Post #2752734

I'm getting tired of billionaires (and others) saying that it "won't help" to tax them. Certainly minor tax increases on the high earners won't solve all budget problems, but it is demonstrable that a major contributor to the rapidly increasing debt is the multiple tax breaks given the high earners (and corporations) since Reagan. And there is no data (that I've seen) that shows there was any benefit to society for having done so. So. How about we start rolling back those tax breaks by, yes, raising taxes? On the highest earners first and then further down the chain until we get back to that balanced budget we had. And let's just see what happens? Every time I see this "it won't help; it's class warfare" argument, I'm reminded of a forum where a poster was complaining that he had to send a check to the IRS for $1M. Can you imagine? Well, not knowing the particulars, what I imagine is that he "earned" over $3M that year to lead to that bill (probably a lot more than that). So he wanted me (and others) to feel badly for him that he had to make do with "only" $2M of pocket money that year. And, I'm sorry, I just don't feel badly about that. I've also been blessed with higher than average income over my career (and not playing the billionaire capital market games) and I'm quite ok that my taxes - and marginal tax rate - is higher than average. It's ok that my last dollar yields less to me than my first one; I'm not going to be hurting. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/jeff-bezos-taxes-mamdani-billionaires-rcna346090