The Walton Family has as much wealth as lower 40% of Americans

Ok so what you get money into education, health care, and infrastructure tell me how does that help people?

Its not that we do not have schools, kids are dropping out of them so how does making better schools make people want to stay more? I am pretty sure if you transfered a dropout from a poor community school to a rich one that he would not be any less inclined to drop out.

Ok so we have free healthcare for everyone how does that help? People will just do even more stupid stuff now that they can get all their health bills taking care of.

The problem is our society. It is filled with just junk. You have people getting rewarded for all the wrong things. People used to want to grow up to be like skilled labor, fireman, astronauts, dentists, and doctors. Now what does everyone want to be? A celebrity, what good does a celebrity do besides movies and music. Nothing. It used to be the art of the craft to do music and movies. Now it is all about money.

This country will never change until those guys in Washington actually do something. Instead of accepting legal bribes from these groups they should do whatever is best for the nation not their pocketbooks. What is one thing that separates those guys from us. Millions of dollars. When politics has become more about who can spend more than the issues that they are trying to push, that is not a government. It pretty much a bidding war between large companies trying to push their agendas.

im done ranting, I am sad about where this country is going. Whats the longest running country under one rule? Is it like rome for 200 years? I think we have hit the peak and are continuing to slip.

 

What gives you the confidence that the additional revenue to the government would actually go to these specific areas?

 

My proposal assumes that additional revenue goes to these areas. Otherwise, I would have just said "raise taxes on the wealthy".

 

The Walton's , Bill Gates and Buffet are worth billions, if you tax their income at 100%, how much revenue do you expect the US to get?

I would say, it would be close to $0.

 

Let's say the Walton's are worth $90B. I'd you take 100% of that money and give it to the bottom 25%.

How much do you think the bottom 25% will benefit from it?

 

Good thing there are numbers between what they are taxed at now and 100%.

 

What are you blathering about?

 

@ 100% tax rate, they won't sell stock, and they don't work for their money. Yet they will still be billionaires.

 

Which is why no one except for you has suggested a 100% tax rate.

 

But it's a way of saying higher tax rate on the rich does not equal to higher revenue for the government.

 

That is probably the most awkward attempt to explain the Laffer Curve I have ever seen in my life.

 

Stop and think about wht you're saying.

 

Fair enough. If you tax them at 0%, you'll also generate $0. So this shows a lower tax rate doesn't equal higher revenue for the government. Now what? Based on this, any change - no matter the current rate - won't bring in more revenues. Which is dumb as all hell and conclusively false. So your point is, well, pointless.

The reality is that we actually have real-life experience with higher and lower tax rates. And we know that, under Clinton tax rates, we brought in higher revenues.

 

Quite a bit thanks to the multiplicative effect of public investment including spending on infrastructure, education, job training, and science.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/rest.2000.82.3.513

Also quite a bit more because the taxes wouldn't just be applicable to the Waltons or the Gates or the Buffets. The money wouldn't just be redistributed as a rebate to the bottom 25%, if that's what you are implying. Though even that would likely be more stimulative to the economy than the current course.

So, I'll ask your question back, how much do benefit would the U.S. get by letting the Bush Tax cuts expire and having around 3 trillion more dollars to spend in the next 10 years if we spent it exclusively on education, infrastructure, job training, and scientific development? Obviously this is a hypothetical that would never happen, but I'm curious as to what you think.

 

MYTH

Increasing tax rate on the rich = higher tax from Buffet, Gates, Jobs, Waton Family, etc...

Buffet has $50K salary

The following people have been listed as having single-digit salaries:

Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg
Elon Musk
Lee Iacocca
Jerry Yang
Sergey Brin
Larry Page
Eric Schmid
Michael Bloomberg
Joseph Marinaccio
Henry Samueli
Richard Kinder
John Mackey
Meg Whitman
Darren Entwistle

How much of an increase in tax are you going to get from the rich?

All the folks above qualify for food stamps, welfare, section 8 housing, free healthcare.

 

I don't think I mentioned only increasing taxes on income.

 

It is perfectly acceptable for those at the bottom to be jealous of those at the top if those at the top use their power to keep everyone else at the bottom.

 

Those on the bottom are being used by people who want to get elected into office.

 

No they don't. Congratulations, you have just demonstrated that you have uttterly no idea. how the tax system or the social safety net works