Taxes on the affluent should be increased.

You claim that "[federal] government revenue had [sic] been at 19.5% of GDP since the 50s." That is untrue. The post-WWII average of tax revenue is 17.7 percent of GDP "" projections of revenue for 2013 by the CBO place it at 16.9% only. In 2009, tax receipts amounted to 14.8 percent of GDP, the second lowest in recorded history. Kent Conrad was correct: tax revenues are at a 60-year low. The important point to not is that the reason that revenues are projected to climb "" to 18 percent of G.D.P. in the coming year "" is a function of the "fiscal cliff" tax increases and economic growth. Both of those claims undermine conservative ideology, though. Raising taxes should shrink revenue, they claim. Why then has the nonpartisan CBO estimated that it will continue to increase to 19.1 percent up to 2023? The answer is: we haven"t met the downward-sloping portion of the Laffer curve. In fact, revenue would maximize at a top effective rate of 68.7%, significantly higher than even the top marginal rate now (39.6%), and certainly higher than the rates that the affluent actually pay. As I"m sure you now, many of them pay significantly less than middle- and lower- income individuals because they either earn their income through capital gains, are able to receive special loopholes, etc. The best example is oil subsidies -- roughly $40 billion "" which Republicans continue to defend. As I stated earlier, Mitt Romney paid roughly 14% on millions in income. Paradoxically, the "47 percent" whom he criticized pay higher percentages of their incomes than does he, for they pay sales taxes, payroll taxes, user fees, state and local taxes, property taxes, etc. In the wake of welfare reform of the 90s, pushed their by a Gingrich-led Congress, their lives have been even worse. Add to that the record levels of income inequality "" the fact that CEOs now earn about 380 times the wage of an average worker, relative to 42 times in 1980. And their pay has increased since the crash, while median incomes have decreased "" in fact 93% of the gains of the economic recovery went to the top 1%. Which brings me to my next point: you mentioned corporate welfare. Why would you presume that I support corporate welfare? Do you oppose it? Excellent. You"ll agree, then, to cut oil subsidies. You"ll agree with Ronald Reagan, Art Laffer, and me that capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income. You"ll support eliminating farm subsidies to affluent corporate farmers "" which the Republicans voted to fund at the same time they slashed food stamps by $40 billion. Do we have an agreement? If your answer is yes, you"ve just conceded the debate "" that"s raising taxes. If you cannot support those measures, you cannot rightfully say that you"re opposed to corporate welfare. If your argument is that we should take Mitt Romney"s idea and "broaden the base and lower the rate" then I have a few questions for you: what specific loopholes would you cut? Will it be revenue neutral, independent of dynamic scoring? Would you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for tax cuts for millionaires "" which, by the way, the CBO claims is the only plausible way for the plan to be revenue neutral? Also, explain to me how that will create jobs. Are you claiming that some people are able to pay virtually nothing, while others pay significantly higher rates? If that"s the case, wouldn"t raising taxes remove from these companies their incentive? To me, that sounds like a case for targeted tax hikes "" that some people will continue to produce even with higher rates, while others may be more recalcitrant. That"s the essence of my argument. But I agree with the economic research "" and with people like Paul Krugman, who look at the data and argue that the rate at which we would find ourselves in trouble is around 73-80%. Just as a slight increase in the minimum wage would not be cataclysmic "" and would not shed jobs "" slight tax increases to the tune that I"m advocating will not, either. Your next factual inaccuracy was: "If business had more money and less regulation, they could produce cheaper goods." This claim hinges on the notion that companies are suffering from a lack of productive capacity, and that rates are on the downward sloping portion of the Laffer curve. That"s inaccurate, though: I pointed out that revenues as a percentage of G.D.P. are at historic lows, that C.E.O. pay and corporate profits are at all-time highs, that the stock market is doing great, and in my last post, that taxes for the affluent are at near all-time lows. Allow me now to prove to expand on that latter point, and prove it. First, I"d like to credit the compilation of the following points to former U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Professor at UC Berkeley, Robert Reich. He argues "" as I have "" that tax rates are at historic lows "" that the rich are paying a lower rate than they have at any time in the past half-century. Before the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, the top tax rate was 70% (and 91% under Eisenhower). Yet, in spite of credits, deductions, exemptions, and so forth, wealthy people paid about 52-56% of their income in taxes. Because many affluent individuals derive their income from capital gains, they end up paying even less. The grandest point, though, is that the affluent can afford to pay more right now. You argue that tax cuts will hinder business profits, and thus lead to less employment, lower wages, higher prices, et al. These are assumptions "" which even a very rudimentary microeconomic model would dispel, for even they account for the fact that companies will absorb some of the tax. In a lot of cases, they"ll absorb all of the tax "" e.g., meta studies demonstrates that raising the minimum wage would create jobs because it would create more demand. But there is a point, yes, where it would hinder job growth, just as there is a tax rate "" around 73% -- where companies would lose their incentive to invest and to hire. But we"re nowhere near that point: the top 1% have amassed about 20% of total income. The 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined, while the top 10 percent of households take in half of national income, instead of the historical average of a third. At the same time, the average income for the bottom 20 percent of households has fallen by approximately 3 percent since 1979, says the Census Bureau. This is in spite of nearly doubled productivity over the past 30 years -- wages have flatlined, and in most cases declined. But during the three decades following WWII, wealth inequality was far less severe, and the economy boomed as a result. Why? Because it remains true that the rich would be better off with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a larger share of a stagnant economy. And without a way to spur demand, without consumers to purchase their goods and services (and thus to employ executives, for without demand, they"d be out of business), they"d be out of luck. I don"t think we agree on this very simple point: that government can work. Yes, it wastes money; yes, it does things we don"t like (wars, drones, etc). But how about defense services, public education, infrastructure, research, air traffic controllers, meat inspectors, and police and fire forces? Not only are these things critical to our survival, but many directly employ people, which sets off a multiplier effect (the famous Keynesian multiplier "" which we can discuss more later) which leads to more demand, higher wages, more employment, etc. That is the essence of a vibrant economy "" not wealthy people saving most of their money, or even spending it on luxury goods (buying a Tesla, for instance, is not going to employ millions of people who are out of work). They have more money, and therefore for each additional dollar they earn, their marginal propensity to save is much higher than their marginal propensity to consume. This is untrue for the workers I have delineated earlier, who spend nearly all of their incomes because they have to in order to survive. Surveys from business leaders are unanimous that the problems they"re facing are not overtaxation or overregulation "" but lack of sales. Finally, I would dispute your claims "" and would ask you to provide specificity "" that tax cuts lead to job expansion. I"m almost out of space, so I can"t go through each separately, but consider this: a Congressional Research Service study, which Republicans tried to conceal, holds that tax cuts are not correlated with growth in savings, investment, and productivity, but are with increased income inequality. That"s true of the 80s "" where the bulk of the "growth" in the US came about amid 11 consecutive tax increases and an exploded Pentagon budget. Even Thatcher implemented a sales tax that was disastrous for working families. And following Kennedy"s tax cuts, top marginal income tax rates were at 70%, and corporate taxes at 48%. Do you support that? Which brings me to my next point: I"ve proven to you that tax cuts don"t raise revenue, that you can not directly connect a tax cut to growth, and that income inequality is a threat. How do you justify them? How do you pay for them? Or do you support austerity measures, such as those in Europe, which are hindering any type of recovery? Your points about times that it has worked are quite vague and inconclusive, so I"d ask that you more thoroughly justify your points. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... http://www.factcheck.org... http://money.cnn.com... http://www.epi.org... http://www.foreffectivegov.org...