Kasich's Budget Plan: Tax The Poor, Tax Cuts For The Rich

[Towntalk]

In that a wealthy man can afford to spend more for creature comforts and luxuries that are taxable, certainly he pays more sales tax, that's a given, but by the same token, that same wealthy man has tax advantages that are not available to his poorer counterpart. Is this fair? Yes it is, because one of the tax advantages he has are donations to causes, many of which benefit his poorer counterpart.

Do I begrudge the wealthy man his wealth? No, because by following his example on thrift, I can not only keep my own net worth in balance, but can put aside money for a rainy day, and go to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that I won't have bill collectors knocking at my door, and as a senior citizen that is a big deal.

[Towntalk]

When I go to the store to buy groceries, I see dollars in hard currency go out of my pocket. Now we could break that down to percentages of my net income, and when I'm analyzing my net worth it comes up in percentages, so in the real world, if I'm going to keep my head above water, I had better have a positive percentage at the end of the month or I've got problems, because the negative means that I will have less to spend in real money, and unless I can turn that negative into a positive, it will increase.

By maintaining a very strict budget, my net worth remains positive, but any real emergency can come up that will throw my budget into the negative so I maintain an emergency reserve that I do not touch, but still the bottom line is calculated both in real dollars and percentage.

So percent is a real factor regardless of my net annual income verses the annual net income of that wealthy man behind the tree.

[Rick Rowlands]

"The poor in Ohio already pay more of their income in taxes than do the rich."
This is just a downright lie.  The taxes paid by most wealthy people is actually higher than the total income of many people at the lower end. 



"The bottom fifth of Ohio taxpayers pay 11.6 percent of their income in taxes, while the top 1 percent pays an effective rate of 8.1 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy." 
11.6% of lets say $20,000 is $2,320.   8.1% of $1,000,000 is $81,000.  I would say that the person who only has to pay $2320 to support the government is getting a helluva deal compared to the guy who is paying $81,000.  After all, ODOT maintains the roads that both have equal right to use, both have schools to send their children to, both have police and fire departments who respond to emergencies, both have courts of common pleas at their service, both have OEPA, OSHA, PUCO and other agencies protecting them.  However, there are state services that the guy paying 81K cannot enjoy such as HEAP, food stamps, WIC, ADC, subsidized child care, etc.   

"That disparity exists because of sales taxes: the bottom 20 percent pay 6.7 percent of their income in sales taxes compared to just 1 percent for the wealthiest taxpayers."   
Again, if we ran some hypothetical numbers we would find that the rich again are paying more in REAL DOLLARS than the poor in sales taxes too.  This liberal obsessions with percentages is nonsense, only the REAL DOLLARS paid means anything.

[Towntalk]

According to the Plain Dealer the family of a loved one who has the misfortune to pass away would also be taxed ... tax on funeral expenses ... tax on any inheritance. Think about it. What is the average cost of a funeral. How the bloody ..... could a family whose income is between $20 and $50 thousand dollars absorb the final cost?

[irishbobcat]

Ohio's poorest will be hit the hardest by Kasich's sales tax plan....
Did we expect anything different with this GOP governor?
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2013/02/governor_john_kasichs_sales_ta.html

[irishbobcat]

Did we truly expect anything different from this GOP Governor?

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/08/1559921/kasich-tax-the-poor/