Patters

Below are the historical top rates by year, starting in 1919. (Because the rich always have various loopholes, these rates would mostly affect those who literally spend millions of dollars a year on themselves.)

Which tax rate do you think is best?

I inflation adjusted the right hand column of the following table:

Top US Marginal Income Tax Rates, 1913--2003 (TruthAndPolitics.org)

using this source:

The Inflation Calculator

I like Ike

patsfan13

Well i chose 25% over a Mil, however I would prefer 17% of > 50k for a family of 4.

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atomdomb

No offense Patters but kind of a dumb thread...spending is the issue.

Forbes 400: September 2007,
Total Net Worth = $1.54 trillion
• This would run the US government for just six
(6) months in the coming fiscal year.
• If we raised the tax rate for all those taxpayers
currently in the 35% tax bracket to 100%,
• the US would raise $450 billion and this would
keep the government running for 56 days in the
coming fiscal year.

This was from 2007 when the Forbes 400 had alot more money(before the crash). Lets raise the very rich to 100% and run the government for 56 days. Great idea! Oh by the way, we spend alot more now than we did in 2007 so it wouldn't even run the government for 56 days. Spending is the issue. You can not tax the rich enough if you spend like idiots.

Patters

Atom, I'm raising an entirely different issue. That said, I think your point warrants a thread of its own.

PatriotsReign

Taxing anyone at 90% is just plain idiotic. It's like saying "No one deserves to make $X!" and that Mr Patters just isn't true. In the US of A, we deserve to make as much as we're willing to sacrifice to get there.

So what Ike basically said is that people don't need to make any more than $2.8MM per year. That smells of an underlying distaste for very wealthy people. I think wealthy people are as likeable & loveable as middle-class and poor people...who wouldn't feel that way?

So Patters, do you think there should be limits on how much people can make? Because if we taxed anything over $2.8MM at 90%, you can bet people would make every effort NOT to make over that amount.

If we had this tax you propose and I made over $2.8MM, I'd donate the money I made in excess of this amount to people I wanted to have it just to avoid giving it to the gov't.

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

Patters

PR, the government spends its revenue and who is best positioned to profit off that? The more liquid assets they have, the more ability they have to profit and a high marginal rate on earned income provides them with a hefty incentive to reinvest. on the other hand, if they absolutely must have that $50 million yacht, then a high marginal rates means it will cost them a bundle; they will have to, in effect return, some of that tax payer revenue that got as profits on their investments to the tax payer.

PatriotsReign

Just my personal opinion Patters, but I think you're one of those people who thinks everyone deserves the same...and they don't.

No matter how much liquid assets one has to "reinvest", at some point they'll want to use some of that money for themselves. Call it what you like, but you're supporting income limits...plain & simple.

Mainstreamers will never accept that. The FAR left has to realize that they'll never be mainstream....just as the far right needs to do the same.

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

Patters

I don't think everybody deserves the same, needs the same, or even wants the same, but it's expensive to a run a country and people have to make sacrifices. I think it makes more sense for the very rich to lose out on some luxuries than for the poor and middle class to lose out on better education, health care, and so on. If a flat tax provided enough revenue to run a world-class country, I'd be all for it.

NEPatriot

PatriotsReign

I think the answers lie somewhere between my and your opinion. Of course you can't decide what the gov't needs to provide until you know how much we have to spend. Somehow our gov't seems to have forgotten that simple truth.

Stop fighting wars would be the perfect place to start. I'm sure we can agree upon that.

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"