Equitable taxation?
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Just a quick thought if you'll indulge me. I read this article on Slate in which the author writes of complacency regarding the election. At the end he listed a bunch of things that "democrats can't say" without fear of serious repercussions. Many of them were in jest but still made you think. Amongst those items listed was this one.

"It's not enough that the top 5 percent pays 55 percent of our taxes. Why not 75 percent? Believe me, they can afford it!"



This made me think. I'm not sure what current statistics are like but I've heard over the last couple years a few different ranges of wealth distribution in the United States. Generally they figure to be that the top 8-10% of the population has between 70-80% of the wealth. Now that's not just annual income, that is home ownership, assets, income, etc. Just in terms of income it skews even further. But that does not really matter, what I am getting at is that a very small percentage of people control a large majority of the wealth.

So if some group of people are taking 75% of the pie on the backs of the rest, who are getting shafted on a day-to-day basis, why shouldn't they have to pay for their share?

It seems to me that the folks getting the 75% chunk and only paying 55% of the tax are getting a pretty good deal compared to everyone else (25% of the pie and 45% of the tax).

Am I grossly misunderstanding something here? If I am, please help me understand.

richter
I am a designer and web developer, a student of many things. Music, art, writing, you name it I will probably try it and probably do it pretty well. I graduated, with honors, in June 2007 from the Art Institutes International Minnesota with my Bachelor's degree in Interactive Media Design. I am now just going to move on into my career and continue to learn new things and hopefully pass what I have learned on to others.




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