Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
BTW, any "progressive" form of taxation is not "fair" IMO. Why should someone pay more per dollar earned in taxes just because they earn more?
Do you want the moral reason or the pragmatic reason or the political reason?
Morally, our system is set up for some to do a lot better and others to do a lot worse, and despite the simplistic ideology of the right on it, it's not all because 'they earned it'.
There's a lot that's arbitrary in our system about who gets wealth, a lot that's 'counter-productive' and which rewards wealth for wealth, not for 'earning it'.
Recognizing that a few dollars reduced in taxes helps a poorer family have a decent standard of living and weighing that higher than a light increase in the ownership accounts of the very wealthy - while protecting the very wealthy still having plenty more - has a moral element for our society to help the broader society do ok. SOME of the economy is a zero-sum game, and some balance with the concentration of wealth is beneficial.
That's a segue to the pragmatic argument, which will point out the practical benefits of not having extreme concentrations of wealth through exploiting power, how that helps the society be more productive and function better. There are plenty of studies and experts who can explain the benefits of a lower concentration of wealth, including among the more informed people on the right who aren't under pressure to say the party line.
The more than the wealthy get more for being wealthy, the less the economic engine has for incenting productivity, rewarding entrepeneurs and others. Ultimately, it approaches the model we've seen throughout history where the kind/lord/emperor/pharaoh/czar/warlord/shogun/robber baron etc. has plenty, while most are the 'serfs' if not the 'slaves', receiving bare sustinence.
To use a trivial illustration, if you've ever played a game of 'Civilization', you recognize how you get economic bonuses for shifting away from the authoritarian models where most are serfs, to reflect the benefits that occur in societies with lower concentrations of wealth and power. American society's economic productivity has soared at times of the concentration of wealth being reduced, and taxes on the wealthy being higher.
And on a political level, of course, it's natural for the majority, who is not the tiny group who has hugely disproportionate wealth, to vote its own interests.
You seem to have been suckered into the ideology that the wealthy 'deserve' unlimited, extreme wealth, and not to have - despite all your claim you are interested in 'the details' - to have looked into the issue, to determine when the wealth is a useful reward for something, and when it's simply an exploitation of power, resulting in the maxim 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer'.
The American system was a direct attack on the norm of human societies historically, where a few people had the system set up to protect their wealth at the expense of most.
In fact, as Kevin Phillips documents in "Wealth and Democracy", the concentration of wealth was far, far more flat during the times of the founding fathers than later. You can find no shortage of quotes from the founding fathers discussing the threat if that were to change; they considered at times actually limiting wealth, but they did not see what was coming and it did not seem too likely to happen in that agrarian society.
The right seems to have a blind side when it comes to not the basic benefits of there being some inequality of wealth, but rather in the extreme levels of concentration. They just don't have an yunderstanding how the higher levels harm society, and are counterproductive to the goals the right and left both say they have, such as opportunity for many Americans, the "American Dream".
The right supports harmful policies as a result, such as the poster here rejecting the progressive income tax, without any idea what the effect would be on society.
These are people who would, given the chance, fulfill the prediction that those who don't learn from history - the effects of concentrated wealth - would repeat the disasters.
It's rather tiresome to argue with them, because their ignorance prevents them from discussing the issue, as they argue instead what they are aware of, why too low concentrations of wealth, too few incentives for productivity - topics on which liberals broadly agree with them - and so they are just arguing against a red herring, a straw man.