[lenerdenator]

> The upper classes, especially given a disproportionate percentage live in places like NYC and CA, are carrying EU-levels of tax burden already.

And?

They can afford more, and taxation is a way to reintroduce actual risk of financial ruin for the wealthy. If financial ruin is a good motivator for the rest of us, it should be for them, too.

It's not about percentage, it's about the reality that taxation brings about for you. When you have a net worth that's equal to the entire economic output of a major American city, you can endure massive tax bills because you make enough off of your holdings to equal the average lifetime earnings of dozens of Americans.

[bpt3]

It's very convenient to sign other people up to pay for your preferred government services and I'm sure your peers are willing to eagerly pat you on the back for your generosity, but ultimately even taxing the wealthy at 100% won't cover the deficit no matter how good it would make you feel. That's the "And".

There's a reason nearly every developed nation has a VAT.

[lenerdenator]

>It's very convenient to sign other people up to pay for your preferred government services and I'm sure your peers are willing to eagerly pat you on the back for your generosity, but ultimately even taxing the wealthy at 100% won't cover the deficit no matter how good it would make you feel.

Other people sign me up to pay for their preferred government services all the time. It's called living in a civilization. And don't get me started on the retirees getting a slice of my labor because they have a piece of paper saying they own part of my company.

I'm under no illusion that taxing at 100% would cover the deficit. It'd probably mean a better financial picture for the government, though, and if this whole national debt thing is the existential threat that fiscal conservatives say it is, well, is any improvement not good?

[bpt3]

> Other people sign me up to pay for their preferred government services all the time. It's called living in a civilization.

Unless you're one of the wealthy you're talking about (which would be odd to say the least), no one is asking you to pay for government services for somewhere between dozens to thousands of your fellow citizens who pay approximately $0 federal income tax on average, so it's not the same.

> And don't get me started on the retirees getting a slice of my labor because they have a piece of paper saying they own part of my company.

Hint: it's not actually your company. Those people actually employ you.

> I'm under no illusion that taxing at 100% would cover the deficit. It'd probably mean a better financial picture for the government, though, and if this whole national debt thing is the existential threat that fiscal conservatives say it is, well, is any improvement not good?

Confiscatory tax rates are counterproductive, other than making the envious far left feel better about themselves.

[lenerdenator]

> Unless you're one of the wealthy you're talking about (which would be odd to say the least), no one is asking you to pay for government services for somewhere between dozens to thousands of your fellow citizens who pay approximately $0 federal income tax on average, so it's not the same.

Really? You think I don't pay for services I don't use?

> Hint: it's not actually your company. Those people actually employ you.

Do they? What do they know of the company? If I asked the beneficiary of a pension fund what the company does and where it was headquartered, would they know?

> Confiscatory tax rates are counterproductive, other than making the envious far left feel better about themselves.

It's not far left to want general stability in your society. People with too much money and a government with too much debt are destabilizing forces.

The world is literally filled with examples of how this works, if you'd stop pretending that the current system in the US is working.