Originally posted by oboe
Are you asking me to design my own tax code? What I think it should look like?
So far all I've done is explain why I believe its fair that the wealthy should pay a higher percentage of taxes than the poor, and you've produced statistics which seem to indicate that they do. Agreed?
My first quick answer would be to ask as much of them as before the Bush tax cuts. But I'll think harder on it. Right now, I gotta go out and mow my grass.
No matter what they (the "wealthy") pay in taxes, it will NEVER be enough in the eyes of those like you, EVER. It's called redistribution of wealth, AKA socialism. It's also called legalized stealing. The money DOES NOT belong to the government. It belongs to the person or persons who earn it.
This whole thing amazes, amuses, and deeply saddens me. The economy is not ZERO based. There is no finite amount of wealth. Just because Sam Walton made $X billion over his life time does not mean that "Joe S--T The Rag Man" was deprived of his "rightful opportunity to acquire wealth". It means Sam Walton did a better job. Just think of all the jobs in all the places all over the world that exist because people who created great wealth for themselves created those jobs in the process. Just exactly why is it that a person or persons who create or acquire wealth by legitimate means should be taxed at a higher rate than those who simply wander along aimlessly, never getting anywhere?
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." --Ronald Reagan
You can add to that the liberal view of how to deal with the wealthy, and fund their excess government: "If they make money, tax it. If they keep making money, tax it more. If they die, tax what they leave their heirs. If they complain about the ridiculous taxes, call them racists, elitists, evil, and greedy.
And if the excess taxes stop growth and wreck the economy, blame it on somebody or something else."
No matter how much revenue is taken in by taxes, they'll find a way to spend it, and a need for more. They'll claim a need to subsidize the poor instead finding a way to get the poor to bring themselves out of poverty. And they'll claim the wealthy should fund that subsidy, because they have money.
You just keep right on thinking real hard, I'm sure you'll find a reason and a way to take money that does not belong to you from people who earned it and justify it by saying "they have plenty, and more than anyone else". It'll still be just as wrong, just as evil, and just as damaging to the country and the economy.