Taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners should be increased

Final Rebuttal:You should lose conduct at this point for being so rude....He ad hominems like a champ...He probably has the IQ of a chimpanzeeSeems legit. Your profile says you are 44 years old, but you have the immaturity of a 10 year old. Or you are trolling. Not sure which.You're also wrong about Wikipedia. Where you go that interpretive vs. descriptive statistics crap I will never know. It's not that complicated, really. What I quoted from Wikipedia was not an interpretation of data, but just data that has been gathered from other sources. Data is immune to bias. The problem is when you use Wikipedia or something like that to make an interpretive claim based on data, and then it is open to bias.The comment section of the Krugman article is irrelevant. So is what Krugman thinks, but you used that to argue your point.All states? Prove this. You have not proved this. You have not proven that when you factor in all taxes the system is regressive. The rich still pay more in income taxes than the poor and middle class pay in all of their taxes combined. On page 9 of your original 8th source, it speaks about the LEAST REGRESSIVE states in the country: "Vermont’s tax system is among the least regressive in the nation because it has a highly progressive income tax and low sales and excise taxes. Vermont’s tax system is also made less unfair by the size of the state’s refundable Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) — 32 percent of the federal credit. • Delaware’s income tax is not very progressive, but its high reliance on income taxes and very low use of consumption taxes nevertheless results in a tax system that is only slightly regressive overall. Similarly, Oregon has a high reliance on income taxes and very low use of consumption taxes. The state also offers a refundable EITC and has a fairly progressive personal income tax rate structure. • New York and the District of Columbia each achieve a close-to-flat tax system overall through the use of generous refundable EITC’s and an income tax with relatively high top rates and limits on tax breaks for upper-income taxpayers"So, Vermont and Delaware are the only two truly progressive taxing states, logically, since the next two down are New York and the District of Columbia, both of which are close to flat-tax. So, all states except 2 are either regressive or barely flat-tax. Is this sufficient for you? I really didn't think I needed to spell it out, since it was your own source.No, you're full of it. Prove it. Proven using your own source, how you continue to deny this is totally beyond me.Ad hominem without evidence. Are you joking? I gave you evidence, I gave a direct quote and page number from your source. And my "ad hominem" statement was literally just repeating what you said to me earlier:This claim is absolutely ludicrous. This shows that you're not looking through the source correctly. I ask that you quote and cite the piece you're referring to directly.And I mirrored this intentionally, stating: And you've been shown to be wrong, since your source clearly states these things. You are the one who isn't reading sources correctly.If I am using "ad hominem", I am not using it any more than you are, clearly.Prove to me that overall the system is regressive -- that regressive taxes in 10 states (not even a majority!!) -- make the system overall progressive. The CBO link, also, did not deal with just income taxes. The percentage from income taxes was lower. The 33.6% came from ALL taxes. Read the source more carefully, please. It has been proven, I just proved it.Now you're misquoting Keynes. Keynes never differentiated between small and large. He said run a deficit until you reach full employment. Keynesian revolutionaries (especially in the United States) interpreted Keynes’s General Theory as a justification for countercyclical demand management (or stabilization policy). In the Keynesian view, stabilization would be achieved by manipulating the balance between spending and taxation. Thus, faced with the threat of recession, the government would increase public spending and/or decrease taxes. Conversely, faced with the threat of inflationary expansion, the government would decrease public spending and/or increase taxes. By alternating between deficit and surplus, the government would regulate the business cycle. ( http://what-when-how.com... )I don't think I've ever heard anywhere that Keynes advocated running a deficit until you reach full employment. Stabilization policy, which you've mentioned, is something he advocated, but not running a deficit until you reach full employment. If you could show me where he says that that would be good.No, capital gains taxes rose to 20% after January 2013 and there is a 3.75% surcharge under ObamaCare, so you're wrong.Also, reread the chart. The first chart has to do with OVERALL FEDERAL TAXATION. The chwrt below is income taxes.Ah yes you are correct on the first point, I misspoke.Your source's notes (under "overall federal taxation") says the following."Pretax cash income is the sum of wages, salaries, self-employment income, rents, taxable and nontaxable interest, dividends, realized capit al gains, cash transfer payments, and retirement benefits plus taxes paid by businesses"It doesn't take into account long-term investments. How do you think people like Mitt Romney pay 14% taxes?Only 10 states have regressive tax systems. And the rich STILL pay more than the poor overall so the system is, in summary, progressive. False.Tax cuts kill jobs. You haven't given any evidence for this in the entire debate.My opponent is wrong on capital gains Good argument.WikiPedia is not a source.Oh, let's point out your faulty sourcing, shall we?In your initial post:Source 3 said at the end that his conclusions do NOT lead to policy, since inequality is a huge factor for which he did not take account. And yet you used it as a definitive guide to policy.Source 5 you used to support the importance of entrepreneurship, but it was just an organization planning to promote entrepreneurs, not anything about how entrepreneurs have benefitted our society, and only because they had monetary incentives.Source 6 wasn't even remotely related to anything, it puzzles me.Source 8 said VERY clearly that 10 states have EXTREMELY regressive tax systems, and almost all of the rest are regressive or barely flat-tax. Ironically, you denied this for most of the debate and continued to claim that I was the one reading sources wrong.I could find the same data I got on Wikipedia outside of Wikipedia. You know why? Because Wikipedia cites everything. I could clink on the link and find the thing that gave the data. It is certainly better to use Wikipedia occasionally for everyone's ease than to have half of your sources be totally unrelated and/or support the opponent's argument very clearly.He thinks an appeal to authority on Joe Stiglitz -- and even a sily commentator on Krugman's page -- is enoughLet's revisit how exactly this panned out, shall we?You said: "Correlation does not mean causation. Prove that inequality hurts spending and leads to depressions. Even Paul Krugman disiagrees with you."That is an appeal to authority. That's right, YOU were the first one to appeal to authority. I responded: "If we are appealing to authority, then look up Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel prize winning economist who wrote the brilliant Price of Inequality, and its plethora of negative effects."I only brought it up because you apparently think that citing some economist that agrees with you means something. Then: "Paul Krugman disagrees with you and Stiglitz (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com......)." Still appealing to authority, and not even good authority. This is a page-long blog post with a bit of data and at the end he says he isn't confident enough about it to write a thesis.So if a blog post with a couple pieces of data by someone who isn't even confident about the truth of what he is saying is sufficient evidence for you, then why not other people who posted in the comments? The first guy I quoted actually crunched numbers in a spreadsheet to come up with his conclusion, calling it "silly" is a reverse appeal to authority, invalidating his numbers because his last name isn't Krugman.He ad hominems like a champ Look below...He probably has the IQ of a chimpanze Oh the irony.Conclusion:My opponent showed a complete and utter lack of understanding of his own sources, denying that one of his primary sources said anything about regressive taxation for half of the debate when in fact it did, and did not acknowledge that he was wrong when I gave the specific page number and quote. The majority of his sources were unrelated or did not at all say what he thought they did. My sources were relevant, and I only used Wikipedia for a single data point that is hardly debatable.He ended his debate with "He probably has the IQ of a chimpanzee", and yet critisizes me for ad hominem. I never once attacked him, and I always acknowledged his arguments seriously, something which he did not do.He appealed to the authority of Paul Krugman and then critisized me for appealing to authority when I mentioned Stiglitz to show that there are authorities on both sides.The majority of my initial arguments were never addressed, even once it was made clear that the essential premise of regressive taxation was true by my opponent's own sources. In the last two rounds, my opponent clearly gave up on arguing and engaged in dismissive and evasive behavior. I addressed every single one of my opponent's points, however.