If Mitt pays 50% does that mean the American worker pays 71%?

Mitt romney pays capital gains tax it is the same rate that everyone else pays that has money invested.

Mitt worked for the money and paid 38 persent on the money than he invested that money and made more money paying 15 percent on the profits.  this is what everyone should be trying to do,  this is how you retire and not be under the government thumb.

people that work are paying more because their labor is being taxed. they should do what Mitt did and invest what is left so they can have extra money or maybe even be able to retire one day.

raising capital gains taxes and income taxes ensures that you and me will never be rich.  how did the U.S. get threw the first 160 years as a country without the social security administration.   

You are nuts.  Who has anything left?  What work did Mitt do?  He began on Third and like the old financial advisor said, "first you take $10,000 and invest it."  Can I invest my credit card debt?

That is the whole problem far to many people spend everything they make, in order to get ahead you have to keep as much as you can for your self. 

Mitt romney was a big wig in a company if not ran it,  have you ever run a company of your own it is not easy, all the easy decisions get made long before the CEO get involved.  

credit card debit is your own fault your bad decisions that have gotten you into credit card debit. 

is it fair for people to get back more money from the Federal government than they have paid in? 

make everyone pay their fair share stop give the money I pay in to some one who does not.

The logic that conservatives are trying to push regarding the 15% rate doesn't hold up regardless; they would have us believe that since dispersed income has already been taxed at the corporate level then, in effect, they have already paid tax on that money.  (I would note that, at the same time they make such an argument, they also exploit the "corporations are people" loophole because they want it both ways.)

To illustrate the flaw in the argument I'll use FedEx as an example.  Shareholders who earn their income from stock dividends via an investment in FedEx would pay a maximum 15% on money that was dispersed to them in the form of shared profit. The conservative argument (Mitt's argument) is that since that profit has already been taxed at the corporate level then, in effect, the shareholder has already paid a percentage of taxes on his profit.  What that doesn't take into account is the fact that the corporation has an obligation to support the maintainance of the public domain that made it possible for that corporation to thrive  (in the case of Fed Ex the corporation takes advantage of a costly and complex transportation infrastructure).  So the corporation has an obligation to provide for and maintain a public infrastructure that makes commerce possible by paying its taxes.  Once the corporation has met its communal responsibility it is free to disperse its profits as it sees fit.  The individual then has his own communal responsibility to support the social infrastructure that makes home and family possible just as the commerce was made possible.

So the real argument ought to be not whether their should be a different tax rate for money made through invenstments as opposed to work but whether we should put the entire burden on commerce (businesses) or put the entire burden on the individual (families) or share that burden between these two spheres which both require a structured environment to thrive. 

Paying a special rate on individual income by virtue of its source is not defensible. Its just a way to cheat the rest of us because the tax that doesn't get paid by these "special" people must be passed along to the rest of us as debt or an increased tax burden on us.   

Capital gaines is free money.  You can't "earn" capital gains.  The money makes money, not the man makes money.  That means that if you are born rich then you never have to work a day in your life because you've got money to work in place of you.  Is 15% tax too high on free money?  Is 50% tax too high on free money?  It's free money people! 

Banks loan out money that they don't even have and then make money off of the interest of the money they never had.  Should that even be legal?  How come all the rich people get free money and bitch about the tax placed upon it when most of us have to trade our labor for money and then pay an even higher tax after that?

So the rich get free money all of the time in droves but will fight to the death over poor people getting anything free from the government such as trivial things like food, shelter, healthcare.  Poor people receiving free "stuff" are leeches and rich people receiving free "stuff" are superior human beings deserving to be bowed down to.  The homeless should just move into the brains of the American conservative because there seems to be plenty of room and then some.

This is ridiculous. If buying stocks meant I was paying 35% more in taxes, then if I short stocks I must be getting an automatic 35% payment,right? Of course not. The corporate tax is factored into the stock price, since that price reflects net earnings, both now and future. Also, Mittens is counting his sizable tithe to the LDS church.

If I could claim the taxes paid by employers for my wages, I too could skip income taxes.  It is a bs theory that has no understanding of how money works and no appreciation that taxes are imposed at every point money changes hands.  These guys live in Financial Wonderland, not in the real world.  Mitt confuses his money 'working' with his own sweat and effort.  Were he a true investor in the creation of real value, his skill would be in assessing good business plans and giving them the energy boost they would need to get up and going.  He would be entitled to a reasonable payback on that provision of a valuable utility.  He would not have the right to take over the business or run it into the ground with debt.  Banking is boring, but knowing who is a good risk can be satisfying when it makes things happen.  Conversely, suffering the risk of betting on the wrong horse has to be part of the picture.  This is not how Bain operated.  They sucked the blood from the losers and 'won' either way.  Vampire capitalism is a good way to honor the actual function of the vultures.  Other than fantasy fiction, 'vampires' have no redeeming value.  Even if we appreciate the original Dracula, however, vampires have become trite and boring in fiction.  The town of Volterra does have very fine alabaster and a great wine bar.  It suffers from vampire hunters because of the awful Twilight crap.

An Alternative to Capitalism (if the people knew about it, they would demand it)

Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative". She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.

I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm

John Steinsvold
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."~ Albert Einstein

You would profit from reading David Graeber's DEBT.  He points out that "the economy" or Commerce exists at a more abstracted human level than the "communitarian" where there is no price put on our children's ability to eat or have a home.  We do not charge them or price them.  If we understood that "the economy" existed beyond our fundamental social bonds rather than determining them, we would not tolerate homelessness nor deny anyone food or healthcare.  Graeber attacks the idea of money, pointing out that it arises from crimes and disasters where human beings are ripped from their human context and commodified.  I think there are ways to have a positive economy, and I believe that having fundamentally human society makes the idealism we know as 'capitalism' possible in the arena of Commerce.

It helps to remember that Adam Smith was a moral theologian who was attempting to describe a world without masters and slaves, where the interaction of rational self-interest in the context of a moral and rational universe would allow economic exchange to be mutual.  It is utopian and never has happened in human history or society.

This isn't true. 

First of all, capital gains is no different from other investment income, like interest or dividends.  All things being equal, if I buy a share of Exxon stock on January 1 and they pay no dividend for the entire year, the price of the stock on December 31 will be higher (my capital gain) by the dividend I would be entitled to receive.

An informed investor makes decisions with how to invest her savings based on several factors, primarily on when do they want the money back.

Yeah, but it is still your money making money, and unless you really are a capitalist who invests in the creation of value, your 'smart' investment in the bankster game is still not "earned income" in any moral sense.  It is still Phantom Wealth ripping off Real Economy investments.  You pose a distinction that has no difference against Bush Whacker's point.

You only pay tax on the gain. That's why it's called a capital gains tax.

Although an individual - if he has lots of money - can get rich in the stock market, that doesn't mean everyone can.

Most stock purchases and sales have absolutely nothing to do with real physical investment in a company. People are simply purchasing claims on future goods.  We can't all claim the same future goods.

But the real argument was why we should tax capital gains differently than income. You seem to agree with the Republicans that somehow this income is 'good' and does 'great' things. In fact, some of it does. New investment is good for the economy. But most stock transactions are simply trades of existing assets, and they have nothing to do with investment. In fact, most investors even in new IPO's don't have a clue about running the company they invest in. The fact that Republicans don't know how to make this distinction proves that what they really want to do is give rich people more of a break. After all, the rich hire Republicans precisely to do their bidding.

I have money left over after I pay for everything I consume.  I call this my savings.

Joe the Plumber is tired of working for his boss for $10 an hour and figures he could make $40k a year on his own.  He needs $20k worth of equipment before he answers his first service call. He has no savings.

Joe goes to the bank to inquire about a loan.  The bank charges interest for money lent.  The rate of interest varies, based on the mix that people with savings, like me, are buying common stocks, AAA corporate bonds, United States treasuries, Gold, Yen, etc.

I'll be the first person to tell you that Wall Street has been taken over by insiders trading, since at least 1987.  And IRA's and 401k's go back even further.

Also, from what I understand of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital (and all I understand is from left wing radio) those profits ARE actually earned income and should not be taxed as investment income.

Romney and Bain seem to me to be like Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street.  He does the leg WORK to find companies whose individual assets are worth more than the aggregate stock value of the corporation, buys the company, sells the assets, collects the profits.

The idea to give capital gains favorable tax treatment was not a bad idea back in the day: we wanted to make medium-sized companies into big-sized companies.  Ford Motor Company paid a reliable quarterly dividend. It's stock price didn't vary up or down very much. Everyone was putting their savings into Ford.  To encourange investors to buy stock in Upstart Inc., where you wouldn't get a dividend for maybe 3-4 years, but if it was successful the price of the stock would go up and you would have a "capital gain." You were also more likely to lose your savings with Upstart, Inc. than you were with Ford.

The problem was, once capital gains were taxed favorably over dividends, investors started telling the corporations to stop paying the dividends - they'll just let the price of the stock go up so they could call it a "capital gain." CEO's, realizing that growing profits and dividends was no longer the game, but that growing capital gains was it, and realizing that the Sherman Anti Trust law was no longer being enforced, started buying other companies for the purpose of generating ever more capital gains.