Raising taxes on the rich

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davidmlamb said:
Scott, I have given you the teachings of the Catholic Church, none of it was my opinion and neither did I bring up socialism. I simply cited for you what the Church teaches. You cannot pick and choose which parts of divine revelation you’re going to believe and what you are going to reject. You will never have true liberty until you surrender your life to Christ.

The free market was meant to serve the entire human community so that everyone will benefit and not just employers. As much as employers have a “right” to profit so that they can live dignified lives, that same right to profit in the form of a just and fair wage belongs to the employees. God does not expect you to pay your employees in a manner that would put you in the poor house. Only that you pay a just wage as was spelled out in CCC 2426. When an employer witholds a just wage from his/her employees then that is stealing and therefore a violation of the 7th comandment. You should understand that in reality all the wealth in the world belongs to God and we are only stewards of what He has entrusted us with. The question then becomes; are we faithful stewards?

Do you have a business with employees? If so that business belongs to God and he has entrusted you with that business so that you can be a servant to others. Faithful stewardship brings liberty. Rebellion and unfaithfulness robs a person of their peace and liberty. I have given you the words of life, liberty, and true wealth. You should meditate on the words of life and pray for the grace to receive them in your heart.

Peace,
David
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How much do I, as your employer, make out the check for … in order to pay you a living wage?

Seriously … no joke.

Before I can pay you, I need to know how much to write the check for.

So … David … please fill in the box, so I can write your paycheck:
Code: 
      _________________
       /                            
       /
       /________________/
There is no way I can simply write a check that says “Living Wage”.

So, please fill in the amount.

I am, apparently, not permitted to pay you on commission.

So, please, David, fill in the amount of your paycheck.
 
Forgive me for jumping in on your debate, but I was relating this to my DH (a co-founder of a little start up company.) He was just pondering the moral obligation of a “just” wage.

As he said, when we tithe to our church we have been told to consider all our charitable donations when we calculate and examine our duty to give to the church. For example, many say that tuition to a Catholic school should be taken into account when deciding if we are giving “enough.”

So, with this in mind, should he calculate all the taxes that his company contributes (payroll tax, income tax, property tax, sales tax, etc, etc.) when considering a just wage. You have used Wal-mart as an example of an un-just wage saying that employees have to be on food stamps, etc to have a living wage. But have you calculated all that the company pays to the government that provides for the welfare programs. So should the wage that wal-mart pays be added to their portion of the tax subsidised welfare programs to calculate their moral obligation, just as we combine all our giving to calculate our tithing obligation?

When my husband hires a new employee he must calculate not only the take home pay of that person, but all the benefits he pays to provide, all the equipment a new employee will require and all the government mandated expenses (ie: taxes) that go with hiring a new employee. Is he allowed to calculate all that into the “just wage” theory?

The more we are taxed, the less we have and less freedom to choose to give to charity.
 
MomaMary8 said:
Forgive me for jumping in on your debate, but I was relating this to my DH (a co-founder of a little start up company.) He was just pondering the moral obligation of a “just” wage.

As he said, when we tithe to our church we have been told to consider all our charitable donations when we calculate and examine our duty to give to the church. For example, many say that tuition to a Catholic school should be taken into account when deciding if we are giving “enough.”

So, with this in mind, should he calculate all the taxes that his company contributes (payroll tax, income tax, property tax, sales tax, etc, etc.) when considering a just wage. You have used Wal-mart as an example of an un-just wage saying that employees have to be on food stamps, etc to have a living wage. But have you calculated all that the company pays to the government that provides for the welfare programs. So should the wage that wal-mart pays be added to their portion of the tax subsidised welfare programs to calculate their moral obligation, just as we combine all our giving to calculate our tithing obligation?

When my husband hires a new employee he must calculate not only the take home pay of that person, but all the benefits he pays to provide, all the equipment a new employee will require and all the government mandated expenses (ie: taxes) that go with hiring a new employee. Is he allowed to calculate all that into the “just wage” theory?

The more we are taxed, the less we have and less freedom to choose to give to charity.
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I think the easiest thing to do is just to look at what the average wage is for that particular job. For example, if you’re hiring workers who don’t have legal status in this country, are you doing so in order to pay them less than the going rate? I think that is the biggest thing to be morally concerned about. It’s not supposed to be about counting pennies.
 
copperblade said:
I think the easiest thing to do is just to look at what the average wage is for that particular job. For example, if you’re hiring workers who don’t have legal status in this country, are you doing so in order to pay them less than the going rate? I think that is the biggest thing to be morally concerned about. It’s not supposed to be about counting pennies.
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Many companies, particularly larger ones with functioning human relations departments, do exactly that. And within the professions, there are professional associations that publish salary surveys each year so that employers can figure out for each employee experience and responsibility level, what the salaries are.

In addition, most jobs carry a range based on experience. And employers strive to make sure their employees are appropriately compensated.

Do some employers try to underpay their employees? Sure. But what happens is that the employees start asking around and then start to migrate to other companies that have better work environments and better compensation.

I’m not sure how helpful all the debate of a “just wage” really is.
 
MomaMary8 said:
Forgive me for jumping in on your debate, but I was relating this to my DH (a co-founder of a little start up company.) He was just pondering the moral obligation of a “just” wage.

As he said, when we tithe to our church we have been told to consider all our charitable donations when we calculate and examine our duty to give to the church. For example, many say that tuition to a Catholic school should be taken into account when deciding if we are giving “enough.”

So, with this in mind, should he calculate all the taxes that his company contributes (payroll tax, income tax, property tax, sales tax, etc, etc.) when considering a just wage. You have used Wal-mart as an example of an un-just wage saying that employees have to be on food stamps, etc to have a living wage. But have you calculated all that the company pays to the government that provides for the welfare programs. So should the wage that wal-mart pays be added to their portion of the tax subsidised welfare programs to calculate their moral obligation, just as we combine all our giving to calculate our tithing obligation?

When my husband hires a new employee he must calculate not only the take home pay of that person, but all the benefits he pays to provide, all the equipment a new employee will require and all the government mandated expenses (ie: taxes) that go with hiring a new employee. Is he allowed to calculate all that into the “just wage” theory?

The more we are taxed, the less we have and less freedom to choose to give to charity.
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Regarding unions, heavily unionized industries were able to prosper in the USA and to pay middle-class wages to their workers up until the 70s. That was because the world had been wrecked by war and we enjoted a kind of monopoly. AsEucope began to recover, our advantage went away. The Japanese, for instance, were about to make cheaper and better small cars than thre Big Three. Despite the best efforts of the Government to protect the American fimrs, the public more and more preferred foreign cars. In short the Union load became too heavy to bear. Organizations designed to help the poor laborer stand up to the owners morphe into something very different:top-heavy, bureaucatic and burdens that sank the Big Three.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
Do some employers try to underpay their employees? Sure. But what happens is that the employees start asking around and then start to migrate to other companies that have better work environments and better compensation.
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So then it would be good to encourage there to be many companies to choose from, for both consumers and workers.
 
This doesn’t really answer a specific like whether to raise taxes on a certain income braket, but…
Liberalism, as that term is used in papal teaching, and indeed in Europe and throughout most of the world, is that movement in Western civilization which arose in opposition to the Christian political and economic order of the Middle Ages, and to the continuation of that order by all or most European governments even after the Middle Ages ended. Thus these governments believed that they had duties toward God, including that of caring for the poor and seeing that the economy fulfilled its function of supplying all citizens with the material things needed for this life. Certainly these governments fulfilled their duties imperfectly, but none of them would have denied that it had such a duty.
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Liberalism, however, in effect denies that the state or the human community is a creation of God or has duties toward him. At most, liberalism accepts that the individual has duties toward God. Important liberal theorists such as John Locke, held that society and the state originated in an agreement among men, the so-called social contract, and thus was a purely human creation, and as such, can have no inherent duties toward God. Liberal economic writers, such as Adam Smith, attacked the notion that the state should regulate the economy in the interests of the common good, positing instead that the economy was a self-regulating mechanism, the less interfered with by the state the better.
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The Catholic Church confronted liberalism in the eighteenth, and especially the nineteenth, centuries. And against this liberal doctrine Bl. Pius IX, and even more clearly his successor, Leo XIII, taught that the state itself was a creation of God and thus had duties to God.
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For men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, not less than individuals, owes gratitude to God, who gave it being and maintains it, and whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings.(Leo XIII, Encyclical Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885)
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Liberals were not only hostile to the concept of the state as created by God and subject to his laws, but they opposed any efforts of the government to intervene in the supposedly self-regulating market. They loudly cried that such economic restraints retarded the progress of humanity. Now economic activity no longer was to need regulation, for the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith was to guarantee that greed and self-interest would work out the best for everyone.

What was the result of this new approach to economics and government? Pope Leo’s classic description is worth repeating:
Code: 
The ancient workmen’s Guilds were destroyed in the last century, and no other organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws have repudiated the ancient religion. Hence by degrees it has come to pass that Working Men have been given over, isolated and defenseless, to the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained competition. The evil has been increased by a rapacious Usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different form but with the same guilt, still practiced by avaricious and grasping men. And to this must be added the custom of working by contract, and the concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself.(Encyclical Rerum Novarum, 2; May 15, 1891)
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Thus liberalism, as used in papal documents, and as it affects the economic order, means something like what John Paul II has called “rigid capitalism” or “unbridled capitalism,” a more or less free-market approach to the economy. It obviously includes important elements of what we in the United States call conservatism.
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distributistreview.com/mag/2011/07/is-the-acton-institute-a-genuine-expression-of-catholic-social-thought/
 
Monte_RCMS said:
How much do I, as your employer, make out the check for … in order to pay you a living wage?

Seriously … no joke.

Before I can pay you, I need to know how much to write the check for.

So … David … please fill in the box, so I can write your paycheck:
Code: 
      _________________
       /                            
       /
       /________________/
There is no way I can simply write a check that says “Living Wage”.

So, please fill in the amount.

I am, apparently, not permitted to pay you on commission.

So, please, David, fill in the amount of your paycheck.
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In order for me to be able to answer this question we would have to negotiate a contract and that contract would be based on many factors including the past three year performance of your business as well as your capital verses your expensis. Then we would consider the types of positions you need to fill and the going union rate of those positions. The contract would ultimately be what is best for both the employees and the employer. If no contract can be reached then we would bring in an arbatrator who would make a ruling. The contract would be legal and binding for a determined amount of time when the contract can be re-negotiated once again based on the company’s performance and the going union labor rates.

Peace,
David
 
davidmlamb said:
In order for me to be able to answer this question we would have to negotiate a contract and that contract would be based on many factors including the past three year performance of your business as well as your capital verses your expensis. Then we would consider the types of positions you need to fill and the going union rate of those positions. The contract would ultimately be what is best for both the employees and the employer. If no contract can be reached then we would bring in an arbatrator who would make a ruling. The contract would be legal and binding for a determined amount of time when the contract can be re-negotiated once again based on the company’s performance and the going union labor rates.

Peace,
David
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Absolutely false.

Your living wage is what YOU need to live.

Has absolutely nothing to do with what the company can afford to pay.

Has absolutely nothing to do with what the company needs to live.

A contract as you propose would kill the company … because for the company to survive, they need operational flexibility … because the economy is dynamic … changes minute to minute. If the company is locked into a contract, as you describe it, the company would have zero flexibility and would be unable to compete.

You have got it exactly backwards.

Nope.

A living wage: YOU fill in the box with what YOU need to live on.
 
So many rich people are so greedy, they want to pay no taxes. I am an independent contractor and I’ve been to seminars where rich people let you in on their “secrets” on how to pay NO TAXES. It’s legal if you have a good accountant who knows all the tax codes, and how to work them all in your favor, you can legally tax dodge. Not tax cheat but I’m saying tax dodge if you do everything just right and I don’t think that’s right. I think rich peoplr drive on the same public roads and use 911 and have the option to send their kids to public schools, use state and Federal Parks and Forrests, and much more things that are peid for by tax dollars. Just because you don’t believe in welfare doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay taxes. I’m talking about a moral obligation to pay SOME taxes. So so so many rich people pay NONE and even get credits. It’s just a shame how greedy some people can be to me. Greedy little monsters. I’m not talking about feeding your family and following your dreams, I’m talking about people that can and don’t pay any taxes because they are greedy and don’t feel they should have to because of their entitlement as US royalty. I’m an indepentent contractor with my own business and I take depreciations and write offs but I still pay into the system a good amount like I was a regular working guy. I do so because I believe it is my duty as a citizen of the good old US of A.

Thank you
 
rturner76 said:
So many rich people are so greedy, they want to pay no taxes. I am an independent contractor and I’ve been to seminars where rich people let you in on their “secrets” on how to pay NO TAXES. It’s legal if you have a good accountant who knows all the tax codes, and how to work them all in your favor, you can legally tax dodge. Not tax cheat but I’m saying tax dodge if you do everything just right and I don’t think that’s right. I think rich peoplr drive on the same public roads and use 911 and have the option to send their kids to public schools, use state and Federal Parks and Forrests, and much more things that are peid for by tax dollars. Just because you don’t believe in welfare doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay taxes. I’m talking about a moral obligation to pay SOME taxes. So so so many rich people pay NONE and even get credits. It’s just a shame how greedy some people can be to me. Greedy little monsters. I’m not talking about feeding your family and following your dreams, I’m talking about people that can and don’t pay any taxes because they are greedy and don’t feel they should have to because of their entitlement as US royalty. I’m an indepentent contractor with my own business and I take depreciations and write offs but I still pay into the system a good amount like I was a regular working guy. I do so because I believe it is my duty as a citizen of the good old US of A.

Thank you
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So you believe that EVERYBODY should pay some taxes?
 
copperblade said:
This doesn’t really answer a specific like whether to raise taxes on a certain income braket, but…

distributistreview.com/mag/2011/07/is-the-acton-institute-a-genuine-expression-of-catholic-social-thought/
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This is entirely correct. The Catholic Church has never endorsed the extreme form of capitalism which now dominates so much of Western society. Every study has shown that in the US over the past 40 years the very rich are getting steadily richer while the middle classes are slipping downwards. This is unhealthy for society and will lead to many problems in the future.
 
JimG said:
Otherwise known as “Card Check.” It’s impossible to predict the results if this were passed. Two things I don’t like about it:

!. It eliminates the secret ballot. In theory I don’t have a problem with workers checking off a card indicating whether or not they wish to organize a union. But it ought not be required to be done in public with organizers, or managers, looking on. That’s undue pressure. Let the card check be done in private just as a secret ballot would be.
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I would disagree with a card check done in private. The workers vote should be kept secret, or else they would be subject to undue peer pressure.

I think any unionization vote should be mandated as a secret vote. In that way, the worker is free to vote how they truely feel without any undue pressure from organizers, management or fellow workers, and likewise to be free from any possible retaliation from organizers, managment or fellow workers.
 
Hadrianus said:
This is entirely correct. The Catholic Church has never endorsed the extreme form of capitalism which now dominates so much of Western society. Every study has shown that in the US over the past 40 years the very rich are getting steadily richer while the middle classes are slipping downwards. This is unhealthy for society and will lead to many problems in the future.
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Hahahahahahaha. America hasn’t been under the “captialist” system since FDR. We are a fascist style corporatist economy and it is rapidly degrading to “state capitalism”, also known as socialism.
 
Scott_Lafrance said:
Hahahahahahaha. America hasn’t been under the “captialist” system since FDR. We are a fascist style corporatist economy and it is rapidly degrading to “state capitalism”, also known as socialism.
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I don’t know about that. What indicates we’re moving in the direction of state-controlled corporations? Just the recent fiasco under Bush where we bailed out the banks by making sure they paid us back? Even if we assumed that the state was taking control over the banks in this situation, I’m not sure it’s any kind of a trend.

I agree with the more fascist style corporatist economy part, but I think that’s included when people say “capitalism” these days. At least what half of the people who worship capitalism seem to be ok with. I think true capitalism died before FDR.
 
davidmlamb said:
Social Security also needs to be reformed so that only those who need social security are entitled to it. Those whose private or public service retirement pensions afford them a living at 3X the poverty level should only receive a very reduced benefit.
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Which brings us to the matter of government expenses of promising and paying out these hefty pensions to its employees and politicians…

… funny no one mentions this.
 
copperblade said:
I agree with the more fascist style corporatist economy part, but I think that’s included when people say “capitalism” these days. At least what half of the people who worship capitalism seem to be ok with. I think true capitalism died before FDR.
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It’s more of what the country you trade with calls itself. The U.S. trades with communists, socialists, monarchies, dictatorships, etc. Corporate communism, where you import and export jobs and inflation, might not be a bad label. Capitalism, no, at least not the Ayn Rand capitalism, that is, without a Federal Reserve System.
 
copperblade said:
I don’t know about that. What indicates we’re moving in the direction of state-controlled corporations? Just the recent fiasco under Bush where we bailed out the banks by making sure they paid us back? Even if we assumed that the state was taking control over the banks in this situation, I’m not sure it’s any kind of a trend.

I agree with the more fascist style corporatist economy part, but I think that’s included when people say “capitalism” these days. At least what half of the people who worship capitalism seem to be ok with. I think true capitalism died before FDR.
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State-controlled corporations:

fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
General Motors
Chrystler
 
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