Not company picnics, executive retreats - where a few execs spend vast amounts of luxury getaways at company expense. Do they add money to the economy? Sort of. The problem is, instead of coming from the pockets of these execs who can afford it anyway, it comes from the business, and becomes deductible. So while they are putting this money into the economy, a big chunk of it is essentially paid by what would otherwise go to taxes.

And yes, a billionaire buying a yacht causes people to work, but lets be clear, buying a $150 Million yacht creates a lot less jobs than a quarter of that amount spent growing a business and adding employees. Now obviously you as a person have no real impact on the economy, but in the lower and middle class, the impact on the economy had to do with volume - and there's a big impact when a large percentage of those people are out of work. Now, I don't think rich people need to be taxed into the ground. Billionaires will still have their yachts and catered affairs - But there are those at the top, who's assets grow at a rate of hundreds of millions per year, while paying a MUCH lower % of taxes overall (via earnings + capital gains), and putting relatively small amounts back into the economy, compared to regular folks. A normal person earning say... $40,000 a year might pay around 25% of that to total taxes, but pretty much every penny  of the rest gets spent on living expenses - every penny is going into the economy. People who are worth $10 Billion this year, and will be worth twice that in 15 years contribute less beneficially, relative to earnings, than the average working American.

Your numbers are off significantly. According to the Tax Foundation's research into 140 million tax returns, the tax rate among the super-rich top-1% was about 100% greater than those making $40,000/yr.

And according to your logic, the fact is that the people making $40,000/yr and spending everything they have on living expenses aren't going to grow the economy. They will pay into goods and services, but cannot invest in new opportunities. Therefore, it is the right thing to ensure that those that have more money aren't robbed of their monies so that they can invest into businesses and ventures that can create jobs - rather than be taxed. As much as you'd love to argue that a yacht creates few jobs, I shudder to think how many jobs are created by the government's taxation of the same amount of income. In most cases, the only jobs created from that have a horrible rate of return.

At the end of the day, there simply has to be a tradeoff of prosperity for services the free market otherwise wouldn't provide. It's not about taxing people to make jobs for stimulus purposes, it's about taxing people to support the people who need it

The only debate, obviously, is how to do this while minimizing the damage such taxation does.

I read the article on Yahoo and the Globe and Mail ...

He talked about how little taxes he pays and how taxes should be increased on the super rich, but he is paying so little taxes because he is using tax-loopholes to avoid paying taxes. If he wants to pay higher taxes he could simply STOP USING LOOPHOLES and pay higher taxes. If tax rates are increased he probably won't pay significantly higher taxes because he will have the money to afford to pay a team of accountants to continue to find loopholes for him to not pay higher taxes.

The question is, 'what other services the free market wouldn't provide'. There is a great divergence in belief on what the free market wouldn't or couldn't provide. The vast majority of services could be provided for by the private sector at a fraction of the cost. To minimize the damage taxation does, one simply needs to reduce who gets taxed, and ensure that those that must be taxed, are taxed. A great example of this is the 'roaring 20's'. Did you know that only 2% of Americans - the top 2% paid any income taxes at all, while we retired 25% of the national debt?

My argument is that what the government does today - which requires about 35% of all GDP in the US - is far greater than what the government must actually provide. If it provided for what was absolutely needed, then we'd ensure that capital was readily available for more important, useful projects.

The question is, 'what other services the free market wouldn't provide'. There is a great divergence in belief on what the free market wouldn't or couldn't provide. The vast majority of services could be provided for by the private sector at a fraction of the cost. To minimize the damage taxation does, one simply needs to reduce who gets taxed, and ensure that those that must be taxed, are taxed. A great example of this is the 'roaring 20's'. Did you know that only 2% of Americans - the top 2% paid any income taxes at all, while we retired 25% of the national debt?

My argument is that what the government does today - which requires about 35% of all GDP in the US - is far greater than what the government must actually provide. If it provided for what was absolutely needed, then we'd ensure that capital was readily available for more important, useful projects.

The "free market" (put it in quotes because it is a mythical thing humans can't seem to really manifest outside of a black market situation), has a number of issues that don't get resolved, resulting in situations where other forms of human interaction need to take the place of.  Individuals who believe only in free markets as an answer to everything, don't account for things that even conservatives would agree to.  Here is some:

* Situations where there is a free rider problem.  In cases where there is something like national defense that automatically benefits everyone, to say you will have a voluntary system where people pay to get it or don't get it if you don't, generally won't work here.  Another example of a free rider problem is basic scientific research, or other intellectual property development.  Usually, corporations will try to offload the basic research that is needed for breakthroughs on others, in order to then capitalize on such later.  Have others pay for the costs and then jump on it.   This is a reason for the creation also of artificial monoplies in the form of copyrights and patents, because if an idea that cost a lot of money to develop could just then be copied, less people would develop said intellectual properties.

* Charity and welfare for the poor and caring for the underclass.  Yes, it is true that markets produce opportunities.  It is also true that there is a principle of a good business to fire customers.  End result, you can have a class of people where it isn't profitable to look after them.  It would actually end up being more beneficial for such individuals to just die.  However, if one has other values, like concern for humanity, and desire for benevolence, then you end up engaging in charity.  The free market will fail to take care of these issues, but it doesn't mean that individuals who practice charity won't be able to do this.  You can throw in other forms of charity also and the arts, where such have value beyond that of money, and you can't put a price on something.

* Negative externalities where individuals and companies can create problems and not get caught.  Throw in crime here, and also polution.  In cases where the net effects are costs, rather than profit, a free market situation will end up not addressing the issue.  Societies have court systems to try to put a cost on negative externalities which would normally go ignored.  You would need the court systems to insure personal property rights are protected also.  And also, you can get to the case of where not everything should be private property (see the next point).

* It is debatable whether or not every single thing should be privately owned.  In cases where natural geography would produce a monopoly on roads, for example, privatizing roads wouldn't be in the best interest of a community.   Would a society end up saying court systems, for example, should be run be privately owned, or you have a case of New Detroit from Robocop, where you buy shares in a city in order to vote?  Of course, a person's political persuasion will determine how much should be privately owned, verses owned or run by the government.

produce a monopoly on roads, for example, privatizing roads wouldn't be in the best interest of a community. 

The "free market" (put it in quotes because it is a mythical thing humans can't seem to really manifest outside of a black market situation), has a number of issues that don't get resolved, resulting in situations where other forms of human interaction need to take the place of.  Individuals who believe only in free markets as an answer to everything, don't account for things that even conservatives would agree to.  Here is some:

* Situations where there is a free rider problem.  In cases where there is something like national defense that automatically benefits everyone, to say you will have a voluntary system where people pay to get it or don't get it if you don't, generally won't work here.  Another example of a free rider problem is basic scientific research, or other intellectual property development.  Usually, corporations will try to offload the basic research that is needed for breakthroughs on others, in order to then capitalize on such later.  Have others pay for the costs and then jump on it.   This is a reason for the creation also of artificial monoplies in the form of copyrights and patents, because if an idea that cost a lot of money to develop could just then be copied, less people would develop said intellectual properties.

* Charity and welfare for the poor and caring for the underclass.  Yes, it is true that markets produce opportunities.  It is also true that there is a principle of a good business to fire customers.  End result, you can have a class of people where it isn't profitable to look after them.  It would actually end up being more beneficial for such individuals to just die.  However, if one has other values, like concern for humanity, and desire for benevolence, then you end up engaging in charity.  The free market will fail to take care of these issues, but it doesn't mean that individuals who practice charity won't be able to do this.  You can throw in other forms of charity also and the arts, where such have value beyond that of money, and you can't put a price on something.

* Negative externalities where individuals and companies can create problems and not get caught.  Throw in crime here, and also polution.  In cases where the net effects are costs, rather than profit, a free market situation will end up not addressing the issue.  Societies have court systems to try to put a cost on negative externalities which would normally go ignored.  You would need the court systems to insure personal property rights are protected also.  And also, you can get to the case of where not everything should be private property (see the next point).

* It is debatable whether or not every single thing should be privately owned.  In cases where natural geography would produce a monopoly on roads, for example, privatizing roads wouldn't be in the best interest of a community.   Would a society end up saying court systems, for example, should be run be privately owned, or you have a case of New Detroit from Robocop, where you buy shares in a city in order to vote?  Of course, a person's political persuasion will determine how much should be privately owned, verses owned or run by the government.