re: #758 drcordell

There are enough rich people to pay the freight. They are doing so right now. The statistic that people such as yourself love to throw around is that the wealthiest 1% of Americans pay something like 50% of all taxes. Which is true, they do pay roughly 50% of all taxes. But they also receive roughly 50% of all income, so it’s all good.

The notion that people who extremely, extremely wealthy would pack up and leave the U.S. because their taxes are too high is laughable. How do you think they made all that money in the first place? Because of the economy created by the U.S. government.

They can bitch and whine and hum and haw all they want about how much money they are paying in taxes on $30 million dollars in income. But without the system we live in, that income would be $0. And last time I checked $30 million minus $10 million or so in taxes is still a hell of a lot more than $0.

It reminds me of how the WSJ loves to write editorials talking about the “lucky duckies” that don’t make enough money to pay income taxes. Lucky duckies making $17,000 a year, but not paying any taxes. Compared to the “unlucky duckies” who are making $30 million dollars a year but paying $10 million in taxes. Right.

Eh, I’ll let it drift.

Suffice to say, wealthy people - and their businesses - can and do leave places with high rates of taxation and move to places with lower rates. Further, suffice to say that you could tax the ever-loving shit outta the top 1% and still not ahve anything like enough money to get the job done. There’s just not enough of ‘em, and once they get hip to the fact they’re getting killed tax-wise, they’ll shut down, throw their money into Municipal Bonds, and call it a day.