| It is mind boggling how many Americans think wealth redistribution is this crazy impossible thing, which will mean massive downgrades in ones economic well being. We've done this shit in Europe for a long time. I live in Norway and make about 90K or so in the tech business. I pay roughly 34% in income tax. How is that so bad. Americans tend to grossly exaggerate by talking about marginal tax rate rather than their actual effective tax rate. Of course the rates might not be hugely different, but that is partly because most Europeans pay a lot more taxes in other areas. Sales tax in Norway is 25%. Alcohol and cigarettes have very high taxes and so does cars with big engines. Car taxes could be 200-300% at its worst. However electric cars have no taxes, so there is a way out ;-) Honestly though, I don't think wealth distribution purely through taxes is the way to go. That is not how we created equality in Norway. A lot has to do with the corporatist model where big employer and employee unions set wages in big national bargains. This combined with public education with very even quality, levels the playing field. Education in America is extremely uneven in the US and that creates a very uneven playing field. In the US education is sort of monopolized. People can't go to schools other than their local school district unless of course they pay a private school. That means poor people are locked out of good schools. In Norway I can send my kids to any school. However I send them to one of the closest schools because academic quality of schools is not that different from each other. Richer schools can't bid for better teachers etc. In fact schools in poorer neighborhoods are more likely to get more money to compensate for their relative disadvantage. |
Being incredibly resource rich in comparison to your population numbers helps - that's most of the underpinning for the welfare economy of Norway, if I'm not mistaken, not income taxes or taxes on cigarettes.
Totally agree as far as education is concerned, though.