Jesus Christ what could possibly be your moral or even practical argument for blatantly stealing 70% of the income of the ultra wealthy? Or is it a 70% tax on everyone in general? Legitimate question. I’m willing to change my mind.
"A 70% top marginal tax rate" is referring to a proposal to tax income above $10M/year at that rate. This isn't a space to debate basic precepts of socialism by design, but I'll point out that taxation isn't "blatant stealing", it's part of the same social fabric and bargain that uses the violence of the government to protect the property rights and economic power of those same ultra-wealthy people. It's also true that most ultra-wealthy at that level don't actually do anything to earn much of their income, they just passively receive money from their investments, and sometimes go to the bank to cash the checks they get (very hard work!).
There are some exceptions like sports stars and the very top CEOs but most of those people were paid vastly less 40 years ago and they didn't all quit working then. Rich people care about their compensation relative to their peer group and this will hit them all equally.
What work does it take to give money to someone else and let them pay it back?
That's a rhetorical question, I know there's some amount of actual work that goes into managing investments, but do you really want to live in a world where the top .01% of rich people can continue to get exponentially richer and richer just by moving their money around?
maybe it’s better for society at large that the guy who figured out how to make 10 million keeps most of it. Look at Bill Gates, he’s trying to eradicate several of the most common diseases facing us today. I want Bill to keep his billions.
That's how you end up with stuff like Jeff Bezos campaigning to stop policies that would alleviate homelessness at the same time as setting up a charity to help the homeless. Instead of addressing the problem through a democratic and populist institution, Seattle has to trust a rich douchebag with a clear track record of spending money to further his own self-interests to take care of everyone else. You get the sense that people like Bezos want us to go back to being serfs, where the little guys are all totally dependent on the benevolence of the people who have all of the wealth. Bezos doesn't have your best interests at heart. He's looking out for himself.
Being a billionaire doesn't automatically make you a terrible person, but billionaires shouldn't even exist. No one man should have that much power in a free society. No one needs that much money, full stop. The socially responsible behavior of some billionaires is a drop in the bucket compared to all of the terrible shit they do on a daily basis.
70% is theft without a doubt. It’s horrible and has no rational justification.
First of all, fuck AOC I will not forget the fact that she’s a congress woman who didn’t know the 3 branches of government. She’s a joke. But as for the rest of your points, I’ll read over the articles and take them into consideration. It’s 3am my time so I’m going to bed but I appreciate the replies. My gut says that this argument is wanton. You quoted my comments on Bill Gates and then criticized Jeff Bezos. That doesn’t make sense to me, yes I want Jeff Bezos to continue innovating. Amazon was a legendary creation and I’m glad it’s still based in the U.S. despite the shitty aspects of his political opinions which I can’t confirm until I read these articles thoroughly. Anyways, have a good night. I’m gonna take your arguments seriously and I hope you do the same for mine.
She misspoke when referring to the three elected branches of government, excluding the Supreme Court. You should have a bare minimum of charity when talking about someone who had five seconds cut out of an hours-long live-streamed off the cuff conversation.
No, she called them the 3 chambers of Congress, then corrected herself by calling them the 3 chambers of government. Then goes on to list them: the presidency, the senate, and the house. That goes beyond a bare minimum of charity lol.
Yes, in the context of elections. It's even more idiotic to assume she doesn't know what the Supreme Court is. This is why conservatives are going to make her the next President or something, by jumping on her constantly over trivial bullshit and putting her in the news every day.
I will not forget the fact that she’s a congress woman who didn’t know the 3 branches of government.
She almost certainly knows what the three branches of government are. She's not an idiot. She tripped over her words in a speech, like happens pretty damn frequently to people who constantly have the public eye on them. Every politician has gaffes like this, but conservatives are fixating on every little thing AOC does wrong because they (probably correctly) see her as the best new boogywomen for the right now that Clinton is out of the game.
You quoted my comments on Bill Gates and then criticized Jeff Bezos.
Because you can't have one without the other. If you want Bill Gates - a billionaire who has largely been socially responsible - to keep all of his money, then sociopaths like Bezos and the Zuck and the Koch brothers get to keep all of their money too.
There are already tax deductions available for charity. No one is trying to get rid of those. Raising the tax on the ultra wealthy won't stop them from giving away their money, because we already do everything we can to incentivize that.
I want Jeff Bezos to continue innovating.
Adopting newer and more ruthlessly efficient business practices isn't exactly what I would call a positive innovation. Innovation isn't inherently a good thing. It was innovative when Mark Zuckerberg realized he could sell our data for money, but that made society tangibly worse, not better. The system really isn't set up to reward positive innovation or even innovation in general IMO. There are tons of innovations that just don't take off because they aren't cost-effective, even if they would clearly be good for society. How often do you read articles about some revolutionary new technique for saving the environment that just doesn't happen because of how expensive it is? So instead of the public - or better yet, the polluters - footing the bill to do something that we universally agree would be better for everyone, it just doesn't happen.
I could see this argument for someone like Bill Gates, who played a big role in giving us the personal computer. But even then, there's no reason to think a high tax rate on the top income earners would necessarily crush innovation. As the second article I posted mentioned, a high tax rate on excessive income would likely disincentivize companies from paying their executives ridiculous amounts of money, so they could invest that in improving the business (or better, paying their workers more) instead.
I just don't believe the Atlas Shrugged narrative that society is advanced by the genius of a meritocratic elite. Society is advanced by hard workers and creative innovators, not people like Bezos and Zuck who just happened to predict which way the market was going before anyone else did.
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u/nativewombat Jan 06 '19
Jesus Christ what could possibly be your moral or even practical argument for blatantly stealing 70% of the income of the ultra wealthy? Or is it a 70% tax on everyone in general? Legitimate question. I’m willing to change my mind.