Re: OT: oil profits


"McDuck" <wallyDELETEMEMcDuck@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pv4724d7t584i2l176qbkfvtn2i5qc9ke0@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 8 May 2008 19:11:30 -0400, "BBrain" <widenerb@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


"Allowing" rich people to make more money? Who is it that "allows" this,
the
government? I think your bias towards government controls is showing
through. The only thing the government needs to do is get the hell out of
the way! While I have no issue with a graduated income tax rate, it is
diegenuous to continually claim that the high income earners don't pay
their
fair share. What is a fair share? 20%?, 40%?.


Not the government. We live in a representative democracy. It is the
people who set the rules for their country. I don't think I have a
bias towards government control; I certainly worry about excessive
governnemt power. Still, I do not take the Libertarian, "get out of
the way," view that you seem to take. government has some useful
functions, and one IMHO is to mitigate the increasing inequality in
wealth and income.

I agree, by the way, that there is no magic number for "fair share".
The tax issue for me is to slow down, or even stop if possible, the
gradual increase in inequality of income and wealth in our society.
and I agree that "fair share" is at best a short hand. One does need
to argue for what the fair share might be, and the answer cannot be
simply "more".

I'm probably less Libertarian than I sound. I too believe that there are
necessary functions that only government can perform. However it seems to me
that government at all levels, but particularly at the Federal level has
intruded into more and more areas that are best left to individuals, or at
least more locally organized state and local governments. With this
intrusion comes government funding, and with that comes government controls.
If we could just stop expanding government at such a rapid rate the pressure
for new revenues wouldn't be so intense, and we wouldn't need to raise
anyone's taxes.

And how are these funds acquired? Higher taxes. So it seems we are paying
higher taxes to fund even more programs and with them, more controls. And
how do our political "representatives" sell these higher taxes? They divide
us into groups, then they raise taxes on one group at a time. Since any one
group is a small minority, they have little success in fighting back. The
most popular target right now seems to be the "very wealthy", who are
accused of "not paying their fair share". Who's next?

I do disagree strongly that one role of government is to mitigate the
inequality of wealth and income. And why in the world would you want a
system that tries to obtain this equality by penalizing the most successful
in order to subsidize the least successful? Remember the great experiment
with communism? As I recall, it didn't work out real well. And socialism
isn't lookig that good either. I do agree that government should strive to
create equal opportunity for all, but to punish those who are lucky or make
more of their opportunities than others is self defeating.

Most social scientists and economists agree that tax policies can be used to
influence economic behavior; if you want less of something, tax it, if you
want more of it, lower the taxes or subsidize it. We need to be careful we
don't end up taxing success at very high rates in the name of equality. We
could end up with a lot less of it, then who would be next? My bet is that
the definition of "very wealthy" would be revised downward. Think of the
minimum alternative tax as a good example of how this happens.


.

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