Do you consider yourself more left or right wing?

[Chrkeller]

sc94597 said:

Chrkeller said:

sc94597 said:

Yes they're paying more but they're also getting more. Social security payouts are contribution-based. You get more if you pay more over the course of your work-life. But even then, a person making $500,000 per year pays a lower SS rate because FICA is capped for SS.

Wealthy people benefit from large police and military operations more than poor people, because they have much more property and supply lines to protect. Poor people mainly just have their possessions. It is a lot easier and cheaper to secure possessions than a multi-national corporation's assets.

Wealthy people benefit from having an educated workforce to employ and increase the returns on their stocks or profits in their company through productivity gains. 

Again, the point I brought up is that the social programs that benefit bottom 50% are usually funded by flat rates. So there isn't much redistribution toward the poor going on. 

And the point of an income tax being graduated is that the more wealth you have the more the state has to do to secure it (and the supply lines that promulgate it) for you, and therefore you should pay more for the defense the state provides than a person who has much less to protect.

We should pay more and guess what?  We do.  The bottom 50% pay around 4% income, while I'm paying 20%....  

The solution can't be steal money from others for all problems.  

97% of federal income is funded by the top 50%....  we are paying more.  A **** ton more.  

I know that. I paid $55,000 in taxes last year. 

I was defending the current system of the rich paying higher rates than the poor at the margins. 

I make about 5 times as much as my siblings (who make a median wage), but I don't benefit 5 times as much. I benefit a lot more than that. Over the course of my life-time I probably will be able to save an order of magnitude as much compared to them. And that is without progressive taxation. 

The system we live in today was constructed by the rich to benefit the rich. The idea that they are allowing the poor to steal from them is ridiculous given that. 

Liberal-"democracies" aren't proletarian states where the poor are fleecing the rich. They're designed to allow for the wealthy to get wealthy and in so much as there are social programs it is so that the system remains relatively stable and secure. 

All I know is people are leaving California and going to Texas and Florida.  Population dictates Electoral votes and number of house representatives...  tax high income earners even more isn't going to play out well in the long run.  

And the point of letting people be wealthy is to drive motivation that leads to innovation.  The US has 8 out of the top 10 companies in the world.  Nvidia is worth something like France + Germany  + UK stock market combined.... 

Just my 2 cents.  Take it or leave it.  To each their own and all that.