Why do people vote for Hilary and Obama?

[Final-Fan]

Sqrl said:

Final-Fan said:

My post quoted above was focused entirely on refuting your allegation that the estate tax was some kind of horrible burden on the survivors. If someone inherits $100 million, I don't think anyone's going to be thrown out on the street if the government takes half of it. And similarly, 40% of $1 million a year hurts a lot less than 40% of $40,000 a year.

If by "fair" you mean "everyone pays a the same tax rate" then the FairTax is perfect.

But the rich can afford to pay a larger share of their money in taxes, even leaving aside arguments about "evening out" the rich/poor disparity. The simple fact is that people have necessities like food, shelter, transportation, etc. that take up money, and people with a lot of money have a lot MORE left over afterwards.

And the IRS won't just disappear, you know -- taxes will still have to be collected and that collection will still have to be enforced. (However, it is true that the IRS will be able to be considerably smaller due to the different tax collection technique.) And the IRS budget is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total budget.

I think that most people would say that taking MORE money from those in the $15k to $200k range and LESS from those in the $200k+ range is not what they would prefer.

Ok but is this about fairness as a whole or just taking as much money from the wealthy without taking so much as to make them not classify as wealthy anymore?

The reason I ask is because you seem to be ok with an estate tax on the rich but if the same were applied to you or your family then suddenly it would not be ok? How would you say it is fair with a straight face if that is the case?

Simply because they have more? If that is your answer then once again I will say you are penalizing success which is at its heart a socialistic concept.

Once again I can understand that the rich will have to pick up more than other people because that is just the economic reality of the situation. What I do not agree with is this idea that we should maximise this "extra" they are paying or that we should be looking for new ways to tax them that we don't tax anyone else.

This is why I have repeated this idea of "treating each person the same" so many times.

I would treat someone inheriting $10,000 differently than someone inheriting $10,000,000 because -- guess what -- it's a different situation.  If I had a rich uncle I expected to inherit millions from -- and in fact I DO have a wealthy uncle, but I don't know his net worth and haven't seen his will -- I would be making the same exact arguments.  I'm not saying I would fork over the $2 million tax bill with a smile on my face, but I would still vote to keep the law even knowing that would happen to me. 

"Treating each person the same" -- Do you tell someone in a wheelchair to suck it up or do you build him a ramp next to the staircase?  Rich people are more able to pay a high tax rate without hardship, so we do, to benefit society.