Of course not. Not sure what you're getting at though.

I kind of look at it from a very basic standpoint. If you were in one of these post apocolyptic groups trying to survive with like 10 people, would you be comfortable having 90% of the food, while 2-3 members starve to death.


Call me a bleeding heart, liberal, whatever. I think as humans we should take care of each other to some extent.

I get that. But economic and taxation realities are more what I am after. Without a logical real explanation besides it feels or looks wrong all you have is "I want the rich guys money for poor people".

No he did not make a good point about income inequality. He made a misleading if not completely false point about income inequality.

That's true. They should.

Do you think the government does that by taxing people more? or less? or at all?

Marginal rates have come down since the Kennedy administration .

I am not well versed enough on taxation to say what is best.


I can generally say that if the tax is designed so that the rich get richer and the poor stagnate, that's bad.

Marginal rates have come down since the Kennedy administration. If you want to call that less progressive, then fine. Here's the data from the IRS (2015 is latest):

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/15inintaxreturns.pdf

And to summarize in 2015-
150,493,000 returns filed
$1,457,891,000 tax collected from individual returns
6,752,00 returns with $200k and above in AGI or 4.5% of all returns
Those taxpayers paid $787,651,000 in tax or 54% of all income tax.
Add in $100k and above and you get
25,285 in returns or 16.8% of taxpayers
Those tax payers paid $1,104,011,000 in tax or 75.7% of all income tax.

The top 17% are paying 76% of all tax.

This data does not include folks with income too low to file a return, which would make the disparity much worse. People making $50k and under pay 5.4% of all income taxes, and they represent 61.4% of all filers.

Taxes are not intended to regulate income. They are intended to pay for the government.

There is no tax system in the world that can stop rich from getting richer and the poor from stagnating.

Come on Hatchet, you're smarter than that. I could also blame global warming on income inequality and plot rising wealth by the top 1% to rising global temperatures since the 70's.

The rise in inequality shown on that graph is directly related to the fall of the U.S. manufacturing sector and the rise of the professional and technology sectors whereby lower skilled workers have no where to earn a decent wage and the educated classes have significant opportunities.

Now if you want to tax the top 1% at 99%, you'll get your income equality. We'll all be broke.

Someone said this at some point, probably the min wage discussions, but for this country to flourish there has to be decent jobs for the basic high school graduate.

Maybe that's impossible at this point.

Someone said this at some point, probably the min wage discussions, but for this country to flourish there has to be decent jobs for the basic high school graduate.

Maybe that's impossible at this point.

There are many reasons for rising income inequality. However, there is no way can you dismiss the continued lowering of marginal tax rates at the exact same time as the rising income inequality.

Moreover, as you see, the current tax system you criticize as overly progressive does not seem to be inhibiting the top 1%'s ability to make more money.

[
3) I am not sure it is overly progressive as much as it is more progressive in years past. .

I talk about it all the time. We first have to make a high school diploma mean something, meaning the standards are high enough that graduates can read, write, and do math at a sufficient level to be attractive to employers. Next, you have to have alternative career tracks for folks that aren't fit for university study.

I don't understand what you are saying. You just agreed that marginal tax rates have been dropping for 50+ years.

I'm not sure you could make a high school diploma mean something. At your company, if the valedictorian of your local high school came in and asked for a job is there a chance they would get anything besides generic office work or an "internship"? That person would be the best example of a high achieving high school student and their options are still incredibly limited.

I'm not sure you could make a high school diploma mean something. At your company, if the valedictorian of your local high school came in and asked for a job is there a chance they would get anything besides generic office work or an "internship"? That person would be the best example of a high achieving high school student and their options are still incredibly limited.

College diplomas don't mean anything for the most part, either. It's nice that society mandates 22-year olds start off their independent lives under piles of debt, though.

College diplomas do mean something. I know many people who got a good job with no school beyond college. The ones who did end up getting good jobs after high school basically had to work hard for the same time period or longer to get there.

I'd echo BR's comments here. There are two issues though:

1) Certain degrees don't have a lot of real world work place value, if you're trying to make a living.
2) Yeap, college costs are off the charts.

There is a third issue, most degrees only get you entry level jobs which could be done by anyone.

[
Progressiveness is generally... .

Well the concept of "progressiveness" can be measured in myriad ways using various indexes, formulas, etc. Average Joes usually use marginal federal income taxes in conversation, but if you want to get more technical have at it.

I looked for a time series of one of these indexes (Suits Index?) over time but could not find. I want one that includes ALL taxes, not just income taxes. Obviously property taxes are like a flat tax. Sales taxes are generally considered regressive.

There is a third issue, most degrees only get you entry level jobs which could be done by anyone.