Gee, Lumpy, then why isn’t everyone rich? Can’t we all grab from the bag of public goods and go Buffet? I’m sure, of course, that Warren and his lib-rich pals are signing checks equal to the amount given back to them by the Bush tax cuts. I’m quite sure of it indeed.
I guess the term proportionality means nothing to you. Yes, we all may use some public goods to some degree, but does that mean that those in the upper tax brackets have to pay what surely must amount to extortion for them?
Right Side Up- You are a prime candidate for one of those Risky Business go to school, learn something lines.
Social contract and wealth distribution and all of that. News flash- there can be no cabal of experts to decide on how wealth is to be distributed. Oh, sure, folks can use various schemes to make rules and all of that, but in the end people will respond how they respond. I encourage you to mosey on down the hall to the Econ Dept and have them explain to you Unintended Consequences.
I think anyway that you have confused a statistical distribution, like a Bell Curve say, with the notion of something like, I don’t know, a beer distributor. While you are down there, ask about incentives and labor supply curves too. Take Lumpy with you- I doubt he would learn much (he seems to know everything anyway), but maybe he could take a few minutes, and a few deep breaths, and calm down a bit.
By the very fact that you are taxing people very differently has to make it a moral issue of sorts. Taxation, in the end, involves force- don’t pay and eventually you will see what I mean, from behind some vertical iron bars with your new pal Bubba. Why should some pay vastly more than others? Don’t we participate in our government ultimately by one vote at a time? Why should some have to pay nothing for their vote and other thousands and a few millions? That doesn’t seem very fair to me.
Where is the evidence that all of that money taken from the rich actually benefits the poor anyway? There is actually a mountain of evidence to the contrary- that in fact all of that crafty design of welfare programs was smashed to bits by…unintended consequences. By the way, is it an unstated premise of your argument that all government spending is legitimate, or moral, perhaps?
RSU- what does your compassion have to do with other people’s money anyway?
Back to Lumpy- Why do you assume that because ZEB it for one thing he is automatically for or against another? And the starving and freezing to death- that’s not going to happen, because morally superior people like you are going to feed and shelter them, out of your own kitchen and in your own bedrooms. That’s the price of being you, better than the rest of us.
Um, Lumpy, you might want to screw your thinking cap on somewhat tighter here. A government could, theoretically cut tax rates and actually gain more in revenues- depending on the collective reaction to the new set of incentives. Lord Keynes said something to that effect before Laffer ever put the pen to the napkin on the coffee table. A government could also pay for current deficits with future spending cuts. Alternatively, they could inflate away the real value of the debt(been done many times before), or just default(a less popular option).
A more general question for you lefties, libs whatever- all of this blah, blah, blah about paying society back. There have to be at least a few freeloaders in the good ole US of A. Don’t you think that they should pay something, anything back for being lucky enough to live in a rich, capitalist society that can afford throw some crumbs there way? Maybe they can help you out in the kitchem, Lumpy.