| Crono said: You have very good responses, Eomund, with very sound logic. But you'll never be able to defeat a social liberal when it comes to tax breaks for higher income earners. To them a "fair tax" would take their money and give it to the lower class, even though the lower class has done nothing to deserve that redistribution of wealth, other than be poor. I believe the FairTax is perfectly reasonable in discounting EVERYONE the minimum cost of living, as set by the poverty level. A social liberal will never agree to this ideal. |
Eh, i'd be full a completely flat tax when the "death tax rate" is 100% and when your 21 you were given your own money from the government to start off, with no one allowed to help you. (Even that isn't perfect but i digress.)
Many people with money. (Like me honestly) have done nothing to earn a lot of it. I'm not rich, but i've got a sizeable amount of money in investments in my name, that my parents put there. That I did nothing to earn except be lucky enough to be born into the family of a guy who works 40+ hours a week an a good paying union job who don't have a lot of wants, aside from their smoking habits... and well stuff I wanted as a kid.
Had the fair tax been around when i was young. I'd almost certainly have even more money i didn't earn in investments, which sure i'll take, but I also know other people.
Some that have barely gotten by really tough economic times because of deaths of their primary wage earner or them just leaving the family, people who barely got by on their taxes but who also spent a lot because they were too proud to admit to their friends and kids that they couldn't afford stuff because they already were so emotionally distraught and trying to get it through the day. People who had to take loans from friends and neighbors, people who likely would of went bankrupt had the fairtax been included.
Consumption taxes do reward the stingy and the wealthy and all. However in turn they penalize those who arn't. Those who can't fight against the social norms that our consumption based society forces on them.
These people are the poor. Even with a tax to cover consumer goods i would say these people would still mostly spend all their paychecks, which would increase the overall economy, but even further at the cost of these poor, lengthening the gap between the rich and poor, which in turn causes a number of problems including crime rates and other things.
Not everyone who thinks the rich should pay more thinks so because the rich are "evil" or something. Some people think the rich need to pay more to maintain a somewhat healthy balance of the wealth which otherwise leads to a number of social problems and violence problems that often can hurt the country as a whole and hurt it's stability, and lead to even more undesirable "redistribution" politics. By that i mean REAL redistribution politics.
Look at Zimbabwe, which went from the breadbasket of Africa to well... you see how it's like. A large part of the cause can be blamed on redistribution of land from the resented rich.
