TheRealMafoo said:
When you lower taxes on the rich, you stimulate the economy, and when it grows, the net income of the government goes up. Interestingly, when you lower taxes on the rich, they end up paying more of the taxes. Here is a fact:
The Tax Foundation states that the tax cuts signed by U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, contrary to popular belief, actually made the U.S. tax code more progressive, not less. In 1980, before Reagan's tax cuts, the richest 1% paid 19.05% of all federal income taxes, and by 1988, after Reagan's tax cuts, their share had increased to 27.58%. Likewise, in 2001, before Bush's tax cuts, the richest 1% paid 33.89% of all federal income taxes, and by 2006, after Bush's tax cuts, their share had increased to 39.89%. [16]
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I'm impressed! You actually brought in data, and pretty solid data at that!
Following some of the links you gave and some of my own, it appears that one of the related problems to this is the ability of people in higher income brackets to funnel their income, underreport it, etc., because of the mess that is our tax code. So I will actually agree that UNDER THE CURRENT TAX SYSTEM (which can be cleaned up) that raising taxes on the rich is often counterproductive.
So for any tax raises to be effective, we also need to clean up the tax code and close a lot of the loopholes. But as of now the ideal tax rate for the rich is probably close to where it is now, maybe even a little lower. But once you start dropping below 30% you are probably losing revenue.
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