To: koan who wrote (50529 ) 8/10/2013 2:08:20 PM From: TimF Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 85487 Penalize something and you discourage it. Penalizing investments with high tax rates and you get less of it. The government taking more and more is acting like a parasite*, take a little and the parasite can be ok, while the host hardly feels it, take more and the parasite can be healthy while the host is still strong, but take even more and the host weakens, and still more and eventually the parasite kills its host and suffers for it. Government isn't actually going to kill the economy. Even the communists didn't totally destroy all of their economy (they killed over 100mil and devastated economies, but there was something left), but for economies even a slight weakening is important since growth compounds on itself. * not a pure parasite, it provides important things as well, but all of its taking is like a parasite taking, and the more it takes the more it resembles a parasite so they can skin you alive. Corporations produce a vast net positive result, not in general "skinning people alive" even metaphorically. People work with, work for, and buy from them because they are better off for doing so (otherwise they wouldn't do it). Its true they do get benefits from the government, but its the government giving them the benefits, and such rent-seeking is an argument against big government not for it. Its true that they sometimes engage in outright scams, but that's a small minority of corporate actions, and its already illegal, and won't be reduced by higher tax rates. Even if corporations where much more likely to be scamers then they actually are, its not an argument for higher tax rates. We need to make them obey our laws. They do more often than not, and it would be easier to enforce the laws, if the law itself was much simpler and contained less that was useless or counterproductive.