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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (586295)	9/18/2010 10:18:13 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 1575658

"An innovative approach would be a new income tax system where everyone paid an equal share of income and sales tax with no deductions allowed for anything." Yeah, it's called a "regressive" tax. Why? Because EVERYONE, rich and poor has certain requirements to live. Such a tax hurts the very poorest, who are barely squeaking by, but the very wealthy don't even notice it. What we should return to is a more PROGRESSIVE income tax, and no sales taxes at all - these are also regressive taxes. en.wikipedia.org "Some economists[15] trace the origin of modern progressive taxation to Adam Smith, who wrote in The Wealth of Nations: The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.[16]"

To: average joe who wrote (586295)	9/18/2010 10:31:06 PM
From: combjelly	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575658

"If you took all of the income and confiscated all the possessions of the nation's top 5% income earners it would not pay the interest on the national debt for 5 hours." Nonsense. Total net worth of Americans was about $59 trillion in 2007. mjperry.blogspot.com The top 1% controlled a bit over 34% in 2007. sociology.ucsc.edu So the top 1% alone controlled about $20 trillion. Which is a bit more than 5 hours worth of interest. If you are going to make stuff up, try to make it somewhat believable.