[Bricejm]

"Richer people require fewer government services" They do require less government services but they probably became rich because of the U.S. economy and the opportunities that it presents. You can be smart and ambitious, but if you're born/live in a third world country your chances of success are significantly lower.

[aharrison]

I don't understand your comment. You agree with yummyfajitas assertion, you appear to make a separate and mostly orthogonal assertion which borders on a refutation (I think the subtext being "the rich should help others pull themselves up") but perhaps I am misinterpreting.

I believe yfs point was progressive taxation is a bad idea because it costs the rich more but they get less out of it. I don't understand how your comment meshes with yfs. Care to elaborate?

[Bricejm]

What I'm saying is without the U.S. economy most successfull people wouldn't be successful. There's a price to participate in our economy. Lowering taxes on the rich is the basis of supply side economics, which has been proven wrong time and time again.

[benmccann]

I don't believe that yummyfajitas was arguing that we should lower taxes on the rich, but rather that if society as a whole becomes wealthier it is possible that the government may need to spend less to support a relatively smaller number of poor.

[Bricejm]

A marginal/progressive tax rate works.

[lzw]

You've got cause and effect reversed. The economy is strong because people are successful, and they are successful because previously there hasn't been a heavy burden of taxation. This does not justify increasing the burden of taxation. "Supply side economics" is a political term, not a school of economics and it has not been "proven wrong".

In fact, the US economy is strong because it is relatively low in taxation and regulation, compared to other economies around the world. This shows the benefit of low taxes (for everybody). You guys focus on the rich because you want to pretend like you're just taxing the rich, figuring most voters are not rich. But whether you tax the rich or the poor, taxes lower the standard of living and slow economic growth.

You can see proof of this just by looking at states and the countries and seeing which ones do better than others.

[guelo]

This is factually wrong. Many of the richest economies in the world have much higher taxes than the US. Some data,

  Denmark 50% of GDP taxed, $56,115 GDP per capita
  Sweden 49.7%, $43,986
  Belgium 46.8%, $43,533
  France 46.1%, 42,747
  Norway 43.6, $79,085
  Netherlands 39.5, $48,222
  US 28.2%, $46,381

Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenu... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom...

PS. I wish I had some statistics chops to see if there's any correlation between these two lists of tax rates and gdp per capita. My hypotheses is that there's not.

[evgen]

> The economy is strong because people are successful, and they are successful because previously there hasn't been a heavy burden of taxation.

[citation needed]

Seriously, where do you get this delusion? Do you mean those low-tax post-war years when the annual growth rate was around 5% and the top marginal tax rate was between 87 and 70%? If you are going to make claims that low taxation and regulation have been a comparative advantage for the US then be prepared to back it up with reputable comparative studies.

If the proof can be found just by looking at tax levels and comparative standards of living then please explain why Norway is kicking our ass.

[just_a_someone]

I'm not sure how you can claim that the US economy is strong. Seems like all I've been hearing for the last year or so is about how weak it is.

Also, I'd love to see a study that compares the economic effects of unilateral taxes vs. progressive taxes. Given that $X needs to be procured, what is the most cost-effective progression?