeed, all that’s going to happen is that NYC will revert to the state it was during the wonderful Dinkins days. Remember those? Crime everywhere, streets full of bums, industrial areas deserted, state and city in debt to the tune of billions.
Don’t they realize that the stock market can be conducted from anywhere? I’m sure the economy of any other state – or country – would welcome the addition of 100’s of millions of dollars. Or do they realize it and that’s precisely their goal?