“Only a sophomoric socialist would view inequality as creator of evil. Inequality is the product of evil.”
the real evil and producer of inequality? Mendellian genetics.
“There are no voluntary heirarchies.”
liberty student is a mod an I am not. he is higher in a heirarchical sense than I am.
this is a voluntary state as I accept the heirarchy and continue to participate int he site.
Thanks for the replies, many of them have been quite illuminating. I was going to make another thread, but I think my question will fit in here.
What do you think of the argument that “income tax rates on the richest Americans used to be 2-3 times what they are today, and the country did just fine economically, therefore we should raise taxes on the richest to or near those previous levels (70-90%)”? This kind of ties in with the income inequality argument (For reference: http://www.portfolio.com/interactive-features/2008/03/Tax-Brackets)
What do you think of the argument that “income tax rates on the richest Americans used to be 2-3 times what they are today, and the country did just fine economically, therefore we should raise taxes on the richest to or near those previous levels (70-90%)”? This kind of ties in with the income inequality argument
The argument is disjunct from history. Yes, tax rates were 70-90%. And then they were lowered to around 30-60%. But why? How often do governments, short of revolutionary change, relax tax rates in half?
Kennedy (I think) took out all the loopholes and mate the rate more accurately reflect what they were actually getting. And then successive presidents slowly expanded the tax code to include more and more citizens. Tragic.
Governments don’t lower taxes willingly.
Do you have a link where I can read more about Kennedy getting rid of the loopholes?
What do you mean when you say “the economy did just fine” when the top marginal tax rates were at 90%? “Just fine” according to who? And what would the economy have looked like if there wasn’t such a burden upon the top producers? This whole argument ignores incentives/economics.
I don’t know what they would say, I haven’t engaged them on that point. My guess is they would say something about the rising wealth of the middle class? The whole idea that there used to be a strong middle class, but now there are just a few rich and a lot of poor. (Not saying I agree with that.)