Big Issues Challenge

Thanks to TopHat for the unique debate! I'd like to convince him to be 'Con', on the issue of the Flat Tax. Many people are for the Flat Tax because at first viewing it seems like an extremely simple and fair idea-- a complete no brainer. For a while I was Pro Flat Tax, and I was writing a paper for my English class with that as the topic. I was halfway done, doing research, when I found a website that blew apart my idea of the fairness of the Flat Tax. So much so that I simply couldn't continue with my paper. So even though the paper's due date was drawing extremely near, I deleted the paper in its entirety, and started anew on the Con side. The argument that made me do this is pretty much summarized like this: The American Tax System today taxes income progressively, with those who make roughly $9,000 a year taxed at 10%, and those making $400,000 or more taxed at 39.6%[1]. If a Flat Tax were implemented, taxes would have to be set somewhere in the middle (most likely 25%), in order to provide the government its usual--or at least close to usual funding. This results in the top four highest earning tax brackets to have tax breaks, and it causes the bottom two earning brackets in our nation to receive steep tax hikes. Take McDonald's employees for example. The average worker (not a manager) makes between $10,000 to $15,000 per year[2]. Under our current tax system, the highest earner of this estimate would be taxed at 15%. They would lose $2,250. Under my theoretical Flat Tax, they would lose $3,750. This is an extra $1,500 leaving the pockets of the working poor. This effect only gets worse the less money you make. And the less money you make, the more each dollar will count to your surviving. And while this would be going on, the rich would be cashing in big time. People complain about the rift that has opened between America's economic classes, but they would have a lot more to complain about if the poor are losing a quarter of their money and people who are making over $400,000 are saving $60,000. The idea that the Flat Tax is fair because it will tax equal fractions of people's wealth is faulty, because people value that same fraction of their wealth differently, based on how close they are to not being able to make ends meet economically speaking. I had an awesome debate with somebody about the Flat Tax, and the person's biggest point was the job creation that would ensue if the rich suddenly had more money to invest into their businesses. What my opponent failed to address was that while theoretically there'd be job creation, the low income jobs (like McDonald's) would be so much more heavily taxed than before the Flat Tax, that for the majority of people (those who had a low income job prior to the implementation of the Flat Tax) would have their situations degraded substantially. And of course if you're in support of job creation through allowing the rich more money to invest into their businesses, that does not mean you have to support the Flat Tax. If you want the helpful tax cuts on the rich without the harmful tax hikes on the poor, then just support lowering the taxes of the rich. In conclusion, the tax hike that would have to be set upon the poor in the instance of the implementation of a Flat Tax would cripple them, making our country more "top heavy" than it already is. Progressive Taxation (which is what we currently use) is more fair than Flat Taxation because it taxes people based upon what they can handle. Flat Tax assumes that everyone will be able to handle the same loss of a fraction of income, which is an incorrect and economically harmful assumption. Sources: [1] http://www.moneychimp.com... [2] http://www.chacha.com...