Thursday, January 26, 2012

YEAH, LET'S TAX THE POOR ...

Responding to President Obama's call for a fairer tax code, Fox News is demanding that the poor pay more in taxes. A couple of points here.

First, as I've pointed out elsewhere, President Ronald Reagan was on board with revising the tax code so that millionaires paid a greater share than bus drivers.




Second, even if we turned the poorest Americans into paupers and industrial slaves and taxed and confiscated everything the poorest 50% of Americans own today (about 2.5% of our nation's wealth), this would amount to roughly $1.2 trillion (give or take a few hundred billion).



While $1.2 trillion is a lot of money this amount still wouldn't pay for the first installment of the Wall Street bailout (well above $4 trillion, to date), let alone for the amount that that we, as taxpayers, are now responsible for (between $9-14 trillion).

Third, Adam Smith, the intellectual godfather of capitalism, believed that higher tolls on luxury carriages should be charged. Why? Because the "indolence and vanity of the rich" should be made to pay for the public good.



Fox News ... clueless, again.

- Mark

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