I get your point....but the conclusion you are making is a bit absurd.


"The only sustainable policy is what exists right now!"


This is proven wrong every year.

You think that's the conclusion I am making?

There is nothing sustainable about our current tax policy, nothing. Our entire tax structure is barely hanging on. It is unraveling at a pace of rhetoric that is prolly unmatched in our history.

I bet 5-10 years from now the tax structure will be completely different than how it exists today.

 

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the rich are beneficiaries of the massive investment made by prior generations of tax payers. Infrastructure, schools, a legal system, healthcare, R&D efforts, using the military to appropriate cheap land for settlers.....these are the public expenditures that made America rich and it cost previous generations a ton of money to set things up for those who benefit today.


Your desire to squeeze this prior investment for all its worth while rejecting investments for the future is 3 parts ignorance, 1 part greed. The rich have benefited the most from the investments made by prior generations, they get to make the biggest investment in the future.

Of course it was sustainable.

The top rate was 50% or more....for more than 50 years. Anything that lasts 50 years is sustainable, unless you are being a nitpicking lunatic.

38% for the next 50 years would pay off the deficit and help us rebuild our falling apart infrastructure...when combined, of course, with a 2 or 3% increase for everyone else as well. Hell, it wouldn't even take 50 years.

If that is "too much" for some to pay, tough. Would you rather have 62% of a million, or 90% of 8 bucks?

that is called society and every individual benefits from it not just one subset if individuals.

So agian why?

 

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So the rich are powerful enough to shape tax policy sometimes....but not powerful enough to shape tax policy all the time? I dont think that implies anything about 'sustainability'...only that it isnt the policy right now.

The relative value of a dollar of marginal income declines as income increases. This is the basic insight behind any progressive taxation system. Progressive taxation seeks to balance the tax burden in such a way that people feel it the same in real terms, not in abstract numbers. A 10% tax rate is much more burdensome on $20k of income than $200k. The person who pays %30 tax on 200k is actually suffering less of a burden than the person who pays 10% tax on $20k in terms of the impact of that taxation on their ability to live comfortably.

I love how the liberals always bring up the debt going up after tax cuts. The fact that revenues increased by 100% has been prove over and over again. The problem with the debt is the same as it has always been; more and more spending. It is one of those points that is explained over and over to liberals but never seems to sink in. A month later they are claiming the debt was caused by tax reduction.

Of course there is a point where tax reduction will reduce revenue. Where we disagree is where that point is. Conservatives think it is somewhere between 10% and 25%. Liberals think it is somewhere between 80% and 100%. Most but not all liberals understand people will seldom work for nothing.

Republicans want lots of money to spend on their friends. Democrats want lots of money to spend on their friends. Both parties pretended to tax the rich while giving special breaks to their friends. Lately the Republicans seem to be holding the line on spending and taxes. Not that I think for a second they will not go back to tax and spend (but not as much) if we don't hold their feet to the fire. Sadly the only way we can punish Republicans is to reward Democrats.

Papers like this I take with a grain of salt. They set out to prove something and by God they prove it. Liberals seem to believe whatever supports what they already believe and disbelieve anything else.

This "paper" seems to be very narrowly focused with no attempt to see if there are any other factors than tax. It showed what they wanted it to show and then stopped.

Of course there is an army of liberals ready to slander and missquote me thinking it supports their point somehow. Laughable.

 

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Debt isn't important. We keep being told that.

 

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