And this is “dangerous” how?
Aren’t we generally supposed to protect the rights of a minority from the tyranny of the majority?
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Show me where the Constitution says that.
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Somehow, we’ve always managed to square that principle with the concept of progressive income taxation. In fact, I believe FDR once said publicly that no American should be allowed to have an after-tax income above a certain level, and nobody publicly disagreed.
In some issues the average political opinion in the U.S. has changed enough over the past twenty (and, even more, the past forty) years that our definition of what liberal and conservative is has changed. This is clearest in sexual behavior issues and civil rights issues. If you asked any of the following questions forty years ago, you would have gotten many more of them answered “No” and many less answered “Yes.”
Do you approve of birth control?
Do you approve of unmarried couples living together?
Should homosexuality be legal?
Should there be sex education in public schools?
Should gay couples be allowed to marry?
Would you live next door to a black family?
Would you vote for a black candidate for President?
Would you vote for a female candidate for President?
Would you vote for a Hispanic candidate for President?
Would you vote for a openly homosexual candidate for President?
Forty years ago, if you had answered “Yes” to most of those questions (indeed, perhaps to any of those questions), you would clearly have been considered liberal. Now many conservatives answer “Yes” to many of these questions. The dividing line between liberal and conservative has changed. The same proportion of people call themselves liberal or conservative, but the definition of those terms are different.
I’ll believe the country is becoming more liberal when you hear an electable politician refer to “socialized medicine” as a positive thing rather than its close relative “universal health care.”
The American people are so incredibly lazy when it comes to academic issues that socialism or any other ism could be proven to be without a doubt the greatest system in the world but the word will never trickle down to the voters, witness global warming and pollution.
It emanates from the penumbra. I’m actually serious about that. The constitution was designed in many ways to protect against the tyranny of the majority.
“Liberal?” You would have been an Adlai Stevenson Communist (no that’s 50 years ago, 40 years ago you would have been a goddamned hippie radical. you know - an outside agitator.
Well, doesn’t it make sense that those who derive the greatest benefit pay the most for it?
Unless they got there by hard work and entreprenuerial spirit, then they get to snort coke off movie stars butts and throw day old cake to the peasants. Can’t let this whole “equality” thing get out of hand.
The income tax was authorized by an amendment. Amendments trump the original text.
Yes, in the commercial marketplace, and nowhere else.
That is a true statement. Got nothing to do with what I said, but it is a true statement.
The relevance is that a steeply progressive income tax, even if it results from a “tyranny of the majority,” is not in any sense unconstitutional. Whether it is fair is a different question.
So I would gather, then, that you believe that banning gay marriage or abortion is not unconstitutional, either, based on this argument?
Or perhaps you consider that something can be “unfair,” without being “unconstitutional.” If so, I would still think that you could understand Sam Stone’s opinion that there is a danger that the majority could tyrannize a minority. Or is it OK for the majority to tyrannize some minorities, but not others?
This ignores the fact that history shows, without any doubt whatsoever, that the higher the income tax on the top bracket, the lower share of total Federal tax liability they pay.
Asking for a sharp increase on the top marginal tax increase is saying, “the middle class should go back to shouldering most of the Federal tax liability” because that is precisely what will happen.
I hear the price of butter in Denmark is fluctuating wildly. 
Whether it can be made to work is also a different question, but, nevertheless: Cite?
I believe neither would be unconstitutional, but not based on that argument. I’m all for abortion rights, but Roe v. Wade was a poorly reasoned decision.
Yes. If America’s rich are heavily taxed, they will remain rich and remain at the top of the socioeconomic pyramid. I see no reason to feel sorry for them.
Progressive taxation that matches the utility curve of the poor vs the rich doesn’t have the defect I’m talking about. For example, if you tax a poor person $1.00 for a program, and a rich person $100.00 for the same thing, then as long as the $1.00 ‘hurts’ the poor person as much as the $100.00 ‘hurts’ the rich person, then they both have a reasonably equal disincentive to match the benefit they get from a program.
It’s also not as big a deal when the beneficiaries of a program are a reasonably small group. Welfare recipients pay no taxes but get great benefit from welfare programs. You can expect a high percentage of them to vote for such programs. But so long as they are a reasonably small percentage of the overall voting population, you don’t have a problem.
But when you get into the area where the vast bulk of the population is voting for benefits to themselves that are paid for by a small minority of people, you have a situation ripe for abuse. The ‘rational’ thing for the majority to do is to vote for an ever-increasing burden on the minority. And you see exactly that dynamic take place in country after country, where marginal tax rates on the rich increase constantly until the rich flee or the economy takes a dive. It takes a crisis to break the cycle, or it takes a visionary leader with great communication skills to stand up and point out to the people that the path they are on is destructive in the long run and to turn the ship around before it hits the rocks.
I think it’s critically important that everyone who votes in a society have some stake in keeping costs down. Everyone should pay some part of the cost of government. It doesn’t have to be a flat tax - so long as the relative pain is reasonably distributed. You need people to have to weigh the costs of new programs against the benefits.
That’s for sure.
It’s not about feeling sorry for them. With that attitude, then what’s the difference if people say, “those people are immoral…I see no reason to feel sorry for them.” The point isn’t that you feel sorry for them, it’s that fairness is fairness, and if you use a principle to protect one group, then it should apply to all groups.