I think a flat tax is the only way to go. EVERYBODY pays. The government then must live on what the flat tax is. Put it in the Constitution as an amendment.

Brucben, how does a person make 1,000 times more than another?
Barack Obama grew up in a single parent home and is now a multi-millionarie.
A high school drop out who is a lazy drunk works part time on minimum wage.

How does "deserve" figure into this relationship at all?

Also the idiot who posted that the rich and poor should have the same tax rate, look at these numbers. Bill gates total income was 176 million. say another person makes 20000. if we tax them or not the proportion of income is still the same under a flat rate tax. that means that bill gates would earn 8800 times as much as the other person. Are you dumb enough to say that he is 8800 times as valuable as this person?? That is rediculous. Hes probably not even over 10. There are people starving in the USA and cant even earn a living and even subtracting his current taxes, and all his charity, he still keeps for himself a huge sum of money. He owns a huge home that no one actually needs! You sir are telling me that he deserves to have this for one idea that any person with a computer degree could have came up with???

PEOPLE SHOULD EARN RELATIVE TO WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO! THE RICH DO NO SIGNIFICANT AMMOUNT OF WORK MORE THAN SAY A HARD WORKING FACTORY WORKER!

Fasces makes an excellent point about CEOs.

Barack obama worked extremely hard for his position. So did every president. Most pro baseball players make more then him somehow

The ceos are needed, but they dont need to earn that much!!!

Czech +1 "The government then must live on what the flat tax is."

Pro baseball players don't work hard brucben?

Didnt fucking say they didnt work hard, im saying that they dont work tens of times harder than the president

TETTLETON YOU ARE BEING BRAINWASHED BY THE RICH. 5% OF REPUBLICANS ARE THE PUPPETEERS, 95% ARE THE PUPPETS!

dont believe the republican lies about the "evil democrat taxes" we are only doing what needs to be done, closing the wealth gap.

I also believe all private schools should be closed. No one deserves a better education just cuz they were born into a rich family. You dont decide where you are born

Its surprising how poor hillbilly republicans are stupid enough to stick up for the rich. Don't they know how much there getting screwed? dont they know that they can take a portion of that money for themselves?

Bruchben, meet the mute feature.
What a priceless innovation to eliminate the rantings of helpful mental midgets.
Have a great life and good luck to you.

Poof, Bruchben is gone like a bad smelling fart in the breeze.

you cant mute me?????? who are you an admin or something cuz i can get you banned for that?

Obama only wants to tax the rich 39.6% that's up from the current 35%. It's not unreasonable.

Do you think income tax revenues will rise by 4.6% Denis?
Also define what is a reasonable tax on someone other than yourself.

@1bruceben How hard you work isn't part of the equation. In a capitalist society, people are free to "value" what they please. I do NOT value and i-pod, but I do value mp3s. I have an mp3 player vs. an i-pod. Those who freely chose to by a Jobs' product "value" him more than my mp3 maker. Because of this he is richer. He didn't even invent the i-pod, but he did hire the people to invent it. He did have the vision and capital to let people "choose" his product vs something else.

Why should he be taxed any more or any less than anyone else? Just because he has more? Please! He also donates more than the average person. To tax once class of citizens based on RACE would be immoral. And that is the dilemma for so many people. If something is immoral, IT IS IMMORAL. Taxing the rich more than anyone else is immoral. The argument they have more disposable income so it's ok/makes it "fair" doesn't make it moral.

@Fasces: 'twould be more efficient if major corporations like Apple had one autocratic leader who gets paid a lot than a bunch of autocratic leaders who get paid a lot. That being said, I agree that CEOs and boards of directors are necessary evils for large corporations. Just like a government, there must be a select body that has ultimate control.

@denis The fact that 35% to 39.6% is or isn't unreasonable is a matter of opinion. If your income was the one being taxed at the "new" 39.6 rate, would it still be reasonable to you?

@TC: that's pretty obvious. But is there any reason why those jobs shouldn't be more common? The only reason they *aren't* more common is that the people on the top want the money.

We have a tax system that favors those with enough money to hire people to find the loopholes. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-ge-taxes-idUSTRE72U7U520110331

With a flat tax, there are NO loopholes.

TB,
I disagree. Jobs don't grow on trees. Not anyone can create them. How many jobs are created by people in the lower economic quintiles.
People don't get rich because they are greedy. They may be greedy, but they get rich because they have an idea for a good or service that multitudes of other people want.
They need people to help build, deliver, or otherwise aid them with the good or service and they create jobs.
That is the one and only way that self-sustain jobs are created.
The owners of the business are in control.
If it is a corporation it is the board of directors.
If it is a smaller business it is the proprietors.
I don't consider either necessary evils.
They are the only ones with the ideas that create self-sustaining jobs.
If Obama and his minions could do so don't you imagine they would have created self-sustaining jobs instead of government jobs that don't produce an output that can sustain them.

1bru it is a personal mute feature. It allows him to down out the sound or your conspiracy theory-esque drivel, for himself while the rest of us must suffer through it, hell, I'm a (lite) socialist and I don't know who's arguments I find more annoying, you or TC's

(On a side note, I'm fairly certain TC already muted me so won't see my argument that I'm about to post but whatever.)

The basis of my entire line of thought here is screw the rich, they live in a world were people die of hunger and curable illnesses every day, and they waste money on stupid materialistic things.

As such I strongly support policies that level income, namely aiming for the sweet spot of 1:13 between the top salary and the lowest salary. That allows both for incentive for people to put forward an effort in order to better their lot, and for people to still maintain a liveable standard at the bottom. A scaling tax does exactly that, it helps raise the lower classes up towards the upper class by lowering that bar.

It also makes economic sense, because money cannot flow in a system were it pools at the top and trickles down, instead it should continuously flow through the system. The classic argument against this is that if you tax the rich they will either leave, or refuse to invest. Neither of these matter. If they want to leave that is their prerogative, and they should be expected to dump their citizenship. A refusal to invest is equally irrelevant, as most of the large business should be loosely controlled by the government regardless. (More in such a way that the government is the controlling shareholder, as opposed to the business is heavily taxpayer subsidized.)

For once I'm in agreement with TC about who to mute. That guy was dumber than diplofool.

Mujus, I do exactly what you say. The amount of money I pay to accountants and tax attorneys offends me. If I didn't I would be even more offended by what the government would want. I don't believe individuals that don't pay the rates in the highest bracket have any idea how much is paid by individuals in that bracket.
Those amounts motivate them to keep as much as they can for their families, relatives, and employees.
I always wonder what drives people who aren't motivated to produce, and what makes them think they are entitled to the productive output of others.