How do you justify taxing the rich?

7. Who enjoys disproportionate benefits from the government resources, and therefore should pay disproportionate taxes?

State and federal highways: Someone who drives 1 car to and from work everyday, or someone who owns a corporation that sends 10 18-wheelers daily to pursue profits around the country?

Police Protection: Someone renting a 1 bedroom flat with less than $10,000 of property inside, or someone owning a $1,000,000 house with an $80,000 Mercedes in the garage and $20,000 of Tiffany's jewelry in the bedroom?

Financial regulatory agencies and corporate subsidies: Someone living paycheck to paycheck or an investor with a $1,000,000 portfolio?

National defense: The 40% of citizens that own .3% of wealth or the plutocracy?

Class dismissed.

Do you vote for candidates who agree with your point of view, or support legislation that agrees with your point of view? If yes, you are pushing your morals, morals which force me to abandon mine.

My morals, on the other hand, force nobody to abandon theirs, they simply allow people do do what their morals suggest. Believe in giving more? Give away! Believe in giving less? Give less!

Justify why one person should pay more than another for services.

If you make more money than me (which I suspect you do, based on your statements about supporting a family of four), should you also pay more for non-governmental services? I don't see how governmental and non-governmental services are any different, so I'd say yes, by your philosophy. I have purchased both essential and non-essential consumer goods in the past year; rather than doing it through taxation, would you just send me a check for the difference between what I should pay and what you should pay? Let's say the different should only be 5%. You owe be approximately $260 for groceries, $120 for medical care, and $300 dollars for utilities, for starters. Send me your contact information and I'll let you know where to send the check. I can prove my income level, if that helps. In the meantime, I can work out the total cost of the rest of the services I purchased, and I'll give you a total on how much you owe me. I suspect this won't be a problem, given you believe this to be the philosophically correct way to pay for services.

In fact, I'd like everybody on this board who makes a higher income than the average member and also supports "the rich pay more" to make themselves known; that we can can help direct them all as to where they can all send their checks.

Of course, 99.5% of the people on here wouldn't agree to this, as they don't believe in applying their philosophies to themselves, just to other people, in cases where it doesn't effect them.

This situation doesn't exist. Men will always group into "governments" of one form or another, be it a democracy, a commune, or a dictatorship. Given this, the form of government which maximizes freedom is one that upholds laws protecting freedom and no more.

What is the fundamental difference, philosophically, between a majority determining that the rich should pay more taxes, and the majority determining that everyone should give through church?

Frankly, I don't care what you "want." What I do care about is what you force on me/others with legislation.

Anyone--with a little training--can string together a rational argument with premises and conclusions. Folks like engineer are good at it.

What's at issue here, however, is not the logic of the argument, but the truth of the premises.

Reasonable people simply see a progressive tax system as sound economic policy--a policy that has been tried by multiple states and found to be highly effective in creating a stable economy with adequate benefits. No amount of stringing together premises and conclusions changes this fact: that progressive tax systems work. That's what justifies them, not blowhard ad hoc arguments.

An Engineer wrote:

Do you vote for candidates who agree with your point of view, or support legislation that agrees with your point of view? If yes, you are pushing your morals, morals which force me to abandon mine.

My morals, on the other hand, force nobody to abandon theirs, they simply allow people do do what their morals suggest. Believe in giving more? Give away! Believe in giving less? Give less!

Weak point.

I will assume YOU vote for candidates that share YOUR point(s) of view. If your candidate votes for any bill that has any content besides tax policy you will be "pushing" morals on others. They might not be your morals, but they are those of your candidate and you have forced them on others (according to your logic) just as much as you accuse Flagpole of doing with his vote.

Clell Adams wrote:

Argh! The lack of reason on some of the replies to the OP is appalling.

#1) There is no justification for taxing someone at a higher rate just because they have a higher income.

we'll look back at thinking like this and cringe in 50 years. The issue is not as simple as you'd like to think in your left-vs-right framework. the system has to be set up to take human nature into account (that is, the obvious propensity to attain more personal power without serious regard for the long term consequences). Wealth is not boundless and if we let a small number continue to hoard it, there will be dire consequences.

of course, no system will ever be perfect, and ours is about to hit a major bump. we'll see how you feel about protecting the ultra-wealthy when you're paying $10/gallon for gas and inflation in food prices really starts to become visible.

They have more than they need.

What about all the money taken from the lower and middle class that is transferred to the rich? Hundreds of billions of tax dollars are transferred to the rich in defense contracts. And it is no secret that the majority of defense spending is intended to protect oil interests in the Middle East (would we have invaded Iraq if the main export was lamb kebobs and persian rugs?). Thus, the lion share of defense spending is more than arguably a wealth transfer to the rich.

The bulk of what right wingers claim are wealth transfers (social security and medicare/-aid) are paid through a flat tax that is actually regressive, considering the @100k ceiling.

And the bottom line is that progressive taxation in the US does not redistribute wealth. Capitalism does. Over the past decade, American workers' productivity gains were tremendous. Yet, American workers did not make more money, even though they were producing more for every hour they worked. Instead, all the extra wealth American workers generated was redistributed to shareholders and executives. Thus, the rich are richer and everyone else is either holding on or falling back. So, progressive taxation has completely failed to redistribute wealth, at least from the rich to the poor.

granny smith wrote:

Anyone--with a little training--can string together a rational argument with premises and conclusions. Folks like engineer are good at it.

What's at issue here, however, is not the logic of the argument, but the truth of the premises.

Reasonable people simply see a progressive tax system as sound economic policy--a policy that has been tried by multiple states and found to be highly effective in creating a stable economy with adequate benefits. No amount of stringing together premises and conclusions changes this fact: that progressive tax systems work. That's what justifies them, not blowhard ad hoc arguments.

Totally true. It's very ironic that the anti-reality theorists these days as far-right "conservatives", not the so-called "liberals." This version of "conservatism" is utterly dependent on fourth-rate political philosophers (A. Rand) and supply-side, libertarian, total free-market economic theories that clearly DO NOT benefit the lower 95% of the population.

Bat Masterson wrote:

Are those the only justifications you've encountered for progressive taxation? You must not be very well read.

Since you and Keith are obviously so well read, perhaps you can chip in a few new ones. I've heard dozens more but they mostly boil down to what he posted.

granny smith wrote:

What's at issue here, however, is not the logic of the argument, but the truth of the premises.

OK...

Reasonable people simply see a progressive tax system as sound economic policy-

False premise

bad call wrote:Since you and Keith are obviously so well read, perhaps you can chip in a few new ones. I've heard dozens more but they mostly boil down to what he posted.

My bet is that the "boiling down" process involves you cherry-picking certain angles on the view so that it matches with your prior political intuitions.

bad call wrote:False premise

That wasn't a premise. Try again.

Of course it was.

bad call wrote:

Of course it was.

It was the conclusion of the argument. That's a hint. See if your feeble mind can reconstruct it.

granny smith wrote:

My bet is that the "boiling down" process involves you cherry-picking certain angles on the view so that it matches with your prior political intuitions.

Not surprising as it would allow you to conveniently dismiss any argument counter to your own.

granny smith wrote:

It was the conclusion of the argument. That's a hint. See if your feeble mind can reconstruct it.

Nope. Sorry. Premise. Unless of course your argument consists of assuming the conclusion.

bad call wrote:Not surprising as it would allow you to conveniently dismiss any argument counter to your own.

My argument was simple:

Premises

1) Progressive taxation has been tried in a multiplicity of states, and it resulted in stable and growing economies in those states with sufficient benefits.

2) Reasonable people look to the consequences of a tax system in order to evaluate its merit.

Therefore (conclusion)

3) Reasonable people endorse progressive taxation.

I have not dismissed any arguments counter to this one because those arguments have not been made. :)

granny smith wrote:

My argument was simple:

Premises

1) Progressive taxation has been tried in a multiplicity of states, and it resulted in stable and growing economies in those states with sufficient benefits.

2) Reasonable people look to the consequences of a tax system in order to evaluate its merit.

Therefore (conclusion)

3) Reasonable people endorse progressive taxation.

I have not dismissed any arguments counter to this one because those arguments have not been made. :)

You will note, also, that this argument directly addresses the OP's question of what sort of mental processes folks go through to justify progressive taxation. The way I have come to my stance on it is through an analysis of its empirical consequences. Many of the opponents of progressive taxation who have posted here have criticized progressive taxation is through a variety of a priori appeals to ideas like "fairness." I think that this is flawed reasoning, because it is essentially idealistic, not realistic. That was my point.

You are, of course, welcome to dispute it. Try to refrain from name calling.

Ah so you made your argument backwards. Conclusion first, then premises to support it. An unusual approach except of course when you are assuming the conclusion and looking for "premises" to support it. But we'll go with it.

Premise #1 in this case would be the false one. First because it qualifies itself with subjective terms (e.g. "sufficient"? who decides what is sufficient? You?) and because it therefore must assume that growing debts and deficits have merit.

Premise #2 is a tautology.

Both premises assume consider the taxation side the only measure of merit while completely ignoring the spending side.