
Originally Posted by
Suppressed Poet
Sure it is something to be proud of. I guess we can agree there.
So together we acknowledge that the poor in America have it significantly better than the poor of nearly every other country on Earth. How much then does that baseline come up?
You also fail to acknowledge there are merit based reasons the poor are the poor and the rich are the rich. People are inherently unequal. Some people are smarter than others, or more disciplined, or more gifted. I can’t do what LeBron James can do with a basketball, and I don’t expect my income to be the same as his.
I propose what matters much more is measuring the quality of life for our middle 60% (the poor being the bottom 20% and the rich being the top 20%). I also value economic mobility and giving opportunity for Americans to achieve higher levels of income. If a rich person squanders his wealth and makes poor economic decisions said person will move down the ladder, while if a poor person gains valuable skills & makes good economic decisions they can move up.
You haven’t thought this through. Ok, so say we put a cap on wealth for the top 1% and tax them at 90+%. You think they are going to just be like “oh ok, guess I need to pay that now.”? No. You have just discouraged those people from achieving more wealth. Most would take their money and leave, and then you just lost all the tax revenue from the people that pay the most. Even those that don’t leave, they have no further incentive to produce knowing that all or most of what they earn is going to be seized by the government.