[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Because the constitution garuntees equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.

Yes, and? I suppose we could discuss where tax policy and the Constitution intersect but I wasn't doing that. Leaving that issue to one side, progressive taxation is an attempt to engineer equal oucomes with a meat-axe.

Progressive taxation prevents us from having what amounts to an inheirited caste system of economic classes.

Actually, inheritance taxes do that.

Progressive taxation and worker protections are what makes upward mobility (equal opportunity) a reality.

No. The public sector doesn't create wealth. Economic opportunity is created when businesses are formed and jobs are created. This is done in the private sector. All taxes fund the public sector and so are a cost the private sector must bear while creating wealth. The public sector does many worthwhile things but the creation of wealth isn't one of them.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
... progressive taxation is an attempt to engineer equal oucomes with a meat-axe.

I don't see how you claim that unless the top rate was 80% or higher.

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
Actually, inheritance taxes do that.

You mean the one they just axed? I certainly hope this upsets you as much as it upsets me for the very reason you brought it up.

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
No. The public sector doesn't create wealth. Economic opportunity is created when businesses are formed and jobs are created. This is done in the private sector. All taxes fund the public sector and so are a cost the private sector must bear while creating wealth. The public sector does many worthwhile things but the creation of wealth isn't one of them.

But you're ignoring the historical fact that until government stepped in to protect workers from exploitative practices, upward mobility was virtually non-existant.

We can talk about how in a "free market" employers would be motivated to offer higher pay and benefits to compete for labor, but that lovely bit of theory ignores the very real history of labor disputes in the industrialized world.

I'm not sure how you can dispute that.

[tie]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Then, as for "the rich": This too may surprise you, but the bit about rich people paying no taxes through accounting tricks is an urban legend. It is true that corporations have managed this feat in the past -Microsoft and Intel are known to do it, and Apple is rumored to do it as well- but the loopholes which make that possible cannot be used by individuals. There are ways to defer money to be taxed at a later date, but all this does is delay the inevitable; in the end, the rich pay their fair share and more. It may be worth noting that each of the top 400 wage-earners last year paid an average of 400,000 times as much as an average taxpayer from the lowest tax bracket that's actually liable for anything.

Here's an article on this very point, which may clear up some confusions: nytimes link .

Tax avoidance isn't an urban legend: "In 2000, there were 2,022 Americans with incomes of more than $200,000 who paid no income tax anywhere in the world, up from just 37 in 1977, when the report was first issued."

Also, "The figures do not include the incomes of the many wealthy Americans who use shelters to reduce their reported incomes below the level of the top 400. In 1999 and 2000, for example, William T. Esrey � then the chief executive of Sprint, the telecommunications company � earned more than $150 million in stock option profits, lofting him onto many lists of the best-paid corporate managers. That income might have put Mr. Esrey in the I.R.S.'s top 400 taxpayers. But, as later came to light, Mr. Esrey bought a tax shelter from Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, designed to let him delay reporting the profits for tax purposes until the year 2030."

Interesting numbers, perhaps: "Detailed information about high-income Americans has become increasingly important in setting tax policy, because the government relies on the top 1.3 million households for 37.4 percent of individual federal income tax revenue. The half of Americans who earned less than $27,682 in 2000, paid less than 4 percent of income taxes."

Finally,

The top 400 reported 1.1 percent of all income earned in 2000, up from 0.5 percent in 1992. Their taxes grew at a much slower rate, from 1 percent of all taxes in 1992 to 1.6 percent in 2000, when their tax bills averaged $38.6 million each.

Those numbers can be read to show that the wealthiest, as a group, carried a disproportionate share of the overall tax burden � 1.6 percent of all taxes, versus just 1.1 percent of all income � evidence that all sides in the tax debate will be able to find ammunition in the data.

In 2000, the top 400 on average paid 22.3 percent of their income in federal income tax, down from 26.4 percent in 1992 and a peak of 29.9 percent in 1995. Two factors explain most of this decline, according to the I.R.S.: reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and bigger gifts to charity.

Had President Bush's latest tax cuts been in effect in 2000, the average tax bill for the top 400 would have been about $30.4 million � a savings of $8.3 million, or more than a fifth, according to an analysis of the I.R.S. data by The New York Times. That would have resulted in an average tax rate of 17.5 percent.