Why do the wealthy in Denmark so willingly pay higher taxes ...

...and some ask for still more taxation for themselves? It's so different from the greedy rich in the USA.

https://the.ink/p/the-american-drea...0.AR730kkpFvPV5yQ8C41_LxgZuJhbRErSyKB2T3UwXWk

 

You aren't entitled to other peoples money. Period. Now, if that person wants to be a philanthropist and give freely, that's fine, but it shouldn't be forced.

 

When living in a country that provides a safety net, people are inspired to help others. They see the benefit of the high tide floating all boats. Unfortunately, the mindset in America is all about individual success. We have fostered the notion that 'anyone can make it to the top'. Yes, it's appealing to many, but it comes at a cost to others.

 

What may or may not work in other Countries, wouldn’t work here. Our Country was built on freedom to strive, or freedom to not strive. Work hard, be smart, pay your dues and everyone has the chance of the American dream. Unfortunately there are too many Americans more than willing to do nothing and live off others, if we allow them to.

 

Those northern countries in Europe are far more ethnically/culturally homogeneous than the US.

An old thread discussion I found:
diversity and changing attitudes towards helping others

 

That is just an excuse to ignore facts of history.

No it wasn't. People have always bee "free" to strive or not everywhere.

But your chance is a lot smaller when you are on the treadmill of working for a living than when you are riding up on the escalator of privilege that the treadmill powers.

Yes; and they are called, "the privileged."

 

Taxes are used for public purposes under democratically accountable institutions, not given to the OP to use for his own purposes. Period.

How dim would one have to be to think that taxes are just given away to private citizens with no institutional accountability -- or to imagine that one's readers could believe such nonsense?

And FYI, when people get money at the community's expense, by dint of government-issued and -enforced privilege, and not in return for any commensurate contribution to production, it is not rightly their money, and they rightly owe it back to the community they took it from.

Period.

Garbage. "Government is force." -- George Washington

And if you don't want government, get ready for a lot more force in your life.

 

"At either end of the social spectrum, there lies a leisure class." Eric Beck, circa 1970

 

Danes willingly pay high taxes? You mean they have a choice to not pay it? That's a very lenient taxation policy.

 

Over the years I've often said, especially at tax time, that I'd gladly pay more taxes. You have to think about it for a minute perhaps, but if I had to pay more taxes that would simply mean I made more money.

 

True. But the leisure class at the top takes an order of magnitude more from society than the leisure class at the bottom (~30% of GDP vs ~3%), while numbering an order of magnitude fewer (~1% of the population vs ~10%).

 

Of course, but the amount taken is for the most part determined by each individual's ability and desire to successfully participate in "the system" that we find ourselves in. If "the system" is broken, we can blame that on a wide variety of things that would depend on one's ideology.

 

I'd pay more taxes if I got something of comparable or greater value out of it. If Uncle Sam provided me my insurance at or below my current premiums, I wouldn't have a problem paying that much more in taxes every month. Of course, I am not a special class of people, so in practice I would end up having to pay more, not less so screw em.

 

No, ability and desire have more to do with how much those in the middle earn, not how much those at the top and bottom take. The amount one takes is determined at the top by the privileges one owns, and at the bottom by government policy. Some at the bottom can increase their take a bit by clever exploitation of the system, while some at the top can increase their take a lot by clever exploitation of the system, but individual ability and desire generally don't have much to do with one's take at either the top or the bottom.

It's an open question how much of it is due to voter stupidity, ignorance, laziness, greed, cowardice, apathy and dishonesty, and how much to political manipulation and media control by the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich.

 

Since the US has more poor people, maybe there is some perception that the bottom third is like some giant black hole that will suck up any increases in taxpayer spending and won't really leave any net benefit for the majority up above.

I covered this type of social psychology in another thread, "The Paradox of Poverty".
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/the-paradox-of-poverty.558745/

Since Denmark (at least 25 years ago) had fewer poor people, maybe they thought it would be easier to hand out money and socialize things.
After all, most of that money is going to other people in a similar overall life financial situation to yourself.

 

The Henry George Theorem shows why all government spending on desirable services and infrastructure, including all income support for the poor, tends to be taken by landowners and provide no net benefit to anyone else. THAT'S WHY LAND COSTS SO MUCH.

No, it all goes to landowners. THAT'S WHY LAND COSTS SO MUCH.

 

bringiton, I think you may be technically correct, but I also think you are taking this discussion in a more off-topic direction.

 

America has always been more lightly taxed for the entirety of its history than Europe. The idea of higher taxes is just anathema to Americans in a way that it isn't in Europe, partly because they get more/better publicly-provisioned services even though they pay a lot more in both nominal and absolute terms. If you look at some of the places in the US where taxes are the highest (NY, NJ, IL, CA), they get a lot less in terms of public services than European countries do and many of the public agencies in these states are deep in the red. This does not inspire confidence or make people want to be taxed more.

Also, this is borne out in public polling and surveys. For example a supermajority of Americans are supportive of Medicare for All until they are told that taxes to fund it will be higher than what they are paying now.

 

https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html

 

Maybe the Danes have a stronger conscience and moral code than we do in the US?

Maybe they are driven by the words and wisdom of Mr. Justice Brandeis who noted a century ago that "we can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ?

 

They are willing to pay higher taxes because they feel that those funds will go to helping Danes out, which is why they are willing to do this:

Denmark to send almost 100 Syrian refugees home as Damascus is ‘safe’

 

Maybe the Danes feel that way because their discretionary spending is not consumed by a War Machine as it is here in the US?

 

Well, to be entirely fair on that point, if the US was no longer a superpower and did not spend huge sums of money on a huge military, it's likely those other NATO countries would have to step up and start paying a much larger percent of their budgets towards military spending, leaving less for other public services.

In one sense, the US is subsidizing all that free healthcare for people in other countries.

 

Can you name a few?

 

Public transportation and healthcare come to mind.