We should tax and tax and tax and tax and tax the 1% ...

[Scuba]

... until they're only fabulously wealthy.

[pampango]

2. Apparently 'fabulously wealthy' is not good enough for our 1%. USA! USA! n/t

[Glorfindel]

3. It could definitely be to their own advantage in the long run

I'm sure that many hyper-rich people in tumbrils on their way to the guillotine in 18th-Century France wished they had paid a bit more in taxes throughout the years.

[MadDAsHell]

4. Let's ALL be taxed like that...

There's a lot we need to pay for!

[Moostache]

6. If we ended "Empire USA" and brought the troops home, $$$ would be available...

I don't mind tax increases once the military spending and flexing of muscle abroad is brought back to reality...until then? Fuck it, let the rich get soaked for their garrisoning of the planet and misuse of military power. After that, we can have a real conversation about legitimate taxation rates and use of the country's wealth but not before...

Start with hedge fund managers and capital gains taxes. There are plenty of places to go after that too.

[MadDAsHell]

21. I'd like to agree but politically it's a non-starter to say "I want this but I'm not willing to pay"

We lose credibility when we come up with laundry lists of things we want the government to pay for, but we want everyone else but us to pay for those things.

It lends credence to the "I want free stuff" meme and that's the last thing we need.

[Moostache]

24. I see the point there, but I also view it as a counter-weight to the meme

of "free stuff" in other ways.

I hear the religious-objections argument and the right wing propaganda about trickle down economics still being extolled as if there were ANY validity to the theory at all and I get frustrated at the way we currently use the tax money we collect.

Its not so much what I want them (the government, not the individual taxpayers) to pay for as what I want them to STOP paying for that drives me nuts!

[MadDAsHell]

33. Fair enough, agree with you there; starting with endless wars! nt

[Dustlawyer]

5. They have skated by without paying for 30 years!

They have so much money they own houses and cars everywhere and always a newer and bigger yacht and/or jet! This is what happens when you take away the other side's ability to negotiate via unions. Our Regulatory agencies cannot afford to investigate the industries making these people so rich. They wouldn't anyway since they have their people in charge of the agencies.

It's time we collected and rebuilt our infrastructure and public transportation so we go green! We need to restore real public education. There is so much they have to account for I say lets get started!

[mountain grammy]

7. Since they've hoarded most of the money

in the great trickle up of of low taxes in the last 30 years, it's time to take it back, starting with the capital gains tax scam and the "contracting out" of workers and raising the minimum wage to $15/hr.

Then, let's move on to the other money hoarders; the churches.

[ReRe]

13. Reagan's junta eased us...

... into the leaching of jobs that would start to occur the next decade, by calling it "downsizing." That's how they started it all out. "It's just business," "cutting the fat," slimming down, so-to-speak.

[edhopper]

8. A rising tide lifts all boats

Unfortunately, most of us can't afford boats and are just swimming, and some drowning in the "rising tide"
They just keep getting bigger yachts.

[Plucketeer]

10. There's a honkin' big hole

in the floor of my skiff - and I have an old Campbells Soup can to bail with.

[malthaussen]

9. There is a law of diminishing returns, here...

... but basically, I am fully in favor of the wealthy paying a large percentage of tax. "Fair Share" my foot, I want them to pay a great, horking unfair share. Take a million from somebody who makes two mil a year, that still leaves them with more income in one year than most of us will see in our entire lifetimes.

-- Mal

[brooklynite]

11. So the issue isn't paying for social goods...you just don't like wealth.

[Gore1FL]

12. Where did he say that? n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Perhaps Iterating "Tax and" 5 Times Gives Some Pause

Given that in the 50's virtually nobody actually paid 90%, merely raising the marginal rate to some massive proportion is unlikely to be the answer.

Compensation packaged will be restructured and the taxes will only change a little.

I'm all for a progressive tax rate, but at some point it does, in fact, appear to be jealousy and a punitive response to wealth.

The only place where i'd drop the hammer is on inherited wealth, excepting cases where there is a pledge, with retroactive financial penalty, to hold and operate a business after ownership changes hands through death for some definitive, but long, amount of time.

We worry about the guy with the farm leaving it to his kids and if inheritance tax is too high, they have to sell the farm? Then they pledge to run the farm for 20 years. Same thing with the kids who inherit the parents bar or store, or whatever. Keep the business running for long enough and the inheritance tax goes away. Liquidate the business and you pay a large %.

Legacy tax breaks are inherently wrong, but "tax and tax and tax and tax and tax" sure could be interpreted as just resenting wealth.

[Gore1FL]

18. The original poster said nothing about "social goods." Neither did you.

Are you responding to the right post?

[hfojvt]

20. maybe not

I don't have tax data going that far back, although I thought maybe Pikkety did. But according to the data I do have (which unfortunately does not go back before Reagan) everybody was paying higher rates even in the late 1980s. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/169

[ProfessorGAC]

23. No Disagreement

The Bush tax cuts were disastrous economic policy. Never should have happened.

I was responding to the notion of "tax & . . . ." not really being whatever happened. There are so many ways to restructure income that rates need to create a progressive fairness, but also not incentivize too much creative accounting. Going to happen anyway, i suppose but, punitive rates strongly encourage hiding the money. Then, they don't have the expected result.

The point was also made toward the notion another poster mentioned saying "you just don't like wealth". Someone else replied "where does it say that?" i thought that meant "where does it say he doesn't like wealth"

The part about inheritance taxation was just an adjunct thought.

[sofa king]

25. I am all for the punitive part.

These people profited from for-profit wars, hid the money, and saddled our grandchildren with crushing debt. I think if we hit them in the same way that Harry Truman hit war profiteers (which is why there was a 90% rate on incomes above $1 million after World War II), the worst, most un-American citizens will happily give up their citizenship forever rather than pay to make things fair again.

And we shall be the better for it, while Dubai can deal with their malevolent influence.

[brooklynite]

29. J.K. Rowling profited from for-profit wars?

George Soros?

Bill Gates?

So, not only do you hate people for BEING wealthy, you assume they all got their money illicitly.

[sofa king]

30. Not quite.

I assume that those who are not greedy sociopaths will happily pay some large percentage of their enormous annual earnings to level the field and help restore the standard of living most of us once enjoyed. I would. You would. Bill Gates seems like he would.

But the Koch brothers wouldn't. Sheldon Adelson wouldn't. Hell, Dick Cheney is already living in Dubai, to avoid paying taxes. If we can turn their sociopathic greed against them and force them to leave forever, we should do it.

[NobodyHere]

37. That's laughable

Even rich "good liberals" tend to do whatever is legally allowable to pay the least amount of taxes. John Kerry parked his yacht in Rhode Island because it lowered his tax rate compared to neighboring states. Jon Stewart's multi-million dollar mansions are own by a private trust named after his pet.

[hfojvt]

26. I think the other thing is true too though

much higher rates also discourage high salaries. CEO salaries took off in the 1980s.

I posit that the removal of a 70% tax rate had a lot to do with that. If a CEO was making $1 million, he had less incentive to pursue or demand another million because the government would just tax away 70% of that million. Or more if the state government takes another 5-8%. And that also created a spiral. The more money they got and kept, the more money they had to invest, which made even more money for them.

I also think the Reagan tax cuts were disastrous public policy and never should have happened, Even though I voted for them in real time, I abjure that now.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

16. Please quote the part of the OP that led you to take that away from it. nt

[ReRe]

15. That's right...

... but I can't believe I just witnessed a "Democrat" defend the 1% on this thread. WTF is up with that?

Tax and tax and tax and tax and tax and tax and tax the rich. I like the sound of that, Scuba.

[SammyWinstonJack]

27. That "Democrat" was likely a member of the one percent.

Gotta defend their greedy ways.

[ReRe]

28. Well, I guess, Sammy...

... but I never noticed it before and they've been here a long time. It is kind of hard to have them spit in the face of all mankind after you've been rubbing elbows with them so long. Makes me wonder how gullible and stupid I must be.

[Iggo]

17. Or we could just eat 'em.

[hfojvt]

19. the legendary 1%

does not have that much of the money. The wealth, yes, but not the money.

It is the top 10% and top 20% who have most of the income.

But most politicians (and members of the top 19%) swear that those people, who are richer than 80% of America - are part of the "middle" class, if not also the "working" class.

[GOPblows431]

22. Couldn't agree more with that

The 1% are true parasites.

[clarice]

32. Does that include Lawyers? Celebrities? Musicians? Hedge Fund Mgrs? nt

[MadDAsHell]

34. Not celebrities or musicians if they're liberals. nt

[clarice]

35. Huh?

[Lancero]

36. Double standards aren't just for Republicans nowadays.

[clarice]

38. Unfortunately true.nt

[clarice]

31. Com'on Scuba.... you don't mean that...that is a very slippery slope. nt