Liberal Dogma
I was having dinner with Shannon, who comes from a good Republican family. She said it isn’t fair that a small percentage of people pay the majority of taxes. I chewed my snapper and poked at the spinach. I couldn’t think of an answer. I believe it’s right, but why?
5% of Americans do pay the majority of taxes. Why?
At work I was doing a PowerPoint for Dean Slee. He asked me to find pictures of John Rawls, and Edward Said, etc. I’d never heard of John Rawls. I read his obituary and I was like, oh shit, this is why rich people should pay more taxes. It’s part of the Social Contract. I think Rawls obit writer said it better. So, to John Rawls, 1921-2002.
The reason why 5 % pay the majority of taxes is that they have an overwhelming majority of the income. That includes 99.9% of the disposable income.
Why is it that someone with $300,000 of income only pays 8% Fed Income tax and someone with $35,000 income pays 16%? These are actuals, taken from IRS figures not hypothetical. That is the real question. Quit with the ultra Conservative half truths, innuendoes and outright lies. Why is it that a CEO, that would jump ship in a hear beat, that runs a company into the ground gets paid 400 times what the average worker under him does, when that worker puts his lifes blood into the company.
These are the real questions.
if you think I’m ultra-conservative, you’re in trouble dude. People like Grover Norquist are ultra-conservative on taxes.
Where did you get your figures from? Last time I checked the IRS these are the Tax Rates (Schedule 1):
35% : $311,950 and up
25% : $28,400 – $68,800
If you quote something please cite it. Your 99.9% figure sounds a leeetle made up too.
I have a mich simpler answer. The reason the rich pay high taxes, (and by the way, 5% of the population does not pay most of the taxes, that is nonsense) is because they are rich. In most liberal opinions, the tax system is not nearly graduated enough. How do those numbers make sense? 25% for $30000 and 35% for 300000? One of those figures is ten times as high which means hypothetically they ought to be paying ten times the taxes. Now suppose we figure that some people with more money ought to have more because they earned it. Well that is all fine and good, but they certainly should not be paying only 10% higher on any tax. The government is always worried about paying down debt and having a large enough budget to stretch to their needs. Well if they just went ahead and taxed the rich higher the problem would be solved. If someone makes a billion dollars a year they ought to be taxed at least 80%. Are you trying to tell me that 200 million does not buy a good life? Shit, I think that if you make a billion you ought to be taxed everything but a few million. Nobody with that kind of money is so great that they should be given that much. I don’t remember ever voting for these people on some sort of “greatest people in the world” contest. Wow, they are so clever that they managed to bilk the masses for a huge amount of money, good for them. Now we just tax them all that excess profit that they clearly don’t need and leave them with a large enough amount to feel satisfied with themselves. They are only buying self-satisfaction anyway.
Shannon said it isn’t fair that the rich pay the majority of taxes. Well it also isn’t fair that they have more money. If everything was fair then there wouldn’t be rich people in the first place. This is the simplest answer now that I think about it.