Why should rich people pay a greater share of their wealth to taxes?

Robert, do you really have an hacienda in Costa Rica?

You could invite some A2Kers once in a while, heh!

(Oh, and I agree with Engineer about this topic)

And another snack for thought.

"No taxation without representation"

Who do you think is more represented in Congress, the ones that pay more taxes or the ones who receive subsidies? I'd say the former. By far.

Considering his talents, I'm sure he will.

I admit I did not read everyone's response here, but I would just like to see the loop holes closed up. The rich are happily swimming in a flood of tax breaks and loop holes. One of my brothers easily earns 10x what I make, but a couple of years ago we were talking and he mentioned what he actually paid in taxes that year and it was only a few hundred dollars more than what I paid. He actually made money on a sunk boat, long story. I wish I could afford his accountant.

Just a quick PS - He tends to spend his refunds on traveling to Europe with his family.

Sorry about the lateness of this response. I haven't read all of the intervening posts -- if the thread has passed this by, feel free to ignore it.


I can't even remember who "he" is who is making that argument, but is that your argument too?


No, I think you missed my point, which was that it is not feasible to base a system of taxation on use, because it is impossible to measure how much people "use" public services like the police, the army, the justice system, etc. It's true that the rich benefit far more from such services than the poor, but then you're not supporting a tax system based on benefit, are you?


Well, if you want "pay as you go" public services, then you should expect that people will pay for only those services that they want and that they can afford. I don't see that as an ethical problem within that system. It may, however, be an ethical problem to institute such a system in the first place.

Given that we had not seen one little benefit of the lowering of tax rates to a many generations low other then an ever increasing concentration of wealth I question your claims that going back to before the Bush tax cuts on the top end would hurt the economic.

Or given the fact that economic work just fine when the top tax rates was many many many times higher then it is now.

Given the fact that you know nothing of facts I'll help you out.

Nations economies have a much better chance of recovery when
they cut taxes and reduce government spending... that's a fact.

That is not a fact, that's a load of bollocks.

Would you care to back that statement up by giving examples?

Unbalanced
Obama wants more taxes for more spending, not for debt reduction.

Obama is an evil alien from Alpha Centauri and thank god for people such as you who are warning us of his evil intend.

Oh sorry the tea party are mostly mouth breathing Christian so Obama in th anti-Christ who was born in the deepest part of hell not Hawaii.

Or he could be one of the Scientology souls imprisoned under a Hawaiian Volcano.

If you say more represented in proportion to their numbers, I'm sure I would agree. Since we still have a Democrat president and a Democrat majority in the Senate, I don't believe it is otherwise true - not to say some Democrats don't have some wealthy supporters.

If I work for $100 dollars in year 1, then it's fair to say my labor is worth $100.

If the next year, they shrink my dept, and now I'm doing twice the work, but still paid $100. I've done $200 worth of labor.

That money, where does it go? Upward. So in the end, those at the top and their wealth, is largely earned by someone else.

Examining the wage gap over the last 50 years, I think the statement that the wealthiest aren't paying their "fair share" is a legitimate phrasing. The first reason, I already stated, much of the gain in their wealth was earned by those below them.

Groups like the Heritage Orginization like to promote that the top 5% pay 51% of all the income tax. The message here is simple: That you can't say they aren't paying their fair share. This information does not tell the whole story though. The fact that they pay a large percentage of the whole is in part to the fact that the middle class's wealth is shrinking. Meanwhile, the money they are paying is largely earned by the middle class below them. They just get to the lucky ones to take it home.

In in the 1950s I believe the factor of pay between a CEO and their lowest employee was a factor of about 12. Now, we see factors of sometimes of to 400.

So this kind of thing is used to argue against progressive taxation. What I think is important to note and compels me the most is that the rate in which the wealthiest are paying an increased portion of the income tax, they are gaining wealth at a much greater rate, and on whose back?

I think there is real case to say that the increases that the wealthy claim to pay are really increases the in what the middle class pays to the wealthy.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

A
R
T

Indeed, according to textbook economics, this what defines a good as a public good: that it''s non-excludable and non-rival in consumption.

Wonder if they would had stood and watch children being burn to death also.

I any case this is the GOP ideal version of the future.
---------------------------------------------------------------


Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground
Reporter - Jason Hibbs
Photojournalist - Mark Owen

Story Created: Sep 29, 2010 at 10:34 PM CDT

(Story Updated: Oct 14, 2010 at 2:09 PM CDT )

OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight.

A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.

The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.

Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.

The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.

Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.

Because of that, not much is left of Cranick's house.

They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come.

The Cranicks told 9-1-1 they would pay firefighters, whatever the cost, to stop the fire before it spread to their house.

"When I called I told them that. My grandson had already called there and he thought that when I got here I could get something done, I couldn't," Paulette Cranick.

It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't.

We asked him why.

He wouldn't talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn.

We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception.

"Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer, either they accept it or they don't," Mayor David Crocker said.

Friends and neighbors said it's a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don't blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge.

"They're doing their job," Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. "They're doing what they are told to do. It's not their fault."

To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.

The salient point to be made
is that financially successful people have NO moral duty
to render assistance to the financially less fortunate.

Additionally, the 16th Amendment does NOT authorize discrimination
against the wealthy, based upon their financial success.





David

Shove it where your brain should be... The relationship of citizen to citizen is a moral relationship, and the fact that the rich do not see it so means they are not a part of this nation and people...

Well when the society come apart and the rich are running for their lives to the airports to try to get out of the country before the committee for the revolution can get their hands on them tell me more.

That isn't a fact at all spurt.
Reagan raised taxes 11 times and failed to reduce spending.
Are you arguing that Reagan was a failed President and the economy did terrible under him?