Purple monkey washing machine!
Think this might be a function of the ever widening wealth disparity?
If the wealthiest 10% earn and own a higher percentage of the country’s wealth than ever before, I would expect them to pay a higher percentage of the overall tax bill than ever before. Or, should the poor continue to pay their “fair share” even though they own less and less of the overall wealth (on a % basis) than they used to?
You can’t opt out. If you are going to pay income tax at the end of the year you need to withhold some reasonable percentage of that.
Let’s hold you to that when you try and raid SS to pay down the deficit.
So in other words, you’re too stupid or trollish to address my actual point, so you spout bullshit insults instead. Nice. Keep fuckin’ that chicken.
It’s unarguable that if you base the idea of fairness on “proportion of raw dollars”, a flat tax is most fair. It’s equally unarguable that if you base the idea of fairness on “average marginal value of a dollar”, a highly progressive tax is most fair. Do you have something to add beyond idiocy? Perhaps a defense of your preferred value judgement?
The OP says “taxes”, not “income taxes”.
In more than one previous thread, the right-wingers at SDMB used the increasing share of taxes paid by the super-rich as evidence against tax policy-induced inequality!! One might be tempted to start a BBQ Pit thread to train them on simple math; however (a) they have even bigger blind spots than this and (b) right-wingers are the very paradigm of the Dunning-Kruger Effect – they don’t need any teaching because they already know the correct answers! 
While I’m posting,
I also post snark sometimes, as an attempt at humor, or in hope that strong words help convey meaning, or, usually, both. But what was this, emacknight? It seems like a parody caricature of a particularly bitter and ignorant right-wing redneck. I do hope you at least got a laugh writing it.
How about a BBQ Pit thread on current events?
What was that one old saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?
You mean like cutting income taxes and expecting the deficit to go down?
No, I was thinking spending more was causing the deficit to go up.
So when was the last time your fantasy tax policy worked as expected:
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm
“Incidentally, the claim that unrealistic supply side Reagan Administration revenue projections caused large budget deficits during the 1980s is false. Nonetheless, this false allegation is often used against current tax reform proposals. …The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich.”
Are you saying nobody foresaw that the Bush tax cuts would increase the deficit?
If my options are to earn so little as to not pay taxes or to pay more than my fair share, I will take the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed.
At least someone is admitting to “more than my fair share.”
You do realize that quoting a Republican economist’s take on Reagan Tax Cuts is hardly a neutral position?
And I agree that Reagan helped drive up the National Debt, if that’s what you’re trying to claim.
Your mistake is assuming he’s trying to claim ANYTHING. Imagine Diogenes talking about anything involving teens and sex, or Der Trihs talking about abortion politics. Now imagine hitting them in the head with a sledgehammer. Now imagine the result talking about conservative politics. That’s Nadir.
If you watch upthread, it’s quite charming how he ignores everything, including the context of a larger post, if it helps him spooge another talking point on to the thread.
When was the last time you saw anybody take a “neutral” position on a political topic, here or elsewhere?
Yeah, if the economy is growing anyway, letting the growth flow to a privileged class of already rich will increase the amount and share of the economy in the hands of the rich. This will tend to increase the share of tax payments paid by “the rich” because so much less income, & taxable income, will be in the hands of the rest of the populace.
So not the point. We shouldn’t be taxing the wealthiest just to make ourselves feel more beholden to the wealthiest than to the masses. We should be taxing the wealthiest to deflate overinflated sectors of the economy.
I’m not sure what the point of that quote was, Nadir. Are you angry at Reagan for increasing “the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich”? 'Cos I kind of am, too. I’m angry at Reagan for increasing the amount and share of taxable income collected by the rich, see. But then, my problem is with Reaganomics; I don’t know what you’re on about.
Do you think the executives of the Coca Cola Corporation extolling the virtues of New Coke is something worth listening to?
The top 400 richest people have the wealth equal to the bottom 125 million Americans. Can you figure out why they would pay a lot of the total amount of taxes?
They have all the fucking money,Tthat is why. The poor are scrambling to eat and keep a roof over their heads. The rich have the money of the robber barons of the Guilded Age. Our wealth concentration is obscene, unAmerican and its continuation will result in big trouble.
Don’t you believe there may be some reason for that other than your economic perceptions of inequality?
Hey look, I’m a poor person: “Waaa, waa, waa. I’m hungry and have roofing issues. Give me some money. Give me some of the rich people’s money. I demand it! It’s not fair!”
Class warfare rhetoric bullshit. Grow up. Get a job. Save your money.