The rich SHOULD pay a higher tax rate!!

Merely mimicking your extraordinary skills in brevity.

 

Of course we should raise taxes. People like Mitt Romney who has never picked up a shovel in his life makes $46 million and pays 14% while business owners and laborers who actually produce goods and services pay 25-34%. The system is completely messed up. People who sit in an office all day clicking buttons speculating on futures and other speculative stocks pay half the taxes that actual producers do.

There is no incentive to work hard in this country if you are smart. Our smartest and brightest would much rather be a hedge fund manager than an engineer. You pocket millions pushing buttons and reading reports as a hedge fund manager while you actually have to do work as an engineer.

Our system is completely skewed and it favors the absolutely wealthy who have so much wealth they don't have to do anything productive except sit back and collect their income while paying half the taxes the rest of us pay.

Mitt Romney will do absolutely nothing this year except campaign for being a President and make $20+ million while paying 14% taxes. Absolutely embarrassing.

 

Is that another way of expressing diminishing marginal utility of income? I imagine it is, but I just want to clarify. I personally don't believe that is a better reason actually, it is 1 among many good reasons. Another is that the labor supply curve at it's highest levels is backwards bending, so that income taxes on the wealthiest members of society would create little or no disincentive to work, as long as you don't move the new equilibrium beyond the point where the curve begins to bend backwards. There are many reasons based on economic reality, but this one is based on a pretty simple reality that almost anyone should be able to understand. Of course many people are too stubborn to take seriously anything that clashes with their previously held notions of class warfare and punishing success, but I must at least try!!

 

If taxes are for services rendered, why does the US government, and many state governments, claim jurisdiction over income earned while outside the US? In the case of expats, the government claims jurisdiction over income earned outside the US for 10 years, and could just as easily claim it for the lifetime of the former citizen.

Why should we accept your argument that taxes have anything to do with services? Services and other forms of loot redistribution are provided by government because it increases the power of politicians and bureaucrats and helps them win elections.

 

why don't you answer instead ?

 

That is like saying all muslims are responsible for the actions of the ones who attack us. The actions of the few do not represent the actions of the many. It is still our government, whether rich or poor, that created all of the problems.

 

The epitome of sickness is lauding a system of taxation which endeavors to suck the maximum amount of taxes from individuals before the system breaks the back of individuals.

You don't know - or don't care - about what it means to protect and defend life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

You're condoning slavery, as there is no difference. Slaves also are worked to the point of breaking them down.

 

It is indeed.

Correct again, substitution effects at these income levels are already high, virtually no production is lost and little to no utility relative to the amount of revenue gained.

I can certainly understand the desire to present the argument in such a way, but it'll lead into morality arguments unfortunately. We can already see the emotional rants and hyperbolic terms such as slavery.

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful agent.

I did.

 

Why is it okay for you to shove your economic morals down our throats using Government force but we can't force our social morals down yours?

 

Some of the original poster's arguments are merely an exercise in futility. For instance, he failed to distinguish corporations like Microsoft (cited as his example) from the rich individuals. How would you determine how to tax someone who is relatively rich but does not receive any of the supposed biased treatment they receive from the government, as you claimed? In such a case, that particular rich individual does not owe to the government any more than a poor individual does.

With the exception of inheritance, is it justifiable to punish an individual who has worked hard to become who he is today? As much as you would want to provide for the poor, taking away one's wealth by taxing him unfairly is just a crime.

 

If you had a consumption tax (tariffs and excises that the Republic used for most of its history) everybody would pay their fair share.

At least until somebody figured out how to take it with him when he expires.

 

Do you have any grasp for the concept of subjectivity vs. objectivity?

If your quick you'll realize the question is rhetorical and requires no response.

 

No they don't. Most rich people have their OWN Medical Insurance and therefore don't look to the Government for any help in that regard, which is one of the most expensive aspects of our Government, at this time.

Again you are wrong. Social Security and Welfare are two of the most costly aspects of our Government, behind the Military, which we all benefit from equally. And yet the rich get very little from these other two portions of our Government, compared to poor people.

Are you forgetting they pay Taxes on that property, as well as Income Taxes?

They provide that "service" so that Business will remain in the U.S.

Without Big business who is going to employ the vast majority of U.S. Citizens?

Sur they do. It's called Bankruptcy and many Businesses, both big and small, have to use that method as well. In fact, very few Businesses have been "bailed out" in the History of this Country, and most of them have paid back the Government, in full, and then some.

And individuals under the guise of "Welfare".

As well as the multitudes of U.S. Citizens employed by those companies...

 

No where does it say they can't pay the Government more, themself...

Yet they are always trying to get others to pay more rather than doing it themself, to set an example.

Why is that you suppose?

 

There is very little to respond to in this post, except to point out the fact, that you are talking about aggregates!! All people combined in social security get a lot of money. Individual people get a few thousand dollars a year. In a lifetime it adds up to a pittance in comparison to the benefit provided by patents, bailouts, no bid contracts, etc. Speaking of individual welfare recipients is absurd!! They get a tiny amount of money, especially in comparison to the millions(sometimes billions) individual wealthy people will receive in benefits throughout the course of their lives!!

 

And yet you don't even respond to what those things provide by way of employment...

I am not surprised.

By the way, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare take up more than 40% of our National Budget and our Military takes up less than half that.

That means we are spending twice as much on something the Government isn't supposed to be doing in the first place compared to something they are required to do.

You understand that, right?

 

The government is supposed to be doing it, despite your incompetent attempts at constitutional law!!

Also, your point is made even less pertinent since SS is funded by it's own tax, separate from the income tax, and a tax which is capped at 106,000 dollars. So the very wealthy hardly pay into it at all. To talk about SS in a thread about income taxes is idiotic for that reason.


So what you are left with is Medicare/medicaid and military spending as the 2 largest budgetary items funded by income taxes. What was your point in bringing that fact up?

 

Show me, in the Constitution, where it says the Government is responsible for the Retirement funds or Medical needs of it's Citizens, I'll wait here.

 

Well, except for the FACT that they have been raiding that fund for quite some time to pay for other Government Programs.

Are you not aware of that?

And again, it is not something the Government should be doing, since the Constitution gives them no Authority to do it. You understand that the Copnstitution is a document which grants the Government Authority from the people, and not the other way around, right?

 

You can. You do it all the time.

 

Maybe government should begin to eliminate its ability to shove economic/social morals down the throats of Americans. After all, one of the greatest aspects of this nation is that you can live and work how you desire, as long as it does not infringe upon the ability of another to do the same.

 

Do we have another contestant unaware of the differences between subjective and objective ideas?

You can't defend moral fiat objectively. You can defend economic policies objectively.

 

I do not believe I am trying to defend morality objectively. I actually consider my approach to morality to be as subjective as any other approach to the matter. Morality is inherently subjective, and for that matter, every human-made subject is subjective, as we are subjective beings. However, I do not want to delve into philosophy, so I digress.

The United States government, from my perspective, has a duty to be as equitable in its policies, both social and economic as possible. This statement, along with the statement by the OP, is subjective. I understand the sentiments that the rich should pay more in taxes. I feel the argument is rather ignorant and/or contradictory to what most economists would advocate in the current economic environment we are in.

Technically speaking, the United States is still in a recessionary gap. A recessionary gap, at least according to Keynesian fiscal policy, should be dealt with three things. These are tax cuts, increases in government spending, and increases in government transfers. Now, Keynesianism is, as a generalization, a left-wing economic policy. However, the remedy of tax cuts in such an economic climate spans the entire economic spectrum. Austrians, supply-siders, monetarists, new classicists, etc. would all recommend a tax cut at this point. Therefore, why are we ignoring the experts?

 

I think Frod elected to take an argument that is more easily defensible considering the audience. The objective arguments I tried to introduce previously, and frodly was kind enough to follow-up on and add some additional commentary to.

Progressive taxation is a feature of virtually any tax scheme introduced, from the NIT to even the Fair Tax (which assumes the wealthy spend more money), even "flat" taxes are inherently progressive (though these typically aren't agreeable with economic reality)

Hard to justify this stance in reality. Neo-classicism and Keynesianism are currently mainstream. Though I suppose the case is easily made that most economist lean slightly left, though not in the way most of our forum goers would understand.

You've grossly overgeneralize these schools of thoughts and prescribed to them remedies not in keeping with their perspectives. Austrians for example would be advocating an increase in interest rates set by the FED, not necessarily tax cuts, in either case saying anyone from that school is an expert, would likely offend the sensibilities of most mainstream economists.

 

**Crickets chirping**