Because the business of America is consumption. Taxing consumption reduces demand, lowering prices and profits. What will 350 million people do for a living if we aren't moving disposable crap? And more importantly who would sponsor our TV shows? Practicality and sustainability are not the watchwords of the American way of life.
I'm somewhat sure you're agreeing with me here based on your last statement, but in case you aren't, are you worried that disrupting the status quo will send our country into turmoil? That shifting from a debtor to savings nation isn't a proper direction for us to take?
Even with this, you would be simply shifting the problem out of America for another 30-40 years. While you may be fine with that, it doesn't solve the problem, it just hides it. Ultimately, widening the income disparity between countries would probably lead to war. For example, if you run out of oil, you run out of oil. Securing it all for Americans, or for rich Americans only, doesn't change the fact that there is a limited amount of oil and everyone's need for oil is the same.
I'm just saying that what you propose is a political impossibility. Elected representatives do not make policy based on the long term and they don't make policy that limits economic activity, no matter how obvious the implication. It's obvious that the US cannot continue to consume energy and resources at the disparate rate we do. It's obvious that the world can't expand it's population and increase the overall quality of life. It has been obvious for 40 years that I known about it. But the political cycle is today and the next election, and the people want more and will not settle for less .... until there is no other option.
because everyone can't be rich. there has to be a middle class. edit: how can someone call trying to reverse record income disparity "class warfare"?
Class warfare has been an ongoing component of western civilization since the signing of the Magna Carta.
The 10 - 17% figures are arbitrary for the sake of example. Congress should set the minimum and maximum percentages just as they should determine the taxable threshhold. Like you, I'm opposed to a VAT, particularly when coupled with local and state sales taxes. Some states are even starting to tax food now.
In that scenario, most of the taxes on the middle class would actually go up. All you are doing is redistributing the tax burden from the rich to the middle class and that essentially becomes a VAT tax but you are taxing income instead of consumption. It's similar to taxing consumption because the lower you are on the income spectrum, the higher percentage of your income goes to spend and the less on things like property or investments. A progressive tax works a bit better since it comes closer to taxing the money people have as discretionary spend.
The two parties often work together for benefit of the rich, why do you think policies such as lowering taxes of upper income folks, defunding social services, cutting state tuition subsidies, busting unions etc. were changed rather abruptly starting with Reagan and aided by what are now called "blue dog Dems". These changes as intended by the corporate elite led to the reversal of the income distribution back to the 1920's.
Thanks, Sam, but I'm sure Fox is publicizing a poll somehow designed to show how a majority would not want to raise Murdoch's taxes and are feeding this to the Grand Old Tea Party and their libertarian kissing cousins.
That's the sad reality of it all. Be it republican or democrat, nothing in our country will truly change for the long term until something truly awful befalls our country's economy.
This, to me, is perhaps the biggest point that supports decreasing income inequality. Increased discretionary income amongst the lower and middle class allow for more consumption and demand, which is what ultimately drives our economy. We NEED money to flow through the hands of the majority of America to sustain our economy, and yet, to dissolve many "social welfare" programs, we also require the majority of Americans to save money (e.g. for retirement, emergency medical expenses, in case they get laid off). I read a Slate article last month that had an interesting chart attached to it. It showed the actual income disparity, an estimate of the income disparity by different classes of people, and a proposed "ideal" income distribution by those classes of people. There were also a lot of interesting quotes in the article: Here is the chart: Here is a link to the article: http://www.slate.com/id/2268872
In line with Franchise's post above - crazy new data reveals Americans are not just living in a country increasingly owned and profited on by a select few - they're also totally delusional about it. The actual mother jones article as a few more charts worthy of posting: America, **** Yeah!
Yes it's sad when the top 400 earners in the U.S. earn more money than the bottom 50%. Just 400 earners getting more than the entire bottom 50% in America. The system that allowed that is broken, and needs to be corrected.
The effects of economic disparity in this country are far more powerful than simple cash-in-the-bank statistics. Our entire culture is practically determined by it, and in the worst possible ways. The wealthy, through government influence and media control, have managed to make many Americans accept a value system that keeps the status quo. Essentially, millions of Americans have been suckered into accepting principles that work against their own interests, as well as the interests of the country as a whole.. Vast swathes of Americans have accepted an ideology that keeps the wealthy in charge - that's how a limited number of people can control an entire society. They don't need to shoot us because they've tricked us into thinking that they have the same values as the rest of us so that we don't rebel against them. So, we have tons of working-class fools who have their ideology imparted to them by the wealthy, but who have none of the wealth, influence, social status, or opportunities that the wealthy have... yet they have been so thoroughly saturated by well-paid ideologues that they think they're winning. One day they're going to wake up though ...
