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Never forget that the top 20% of citizens are responsible for like 87% of all the tax revenue the US and state governments rely on. Never forget that you impli

Never forget that the top 20% of citizens are responsible for like 87% of all the tax revenue the US and state governments rely on. Never forget that you implicitly assumed this is because taxes on that segment are too high, rather than because various aspects of our economy were rigged to give those people a disproportionately high share of the total taxable income. In other words: there are two ways to reduce your tax bill, and only one of them requires Congress to pass a law that puts you in a lower bracket.

malandrew 9y ago
> "various aspects of our economy were rigged" This is an entirely handwavy and unsupported assertion, whereas stating the percentage of tax paid by the top 20% is a statement of fact with no implicit assumptions. The people of a country get the tax system written by the representatives they voted for, and are complicit in any "rigging" of the economy. What we have is a tax code that is layer upon layer of exceptions that came about when Group A supported a tax on Group B to pay for a benefit for Group A. Sometimes group A is in the top 20% (e.g. taxes used to subsidize an industry) and sometimes group A is in the bottom 20% (e.g. taxes used for food stamps). The former arises from things such as regulatory capture and the latter arises from uninhibited populism. No politically active bloc of voters is innocent. Everyone from the rich to the poor are special interests and all are equally as guilty of "rigging our economy". Only a flat tax that treats no group as special is fair. I'm curious what you think of Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example: http://resources.seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jhubert/wiltchamberlainargument.html http://resources.seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jhubert/wiltcham... In it, absent any tax code distortions, Wilt Chamberlain would end up with most of the taxable income through entirely voluntary transactions. If thousands of people voluntarily pay Wilt Chamberlain to be entertained and Wilt ends up with most of the income, is that a rigged system? Power law distributions in income are a naturally occurring phenomena. No rigging is required. If the system is indeed rigged, it's rigged in favor of the 45% of Americans that don't pay any federal income tax. They get all of the benefits at none of the cost.

malandrew 9y ago

> "various aspects of our economy were rigged" This is an entirely handwavy and unsupported assertion, whereas stating the percentage of tax paid by the top 20% is a statement of fact with no implicit assumptions. The people of a country get the tax system written by the representatives they voted for, and are complicit in any "rigging" of the economy. What we have is a tax code that is layer upon layer of exceptions that came about when Group A supported a tax on Group B to pay for a benefit for Group A. Sometimes group A is in the top 20% (e.g. taxes used to subsidize an industry) and sometimes group A is in the bottom 20% (e.g. taxes used for food stamps). The former arises from things such as regulatory capture and the latter arises from uninhibited populism. No politically active bloc of voters is innocent. Everyone from the rich to the poor are special interests and all are equally as guilty of "rigging our economy". Only a flat tax that treats no group as special is fair. I'm curious what you think of Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example: http://resources.seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jhubert/wiltchamberlainargument.html http://resources.seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jhubert/wiltcham... In it, absent any tax code distortions, Wilt Chamberlain would end up with most of the taxable income through entirely voluntary transactions. If thousands of people voluntarily pay Wilt Chamberlain to be entertained and Wilt ends up with most of the income, is that a rigged system? Power law distributions in income are a naturally occurring phenomena. No rigging is required. If the system is indeed rigged, it's rigged in favor of the 45% of Americans that don't pay any federal income tax. They get all of the benefits at none of the cost.