Posted on 08/01/2011 6:46:11 PM PDT by yetidog
Forgive me for asking…but what is so wrong about raising taxes to some negotiated extent on the most wealthy taxpayers in the US? While I know this question violates conservative orthodoxy, there are a lot of folks in the US who make a lot of money…some of it easily earned (inherited), some of it by talent (professional athletes), some of it by luck (actors and lottery winners) and some of it by a lot of hard work and perseverance. Now I agree that $250,000 is not the place to start, but maybe 5 million (or some other negotiable figure and percentage) is. And I know that revenue gained from “raising taxes on the rich” is a mere drop in the bucket, but an negotiated agreement to do so would destroy a persistent liberal argument that makes a lot of sense to many voters in the country. Not every rich person is the key to unemployment nor or they particularly deserving of protection because they are among the 5% or so that pay 80% of the taxes. This is not a matter of class envy nor income distribution, rather it addresses about the only rational argument that liberals still have in the ongoing fiscal policy debate.
Finally a rational response that addresses the question.
ibtz
Taxing all the rich at 100% would not keep the government running for very long at the present rate of spending. The problem is not revenue, it is the completely out of control government spending. The Rats in charge from 2007-2011 demonstrated to me that the government is capable of spending any amount that can be raised and then some. It makes zero difference who is taxed or how much you tax them if the government insists on spending 40% more than they raise in revenue.
Good post.
I come from a socialist country. So to answer your question:
Two things - what’s reasonable to you may not be reasonable to the person who gets up early in the morning to go to work and then gets to hand most of it over to the gubmint. My old country’s top tax bracket is 72% (on INCOME tax alone). The left there thought that was quite reasonable. So why knock yourself out?
Secondly, countries that tax their highest earners so heavily find that many of these earners go somewhere else. Can’t blame ‘em.
Most conservatives have come to believe that the additional taxes raised from wealthier Americans do a lot to make government bigger, nothing to pay off debt, and only enhance the power of the Democrat Party while taking money from those who create jobs in the private sector. I think that sums it up, but I’m open to opinions of others.
If you go look at the numbers, you could confiscate every dime of income over about a million dollars and still not make the budget balance. You can’t solve the accounting problem trough raising taxes.
It is a spending problem, period.
LOL. Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem, it’s got a spending problem.
Raising taxes on the Rich is a tax increase on all Americans. Even the poor. Most business are owned by the rich. Raising taxes on them would force them to raise prices of services and products they produce. Who pays the tax increase, you do. Got it?
You could ‘tax’ or confiscate the entire yearly earnings of those you call wealthy and it would not put a dent in the national debt.
The problem with starting at something like $5 million in income is that it won’t raise enough money.
The real problem is that the argument isn’t just about the size of government: that’s really a codeword for government redistribution and control of wealth. If you just talk about taxes, you are agreeing to the explosion in the size of government in recent years, and just providing a higher platform of revenue for them to further violate by spending and borrowing.
Finally, someone noted that income taxes are a barrier to wealth accumulation. If the government really needs/wants more resources, it needs to tax wealth... which it can do covertly through inflation, and I hope not, overtly, like they’ve done in France, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, India, and Norway. Of course, in truly totalitarian countries, like pre-war Germany, or Zimbabwe, or the Communist bloc, they just confiscate your wealth overtly.
Taking money from someone without the person's consent is the very definition of theft. Whether you take the money yourself via threats or you get a bunch of people voting to do it, the result is the same. "But we need money to run the government" is the argument I always hear. Fine, do it through sales taxes, excise taxes, or other means, but not through income, which is a person's private property.
Aside from that, the idea that a rich person owes you or anyone else anything is the root of greed and evil that has corrupted this society. Anger is rampant now because people don't have a clear idea of what their own property is. The poor think a rich person's money is partly theirs, so they vote it away. The rich get tired of being raped, so they are angry. I'm not rich, but I have no debts and substantial savings because I led a careful life and studied for years to get a job that pays well. The poor now think I owe them and I should give more. Sorry, people who are careful and work are the solution, not the problem!
Give me your credit cards and I will give you a very quick lesson in what happens when someone else controls your finances and can do it for their own benefit and preach hate toward you (the rich). Those who don’t pay Federal taxes get to keep their credit cards and don’t care that I charged my Boeing 747 on your credit card while I get free TV time to tell them how much I “care” about the poor while I golf and vacation every other month.
I understand that individual posters should not be ridiculed or attacked, so I will just ridicule and attack your ideas. Moronic and liberal ideas go hand in hand and apparently you are hugging yourself with both hands.
51% of Adults in America don’t work.
47% don’t pay taxes of any kind.
The answer is not in taxing the rich more,
the answer is in creating more taxpayers, more jobs, more businesses, more productivity, more rich people, more...
By what Right, do you subject your fellow Americans to redistribution of their productivity?
Where is that Right to someone else’s property/productivity enumerated?
By what Right do you propose someone’s enslavement?
What has gotten us to this point of feeling it is a Right to take from the rich is greed and covetousness.
We wouldn't get a balanced budget but it would sure make us feeeeeeeel better?
Why do you think the "rich" need to be taxed more? They already pay almost all the taxes. So where does it end? If you "tax the rich" 2% more next year, what makes you think the left won't ask for 2% more the next? Then 2% more the next year, etc. Again, where does it end? The left will ALWAYS want to tax the rich more, because ultimately they want government to determine outcomes rather than just provide a playing field where everyone can use their god given talents to create, compete and make the best life they can.
Why do you think you deserve more money from the "rich"? How many poor people have hired you? What happens to people when they are over taxed and have the option of simply going somewhere else?
Honestly surprised to see a question like this here.
You could take every cent of assets of everyone on the Forbes 400 list, and it wouldn’t cover this year’s deficit.
Then what are you going to do next year?
Then there’s that old “Thou shalt not covet” and “Thou shalt not steal” thing.
Why don’t you ask Nancy Pelosi, her net worth has increased a few hundred percent over the last 3 or 4 years.
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