but provided *no information* to support that assertion
Wrong -
"The US tax code is a "progressive" system. Also even an actual flat tax (and one with no personal exemption, so everyone really pays the same percentage) would still transfer wealth away from the wealthy, as they would pay more dollars in taxes than the non-wealthy, while at the same time they are not eligible for many transfer programs.
A change in distribution of wealth ("the rich getting richer") is not the same thing as a transfer of wealth. The fact that the rich pay taxes means that wealth is being transferred from them. Even a dollar in tax liability for a billionaire would be a transfer away from that person, and would still be so if he was doubling his wealth every year without his tax payments going up by a penny.
As for net transfers, the wealthy pay a strong majority of federal government taxes, while many transfer programs are limited to the poor, or to the poor and near poor, or to those groups and the middle class. Those that are not income limited apply to all, and the non-wealthy are numerous, so much of the money from those programs still goes to the non-wealthy."
Message 26715681
Or in simpler terms, the rich pay a lot of taxes, so in gross terms money is transferred away from them, and they pay more in taxes then they receive in transfer programs (as a whole, not for every individual rich American), so the net transfer is away from them.
so I called the statement silly
No you called the statement "completely and utterly ridiculous", which goes well beyond silly.
Even if your statement had just been "silly", and even if I had not backed up my statement (neither of which is actually true), that counterfactual scenario where I didn't back up the statement would not be enough to support a claim that my statement was silly, just that it was unsupported.
If my statement was silly, and esp. if it was "completely and utterly ridiculous", it should be so obviously false that it would be easily shown to be false with information and argument, but you provided little of either, and none that was relevant to the point. |
