I was simply addressing your malformed analogy of the family.

Wrong. Because I CHOSE to have children, and this is the natural consequence.

NOT because "I make more" than them. And how do people magically "make more" than others? By working harder, by saving money, by making years and years of tough choices. As a reward for this, you say they "should be taxed more." Why? WHY should they "be taxed more" than somone who does the bare minimum? Why would we reward laziness and punish hard work? That is a terrible idea! Think of what the outcome of that would be.

As children we earn an allowance. As adults we earn a paycheck. The harder we work, the more we do and the better we do, the more we earn. That is the system and it makes good logical sense.

I explained it.

That is the system throughout middle class, and upper middle class. But past a certain income point, it becomes not only possible, but self-beneficial, to play money games purely at the expense of others. This involves no additional work, no harder work, and no improved quality of output. We may debate where to draw that line (and for what it's worth I'd be willing to bet the line is far, far higher than the income of you or anyone you know,) but at some income level it becomes inevitable that individuals will use their wealth against other individuals in the same way that a company creates a monopoly against other companies. Additional taxes on income above that level is the moral equivalent of breaking up the Bells, and will not cause anyone to work less than they were already working.

You didn't do a good job of adressing the topic at hand. Here is how you could have done it:

Yet when I hear "wealthy people...should be taxed more" with no qualifying statements as to what that means, I think of a man who may have been working two jobs to support his family, but instead opted to cut some expenses and find a way to go to night school to get a degree, get a better job, and maybe, through years of applying good work ethic, save up enough money to make a few investments beyond college and retirement savings, and aquire some wealth. Nobody handed him that wealth, he fought for it tooth and nail. Maybe he looks now to the financial security of the future generations of his family. He has the right to do that.

Should we simply look at this "rich greedy bastard" who maybe drives a fancier car than us, lives in a very large house, and say "You have too much, we're taking some of that"??? That isn't right. That isn't ethical.

I think of someone who recieved a quality public school education, recieved a Pell Grant, or a low-interest government loan, went to a state college, started his business with help from the Small Business Administration, or took over his father's business. He certainly benefitted from having a government which he may not have contributed largely to as he accumulated his wealth. Now, if our society wants to maintain our education system, infrastructure, safety system, etc., the wealthy are the only ones who can support it. Asking the middle class to contribute more, or get less, is like trying to get blood from a stone.

Having sat across the table with an SBA representative, I can assure you this is fantasy.

I think of super rich. People who are so rich, you have no idea. They didn't "work" for their money. Their money worked for them. Look at the chart at this wikipedia link.
I'll put it in a low quality jpg below.

Most of us are on that little green line way down near the bottom. Flint is talking about the "rich" guy on the red line a bit higher up. Here on the Cellar, that guy is Merc. Holds a few jobs and has a lot of toys. Way above that are all the people on the blue line who are so fucking high up there, you can't even see them. They look down at us ants walking around and they think we really are ants. They respect us as much. They don't pay taxes. They own the politicians. They run the world. You talk about class warfare like it's a bad thing. These guys know nothing but class warfare and they are so good at it they have all of us lines down here at the bottom fighting each other over table scraps, and we don't even realize they are up there.

Be that as it may, I'll be goddamned if Spex and his ilk are going to give away MY table scraps.

Oh, they're table scraps now? I thought it was

Which is it? :eyebrow:

Context.

Of course there are some people who started with nothing and with tremendous work ethic, knowledge of how the world works, and luck have become extremely successful. These people are in the minority. There are also people that were born into mind boggling wealth and have not had to work a full day in their life and can still get richer. These people are also in the minority. Most people got into either the rich or super rich category by hard work, knowing (or being advised) how to play the system, and taking advantage of the social status they were born into. They deserve what they have but it must also be noted that they had a clear advantage over many people who were born into a lower class than them.

Taxing the rich can bring a lot of money into the state and pay for different programs or possibly prevent using up too many red pens on state and federal budgets. Is taxing the rich a better solution than cutting different programs and spending less? It depends on the situation. If the situation calls for less spending, then do it. It is "unfair" to the people who are losing assistance but that is reality. If the situation calls for higher taxes, possibly to the rich, then do it. It is "unfair" to those people getting taxed but that is reality.

When it comes down to it, everything about economic redistribution and class is unfair. It is unfair to the lower class that they, besides a few exceptions, don't have all the options that richer people have to become successful. It is unfair that the upper class have to take more of the tax burden because they, much more often than not, had strong work ethic and was able to play the system. There is no perfect ethical solution so I would much rather see solutions based from practicality as opposed to ethics.

I'm guessing a lot of the arguing comes down to the following question. What makes someone successful? Hard work, successfully playing the system, environment someone was born into, some other factor, or any combination of the above?

See, I don't picture that guy at all. I picture the blue line guys that glatt is talking about. And I think it's very possible to set this hypothetical "extra tax" bar high enough--say, an income of $1 million per year--that we could easily deal with every current budget crisis, and then some, and still not hurt anyone who has worked their ass off to be where they are. The problem is that the blue line guys have convinced the red line guys that they are "wealthy" too, and that everyone is coming after them. The red liners need to realize that they are right next to the green liners, and that no one is even suggesting taking their money.

an income of $1 million per year

There won't be any revenues to tax, as all investment will immediately go overseas.

Not if overseas investments have domestic taxes added to them as well...? *shrug* IANATaxLawyer. But most of Europe has a significantly higher tax base than we have, and somehow they manage it without imploding. I'm certain it could be done, if people could be convinced to ever vote for such a thing.

I'm convinced. Although I don't consider a million a year to be wealthy, those are blue line bottom feeders. Not krill, but not swordfish either.