I never claimed to know a lot about the economy. I know what I know because I happened to learned some of these things through studying international policy and because my mind finds flaws in reasoning pretty well.
I understand where you are coming from in your opinion. I won't try to rationalize my opinion about why one type of work deserves to be taxed more, anymore than I already have. I'm just going to rephrase it. Those types of mental worker are the major benefactors of naval and air power, the internet and telecommunication, and foreign diplomacy. The U.S. isn't getting invaded, because of geography. Yes, the middle class workers benefit by having those goods and services but the upper class gets that as well as the profit from selling those goods in services provided in part by government sevices.
I study politics, so I am going to get a little more political science-y. Typing fast so I can get back to Warhammer, so please excuse typos.
Everything in a sovereign nation is ultimately the governments. Whether we like it or not, we allow them to use force to control us. We have a government, that has rules that they must follow, the constitution. The governments gave up certain powers.
I understand the difference between federal, state, and local gov'ts, but I am going to keep this simple.
I used to own a restaurant. The land lord paid property tax, because the government lets him use the land. I want to put up a sign, so I have to pay to uglify the city and have it inspected so the sign doesn't fall and kill a tax payer or block a road (another source of revenue). Suzy Eaters buys a cheeseburger, they pay sales tax and I pass it on to the gov't because they used a road, a sidewalk, or a train to get to my restaurant. Joe Burgerflipper, works, the government paid for his ability to read those tickets and taught him how to follow rules, so he pays some taxes and I pay some employment taxes because I am gaining as much as he from his education. At the end of the year, I add add up all my sales, subtract all my costs, and I have my profit or income. The grain for those buns came on federal train tracks, the power came on power lines on land leased from the state. The uniforms and nametags came from China, on a boat protected by the Coast Guard and the Navy. The paychecks came from Fedex on a plane, from an airport protected by the TSA and the Airforce. Etc. etc. etc. Out of that income, there is significantly more of my income that is provided by the government through infrastructure, defense, and diplomacy then Joe Burgerflippers income.
Why should Joe Burgerflipper or Suzy Eaters have to pay the same share of those programs as I used to, when they get less of a benefit from those programs than I do?
Edit: I never said anything about the negatives of trickledown economics. I am mostly talking about the fairness of who should pay for what, which is opinion based on my feeling as a former business owner. The fact of the matter is that in a mostly free market the gov't or any other large organization can't help but to disrupt makrets, it's natural. The best thing to do is not overreact or base decisions on ideology and make changes as they are needed while maintaining your core values and judgement of what is right and wrong. In 2001-3 we needed changes to take the burden slightly off the top end, today we need it reversed a little bit. Times change, I wish people would stop reacting to everything as if it were some insult and realize this is just the real world and we have to try really hard to prevent ourselves from killing one another en masse.
I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it.
