Tax the Wealthy.
- added October 10, 2007
- 4 responses
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Did you really say anything?
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FACT: Top 1% Pay More Income Tax Than Bottom 90%:
How much more do you want the "wealthy" to be taxed, considering this fact? -
A strong economics course could help you out a lot. The fact is, just as Pheisty said, the rich still pay a large percentage of all the nations taxes. Furthermore, the breaks they get encourage growth in the economy. A 1% break for someone who makes 5 million dollars could realistically turn into an additional $250,000 dollars invested into the economy--that's 5 additional 50,000 a year jobs from a single person retaining more money. Now compare that against a 5% break from someone who makes 50,000 a year--that's $12,500 additional money placed into the economy--that doesn't do much for anyone. It pays the poor to give the rich more tax breaks--really (I made a lot of assumptions and passed over a lot of details in my calculations, I know. They were meant to illustrate, not to prove.)
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nimby, I strongly disagree. True, that is the Conservative theory, but the reality is that the vast majority of wealth is never invested. Bill Gates is worth 250 BILLION dollars. If you took 50 billion of that wealth away you did not significantly impact his ability to spend and/or invest. Mr. Gates is still going to buy and invest at the exact same rate. Now if we take a poorer person, someone who WANTS to buy more goods and services but cant because he or she has no disposable income left after paying basic essentials like rent, heat, insurance and car payment; then that persons consumption goes dramatically UP if they have more cash. The ultra wealthy actually do not buy any more or less or invest any more or less after a certain income level. Let's be real: after you have 10 BILLION dollars you are not waiting around for your tax refund check to come in the mail to make a purchase. So if we truly want to simulate the economy we need to encourage more consumption. The best way to do that is tax the wealthy MORE so that we may tax the middle income LESS. The middle income wants to spend more, but cant. The same cannot be said for Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. If the middle income can spend more, then demand goes up and companies hire more people to meet demand. The more people getting good jobs means more people spending, which drives up demand, which drives increased hiring. NONE of that occurs if Bill Gates goes from 240 billion to 250 billion. His spending and investment does not change at all. Giving one guy (or 20 guys) an extra few billion does nothing to stimulate nationwide consumption -- only giving the middle income more disposable income does that. And the best way to do that is to lower their taxes. And the best way to do that without starving critical government services of cash is to increase taxaion on the uber wealthy.
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