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Politics : A US National Health Care System?

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To: John Koligman who wrote (7183)	6/23/2009 11:28:33 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) of 42652

We briefly had 90% (and long had 70%) rates that very few people paid. Not only did few people make enough income to hit those rates (except perhaps near the end of the 70% rate and even then the percentage of people with that level of income was lower than the percentage paying the top rate in recent years), but also people who did make enough income to pay that rate had every incentive to legally (there where plenty of loopholes) or illegally shield it from taxation. And while we "did just fine" (largely because few people paid that much in taxes), they did have a negative effect. For one thing they distorted compensation and investment. They helped create the employer sponsored pre-paid medical plans / medical "insurance", that has contributed to our high medical cost. And you had resources go in to fancy fringe benefits and expense accounts, rather than more efficiently in to extra wages/salaries that could go to whatever people want or need. Then just the effort to create legal and illegal tax evasion schemes uses up resources, and diverts more resources in to those schemes rather than in to the most productive investments. There where a lot of positive factors working to help the economy grow, the lack of major power wars after WWII, the expansion of world trade, demographic issues, to name just a few. But the high tax rates where a negative factor. 90% tax rates are just senseless, they don't even increase tax income they decrease it. There is no benefit to them unless you consider "bringing down the rich" to be a benefit. I don't, and even if it was the tax rates hurt the near rich and slightly rich (who need a lot of income to become seriously rich) a lot more than the very rich.

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