Do you have any basis for that opinion other that “it seems”?
See my insurance analogy above, would it be fair for insurance companies to charge everyone the same regardless of the value of their property? Of course not.
But the risk of property replacement makes same-fee insurance value disproportionate.
What extra burden do I impose on society if I work 50% longer or develop skills to earn 50% more per hour ? Arguably I benefit society by working longer or smarter and providing more goods and services to others, but instead of being rewarded with a lower tax rate on that extra 50% of income I pay a very high marginal rate on it.
The idea that extra income implies extra burden on society is nonsense.
For parents who make $50K a year and need every dime of it to feed their 4 children is it fair to say to him “you need to give us $20K per year to pay for a the Military we want to have”? Faced with the choice they would place more value on taking care of their children that worrying about what *could* happen if the US didn’t spend more on its military than the rest of the world combined.
There is an obvious case for taxing someone with a median income of ~$50k/yr the full bill for government services. If they at the middle balk at paying so much then it indicates we are collectively living beyond our means. We are clearly pursuing government spending programs that are fiscally unrealistic.
Those who pay no/little income tax are still allowed to vote on policy but exempt from any political/market forces to operate government more effectively and that must ultimately ruin the economy and likely the democracy. It's the free-rider (freeloader) problem. It should be obvious that when a society is managed democratically and yet 51% of citizens are free-riders that the situation is untenable.
To prevent self-serving free-rider voting we need a very broad tax policy. Everyone involved in the decision making (voting) should have skin in the game.
For the wealthy on the other hand this may be a perfectly acceptable cost to make sure some foreign country doesn’t come in and seize their assets.
Right - the military is about protecting assets not liberties - thats so silly I thought only Lefty Sargent could propose it. What US assets or US liberties even were protected in Iraq, Afghanistan, VietNam .... Who has much assets and doesn't diversify them internationally. FAIL!
[/QUOTE] After all they have more assets to protect and the amount of money isn’t a big deal to them. [/QUOTE]
Money isn't a big deal to them ? You really believe that nonsense ?
It's obvious from observation that people without much assets squander money and so apparently it's 'not a big deal' to them. That's why working ppl with good incomes but living hand to mouth lease Lexus' and BMWs while millionaires drive owned beaters. It's the characteristic of caring about money than makes people into millionaires, and the characteristic of not caring after money that keeps many people poor - claiming the opposite is nonsense.
This is just another part of your class warfare - dehumanizing your enemy. They are sooo different that money is not a big deal to them - we are therefor allowed to steal and confiscate from and maybe kill these inhuman beings. The language of hate..
In fact it wouldn’t even be a big deal to them if they had to pay a lot more because some people just can’t spend that much.
Certainly there are rare people who could never spend their assets on themselves without resorting to nonsense. But how does that give the public any right to those asset ? Smells like envy. Also note that if we create this sort of confiscation of wealth then people simply won't bother to accumulate such wealth - they will stop or emigrate.
You are starting from several false premises. Confiscating ALL the assets or income of the uber-wealthy in the US would not make much of a dent in the US Federal budget - but it would insure that the next Bill Gates and a lot of highly productive wannabe build their business somewhere else. In a free market system (and we have an imperfect one) you can't accumulate wealth without creating even more value for others. Google rakes in $40Bln in revenues b/c they provide even more value than that to their customers. If you take away the incentives for ppl to make more - then they simply won't ; but that means they also won't be providing as much value to others.
