This is what happens when you forget what we were talking about. I responded to a post where it was suggested keeping the majority of the wealth from the 1% would be a bad thing. You were the one that connected what he said to a progressive tax system. Below is the proof of this.
I know exactly what was written by everyone involved. What he said was we should "Have measures in place to keep the 1% from having almost all the wealth." That's an exact quote. A progressive income tax
is one such measure. When you said "no" in response to his statement, you implicitly rejected the notion of a progressive income tax along with any other measures that would reduce income inequality.
"That's what a progressive income tax does, yes. So you answered the question as no, you aren't opposed to it. Which is a tad confusing, since in response to whm's notion that we should"
You see that? Weird right? Whm never said anything about a progressive tax system. You assumed that would be the way of accomplishing what he said, which was...
Right, he didn't mention a progressive income tax
or any other specific policies. He was stating as a general proposition that he favored policies to reduce unequal wealth distribution. By rejecting his statement without qualification, that means you oppose all such measures. Presumably, that would include a progressive income tax. Though curiously, you then said you weren't opposed to it.
Horrible circular logic. People are dying because of ghosts in their blood. If we did not drain their blood even more would die. We cant imagine how much worse it would be if we did not drain their blood to get the ghosts out!
I'm not the one engaging in horrible logic here. Your analogy is a false one. Here's a better one: we're administrators of a high school which has a program to teach students how to do well on standardized tests. Yet our students have scores which are below the national average. According to your logic, that means the program doesn't work at all and we're better off saving the cost and doing away with it. And when our average scores sink from 10% below the average to 20% below the average, we'll have your "logic" to thank for it.
When a problem is quantitative, like test scores and wealth distribution which fall along a continuum, a measure can help with the problem without "solving" the problem entirely. Indeed, the solution might to be have multiple measures, each of which is partially effective.
I said we don't know how much worse it would be without progressive taxation, but we do know it will be worse. Here's why: prior to the Reagan era, we had a much more progressive tax code than we do now. Reagan flattened out the tax rates. And what has happened since Reagan? Wealth distribution has become more unequal. Which suggests that flattening the rates entirely as Atreus wants to do would just continue to make it worse.
Again, this is what happens when you forget. See what I said...
"If they are getting money from you outside of free trade then stop it, but don't stop free markets."
Right, I could see that you thought you were arguing against something extreme like a Communist system, but he never suggested anything like that. He said only that he supported measures to reduce wealth inequality. We have many such measures in place right now, including progressive taxation, and every form of social safety net we employ. Clearly, no one of them, or in fact all of them combined, are sufficient. But that is 100% because of the GOP.
Facebook
Twitter