The welfare and progressive tax systems are less preferable than...

"Actually, one could contend that policy X has made it less pretty than it otherwise would have been." Not without a shred of evidence they can't. Especially when we tried policy X in the 1980s and early 2000s and found that it makes crap uglier. We have very legit evidence and it says, "you're wrong". ---- >>Mulally was the new CEO, not the old one who lead the company into a $12.7 billion deficit. Ford has been lead into the ground over a few decades worth of work. My point wasn't that this person made bad decisions, just that he wasn't worth anything close to what he was paid. --- >>Society is not entitled to the worth of his labor just because it is above a certain amount. But, we've gone over this *repeatedly*. When offering such pay packages they aren't being paid for their labor they are being paid for their decisions. They are being paid such money not in return for services rendered but to attract top class talent. Such money is not commiserate with labor and, as such, causes your analogy to fail. You are invoking labor because people understand labor. However, the money we are talking about isn't resulting from labor but from a bidding war. Nobody really ever does 20 million dollars worth of work, but they work for the company that offers 20 million rather than 19. You have tacitly and directly stated this reason repeatedly. Well, if they were taxed at 90% then the person would *STILL* take the job that offered 2 million over 1.9 million. The fact is, at the amounts we're talking about, we aren't talking about labor. You are strictly speaking trying to pull a rather pathetic bait and switch, and failing quite splendidly. ---- >>Thomas Edison, who holds the record for the most patents held, was very wealthy, and worked as a telegrapher before he was an inventor. This was intellectual work, not hard labor. http://www.nps.gov......, scientists are not "blue-collar". Isn't it quite telling that you needed to go back to the 19th century to find your example? We aren't taxing Edison that much because he died a long time ago. The fact that Edison made money for his fantastic work is great, but it doesn't therefore imply that everybody who makes money does fantastic work. I bring up scientists because they aren't paid even remotely as well as CEOs and they are considerably more intellectually laborious and innovative. Your claim that people are paid crazy huge amounts of money and are worth it is notably silly. They aren't anywhere near as productive as people making an honest living. ---- >>Actually, if all the doctors, lawyers, scientists, and entrepreneurs died, we'd be in quite a situation. Few of those individuals make anything close to millions. Your average doctor, lawyer, scientist, and entrepreneur doesn't that amount of money. The fact that you're confused on this issue the result of your idiotically conflating the two. Further, most of your proposed tax cuts would go to billionaires and the like. >>"The rising number of countries that have introduced a flat tax -- notably in Eastern Europe -- have generally seen their tax revenues rise, not fall as flat-tax opponents had predicted." When the worlds' economy went up, Russia collected more tax money. This is why it went up each year in fairly close marks with the GDP. >>"The divide between rich and poor is widening in Germany" "The German tax system has undergone a comprehensive reform in the year 2001 and later in 2008. This reform is intended, in principle, to ease the actual rate of tax for both individuals and companies. Taxation of an individual's income is progressive. In other words, the higher the income, the higher the rate of tax payable. In 2008 the Germany tax rates for an individual are 15% - 45%." http://www.worldwide-tax.com...... The US has had a progressive tax system for decades. The gap between rich and poor has exploded. Giving the rich a massive tax cut isn't going to help this or change this. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. ---- >>And again, I insist that plenty of individuals classified as "rich" by my opponent are actually doctors, lawyers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. I repeatedly noted I was talking about the superrich. The kind of rich you need to be born into. Though, the same is often true for many of the simply wealthy. Further I find the suggesting that the middle class would just work harder to make ends meet when you raise their taxes to fund the superrich a little odd. The middle class aren't simply laborers but also consumers. As far as the economy is concerned their role as primary consumers is far more important than the work they do. This is why unemployment begets unemployment and why the economy lives and dies with the middle class. >>I also remind the audience that having a flat tax ultimately helps the middle class as the business owners have more money with which to attract employees and expand business. With more demand for labor, benefits and wages increase. This claim of further investment in businesses is nice, but we tried it. It was tried. They don't invest more. They don't spend that money and have it trickle down to the people. If expanding their business was in their best interest it is *still* typically in their best interests. Getting massive tax cuts doesn't seem to be the tipping point in expanding a business. ---- >>Actually, the percentages would be adjusted down, not up. Oh, because clearly you can pull in the same amount of money by charging everybody less taxes. Massive tax cut for the superrich and rich, and a magically the middle class and poor don't have to pick up the slack because... you say so? >>"President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened?" The economy kept expanding? How about Reagan who cut taxes on the superwealthy? What happened, we got plunged into a spiraling deficit that we never recovered from that only briefly leveled off when Clinton added a couple tax brackets and started collecting massively more tax revenues. Giving a few anecdotal stories about tax cuts on the rich followed by worldwide economic growth doesn't make for a real bit of data. It's selective and simplistic and nonsensical. ---- >>>>"you'd be giving them TO the employer." >>Actually, people accept jobs on terms of wage made before taxation. After a tax cut, the employer does not lower wages. No. The people earning the top brackets often own the companies. Wages don't change anything. You'd be taxing profits not wages. ---- >>They're actually worth more than every penny. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been employed. Basic wage economics applies to everyone that is employed. We aren't talking about WAGES! We are talking about bidding wars for top talent. The amount of the pay doesn't matter just so long as it's more than others were offering. ---- >>Being wealthy in a tax system is not how much one has, but how much one makes. Therefore, one is not wealth in the tax code because one is born wealthy, but because one makes a wage. Goodness. I'm talking about upwards mobility. The rich get richer because they are rich. If your daddy left you millions you are much much more likely to have significantly more than that than somebody who's family had no money. This added amount of money is income rather than inheritance, but it takes money to make money and those with the money, make the money. ---- >>Their labor is intellectual rather than physical. Typically the superrich aren't even intellectual laborers. They do not earn money commiserate with skill. ---- >>This is certainly preferable to a bracket system, but a flat tax leads to general prosperity. Actually it would a bracketed system at every dollar. Flat tax does not lead to prosperity. There's actual data here. Tax cuts to the rich do not trickle.