[quote=SDEngineer]
I certainly did read your example. That does not void any of the points I made. You’re absolutely right – if someone DOES in fact work twice as hard as someone else, they do deserve more income. However, they ARE getting more income, just not twice as much (although even under the existing tax plan WITHOUT Obama’s planned increases, they would STILL be not getting twice as much). That may be marginally unfair, but certainly not completely unfair. Welcome to life.
It is also not right that someone makes a ton of money for never having done anything in their life either, and from the point of view of someone who has earned everything they’ve gotten, that’s not just marginally unfair, that is extraordinarily unfair. It is also unfair that someone who DOES work twice as hard as someone else, but lacks political or social connections that someone else has, is passed over for promotions or other potential income which goes to the other person who didn’t work nearly as hard, but had those connections (helloooooo George Bush). Again, welcome to life.
My point is simply that capitalism does NOT in general reward work, it rewards wealth. It CAN reward work (as in your example), but it does NOT require such (for example, if someone salaried worked twice as many hours, that salaried person would NOT be getting twice as much money). A progressive tax is simply one method of preventing a very bad long term outcome of capital accumulation in a very small segment of the population.
It is NOT fair, it is, in fact, deliberately BIASED. However, it is biased in the opposite direction of the natural bias of a capitalist economic system, and acts as a check on the accumulation of capital.[/quote]
I love how you say “Welcome to life” and then want the rich to subsidize the poor because it’s not fair. I totally agree that life’s not fair, so deal with it. We all know the system and the system doesn’t prevent anyone from becoming rich, if you want to make more money either work twice as hard to get the capital or invest and save more diligently. We all can become rich. I know many immigrants who came here with nothing more than the clothes on the back and many of them became rich. They did it by extreme hard work, live extremely frugal, and study very hard. All this can be done within 15-20 years. So don’t tell me it can’t be done as a minority. Increasing taxes as you get richer just make it that much harder for those who are in the upper middle class trying to break free of the middle class and have their money working for them instead of them working for their money.
