December 16, 2024 • 6 mins
Chris takes on the persistent rhetoric around “fair share” taxes, asking a key question: What does fair actually mean? From Bush-era tax cuts to the Trump tax plan, Markowski uses relatable analogies—like a group dinner bill—to explain the heavily progressive U.S. tax system. With the top 1% paying 40% of all income tax revenue, Markowski challenges the notion that the wealthy aren’t contributing enough, while calling on critics to define fairness. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Taxes and fair share. One of the things that drives
me absolutely berserk is these folks out there that are always.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Saying people don't pay their fair share. We got to
make sure they're paying their fair share, fair share, fair share,
fair share, And they never define. In all my years,
I've never heard a.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Single big lib define fair share what it is. Marnie Sanders,
where you at, Elizabeth Warren, where are you at? What's
fair share? I made this suggestion years and years and
years ago. It was it was on Tom Hartman's radio show,
is a big left wing radio show. I don't even
(00:58):
know if he's on the air anymore, quite frankly, but
you appear on his program. The nasty emails and threats
I would get my email box neither here nor there.
I said this, Okay, why don't we start defining fair share?
Why don't we do it? By time? I want you
to tell me. I want all you left is to
tell me how many months, weeks, hours, days, how many
(01:26):
do I how many do I get to keep for
myself over the course of the year, And how many months, days, weeks,
hours do I have to work to send money to
the authorities. Yeah, send it to Washington, DC. Just let
me know, Just let me know. I'm curious to see
(01:51):
what you deem is fair. Anyway, years ago, I'm talking
years ago. Wow, February two thousand and three, put out
a piece called The Truth about Taxes, And basically what
I did at the time, again, this is two thousand
(02:12):
and threes. Is George W. Bush President of the United States.
I tried to put the tax cuts that Bush was
trying to put through. I tried to put them into
the way that people could understand them. So basically, what
we did is we took a restaurant bill under little
scenes from Italian restaurant Billy Joel. Here, ten men goes
(02:34):
to dinner. I know, I simplified this. Ten men go
to dinner, one hundred dollar bill, And what I did
was they paid the bill. The ten men paid the bill.
The way that we divvy up taxes here in the
United States, it would look like this. This is two
thousand and three. Mind you, first four men would pay nothing,
(02:55):
the fifth would pay a dollar, the six would pay three,
the seventh, seven, the twelve, the ninth, eighteen, and the
tenth man, the richest of the mall was gonna pay
fifty nine dollars. So that's what they did. Every single day,
ten men go out to dinner restaurant. That's how the
(03:16):
bill was divvied up. Then all of a sudden, the
owner of the restaurant decided to throw curveball. So you
guys are such great customers. Guys are such great customers.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna I'm gonna cut
your bill by twenty bucks. It's gonna be eighty dollars.
Uh oh oh, how are we going to divvy up this?
Okay again, you can't. You can't divide twenty Okay, you
(03:41):
can't divide twenty by six. That's three dollars and thirty
three cents. Certain people would end up getting paid, end
up getting paid for having dinner. Hold that that thought
in your mind, because that's actually you know, people end
up getting paid here in this country too, and they
don't pay any taxes anyway. The restaurant owner the restaurant
order suggested that he would reduce each man's bill by
(04:04):
roughly the same amount. And this is how it went.
The fifth man is now paying nothing, The sixth that
was paying three is paying two. The seventh paid five
rather than seven, the eighth paid nine rather than twelve,
the ninth twelve rather than eighteen, and the tenth man
was down to fifty two dollars rather than fifty nine dollars.
(04:24):
Now each each person at the table was better off
than they were before, aside from the people who weren't
paying anything anyway. But of course, of course it wasn't fair.
Wasn't fair, right, Oh my god, the rich get all
the breaks. How did the guy, the rich guy get
(04:45):
the most amount of money back. That's not fair, that's
not right. And they all got into a huge argument
in a fight outside the restaurant. Sound familiar, Well, I'm
going to fast forward. I mean, this is George W.
Bush Tax Cuts, February tw one thousand and three. Right now,
you know Congress is debating whether or not, you know,
the debate the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts. Let me
(05:11):
just put this in a perspective for you, okay, and
just say, how progressive our tax code actually is at
this point in time. Again, I simplified it in two
thousand and three. We did it with ten Okay, you
can't even do it's become so progressive you have to
factor in the top. So we'd have to have a
(05:32):
restaurant beal with one hundred people going out to dinner,
and the top one percent one percent here in this
country provided forty percent of income tax revenue. One one percent. Okay,
one out of one hundred people paid forty percent of
(05:56):
the bill. You want to go to ten percent? Seventy
two percent ahead two thousand and three, prior to the
Bush tax cuts, okay, it was fifty nine percent of
the entire bill. It's seventy two percent. Now, what's fair?
(06:17):
I'm just curious. Inquiring minds want to know, should that
the top ten percent in the country, Should you know
unless you are a top ten percent, or should you
pay nothing in income tax? Contribute nothing at all? I
don't know. I guess maybe that's what some people want.
I just I'm curious to see what your justification is
(06:41):
for all of you people that think that the rich
are not paying their fair share. Well, okay, what's fair.
What's fair? No one has ever been able to define
it for me. Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Taxes and fair share. One of the things that drives
me absolutely berserk is these folks out there that are always.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Saying people don't pay their fair share. We got to
make sure they're paying their fair share, fair share, fair share,
fair share, And they never define. In all my years,
I've never heard a.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Single big lib define fair share what it is. Marnie Sanders,
where you at, Elizabeth Warren, where are you at? What's
fair share? I made this suggestion years and years and
years ago. It was it was on Tom Hartman's radio show,
is a big left wing radio show. I don't even
(00:58):
know if he's on the air anymore, quite frankly, but
you appear on his program. The nasty emails and threats
I would get my email box neither here nor there.
I said this, Okay, why don't we start defining fair share?
Why don't we do it? By time? I want you
to tell me. I want all you left is to
tell me how many months, weeks, hours, days, how many
(01:26):
do I how many do I get to keep for
myself over the course of the year, And how many months, days, weeks,
hours do I have to work to send money to
the authorities. Yeah, send it to Washington, DC. Just let
me know, Just let me know. I'm curious to see
(01:51):
what you deem is fair. Anyway, years ago, I'm talking
years ago. Wow, February two thousand and three, put out
a piece called The Truth about Taxes, And basically what
I did at the time, again, this is two thousand
(02:12):
and threes. Is George W. Bush President of the United States.
I tried to put the tax cuts that Bush was
trying to put through. I tried to put them into
the way that people could understand them. So basically, what
we did is we took a restaurant bill under little
scenes from Italian restaurant Billy Joel. Here, ten men goes
(02:34):
to dinner. I know, I simplified this. Ten men go
to dinner, one hundred dollar bill, And what I did
was they paid the bill. The ten men paid the bill.
The way that we divvy up taxes here in the
United States, it would look like this. This is two
thousand and three. Mind you, first four men would pay nothing,
(02:55):
the fifth would pay a dollar, the six would pay three,
the seventh, seven, the twelve, the ninth, eighteen, and the
tenth man, the richest of the mall was gonna pay
fifty nine dollars. So that's what they did. Every single day,
ten men go out to dinner restaurant. That's how the
(03:16):
bill was divvied up. Then all of a sudden, the
owner of the restaurant decided to throw curveball. So you
guys are such great customers. Guys are such great customers.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna I'm gonna cut
your bill by twenty bucks. It's gonna be eighty dollars.
Uh oh oh, how are we going to divvy up this?
Okay again, you can't. You can't divide twenty Okay, you
(03:41):
can't divide twenty by six. That's three dollars and thirty
three cents. Certain people would end up getting paid, end
up getting paid for having dinner. Hold that that thought
in your mind, because that's actually you know, people end
up getting paid here in this country too, and they
don't pay any taxes anyway. The restaurant owner the restaurant
order suggested that he would reduce each man's bill by
(04:04):
roughly the same amount. And this is how it went.
The fifth man is now paying nothing, The sixth that
was paying three is paying two. The seventh paid five
rather than seven, the eighth paid nine rather than twelve,
the ninth twelve rather than eighteen, and the tenth man
was down to fifty two dollars rather than fifty nine dollars.
(04:24):
Now each each person at the table was better off
than they were before, aside from the people who weren't
paying anything anyway. But of course, of course it wasn't fair.
Wasn't fair, right, Oh my god, the rich get all
the breaks. How did the guy, the rich guy get
(04:45):
the most amount of money back. That's not fair, that's
not right. And they all got into a huge argument
in a fight outside the restaurant. Sound familiar, Well, I'm
going to fast forward. I mean, this is George W.
Bush Tax Cuts, February tw one thousand and three. Right now,
you know Congress is debating whether or not, you know,
the debate the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts. Let me
(05:11):
just put this in a perspective for you, okay, and
just say, how progressive our tax code actually is at
this point in time. Again, I simplified it in two
thousand and three. We did it with ten Okay, you
can't even do it's become so progressive you have to
factor in the top. So we'd have to have a
(05:32):
restaurant beal with one hundred people going out to dinner,
and the top one percent one percent here in this
country provided forty percent of income tax revenue. One one percent. Okay,
one out of one hundred people paid forty percent of
(05:56):
the bill. You want to go to ten percent? Seventy
two percent ahead two thousand and three, prior to the
Bush tax cuts, okay, it was fifty nine percent of
the entire bill. It's seventy two percent. Now, what's fair?
(06:17):
I'm just curious. Inquiring minds want to know, should that
the top ten percent in the country, Should you know
unless you are a top ten percent, or should you
pay nothing in income tax? Contribute nothing at all? I
don't know. I guess maybe that's what some people want.
I just I'm curious to see what your justification is
(06:41):
for all of you people that think that the rich
are not paying their fair share. Well, okay, what's fair.
What's fair? No one has ever been able to define
it for me. Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com
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