The traction control was nice though, you just point the car where you want it to go and hit the gas, regardless of conditions the car gets there. Unless your speed is too high, in which case the car doesn’t under or over steer, it just slides a little to the outside of the turn.

The Buffet example isn’t accurate and isn’t relevant to most people, and the link Da provided even points this out. Nobody pays 41% in income tax. I personally feel the statement is even more wrong than that though, because they count payroll tax as income tax, even though that money is never seen by the employee, even on their paystubs. That is really the employer’s money that they have to pay. Self-employed people are punished by having to pay this additional tax because they are both the employee and the employer.

It is widely argued that the government has never successfully gotten us out of a depression. For example, despite massive government spending the thing that really got us out of the Great Depression was WWII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#World_War_II_and_recovery).

Da’s statement on police/firemen/etc was interesting. Are these being paid for with capital gains taxes? If so, why is the federal government paying for my local law enforcement? And why would my taxes pay for hydroelectric dams? Is the dam selling electricity below cost?

I very much agree with your original “red tape” statement. This red tape comes in many forms, such as requiring employee-only bathroom signs to have braille even if there aren’t any disabled employees or charging $100′s to $1000′s in business taxes/fees regardless of income.

Regardless of everything else, I feel raising capital gains taxes is harmful to the financial health of the country. You have the best chance of making a positive return on your investment if you hold on to it for an extended period of time. You have the best chance of losing money if you buy and sell quickly. Low long-term capital gains taxes encourages individuals to save and invest their money for the future (i.e., retirement). Without adequate retirement money, individuals will have to work until they are physically unable to at which point they will be supported by the labors of the younger generation, which will limit their ability to save for their own retirements.

If the government was serious about reducing unemployment then they would cut the red tape that was preventing emerging technologies from growing faster (overly zealous copyright laws, software patents, geographic broadband monopolies, etc).

Related to this is what you said Joey about job functions being deprecated and completely going away. As technology advances, the new job functions often require a different set of skills. This always leaves a large group of people stuck in the middle of the transition. The government has a bad habit of “fixing” this by subsidizing the old technology, which hinders the growth of the new technology. Sometimes it is less painful to just rip off the bandaid than it is to prolong the agony by propping up business models that are no longer relevant.

Keep in mind that I’m a libertarian. I’m not thrilled with the abuses of the commerce clause, the use of taxing to drive policy (e.g., tax credits for behaviors that the federal government feels like encouraging), or federal welfare programs (e.g., social security, health care, etc). Forcing people to pay taxes that are used on social programs that they don’t agree with seems inherently wrong.

Anyways, that is the end of my ramble..

First, the tax is not on income. The tax is on capital gains. These millionaires are millionaires not because they take home a million dollars a year in salary, but because of investments made on the market, or through hedge funds. These are called capital gains.

Warren Buffet explained it perfectly here; he pays less in taxes because most of his income comes from capital gains. His effective tax rate is %17.4 compared to those that work in his office (ranging between %33 and %41, averaging out to around %36).

Historically, taxes on the super-rich were very high as can be seen here:

They have fallen drastically over the past few decades. Consider also that the boom years of this nation, that is the years with most productivity (the space race, building freeways, etc. etc.) happened during the 50′s, 60′s, and 70′s when the tax on capital gains was much higher. This is how the government paid for the infrastructure that you use and enjoy today.

As far as saying millionaires are crooks or not, that is largely irrelevant to the conversation. This bill isn’t based on any sort of moral foundation; it’s a matter of numbers.

Now your second point about “forcefully taking money from those who create jobs”. How exactly have these people created jobs? The top 1% are corporate lawyers, investment bankers and hedge-fund managers. Not even CEO’s. These people are involved in what is known as speculation (the latter two anyway; the first set works for the latter two). They don’t create anything of value. They bet on the market (essentially gambling) and make money off that. Hence they create absolutely nothing of value to society and they most certainly don’t create any jobs.

This talk about job creation is in of itself paradoxical. You’re claiming that taxing these people will stop creating jobs. Well, we have been hovering around a 9% unemployment rate for quite a while for these past 3 years. The jobs picture is not looking so good, so how exactly are these rich folks creating jobs? If, as the Republicans say, these bills will stop creating jobs, then shouldn’t there be jobs being created right now?

Also your statement that “temporary government jobs where red tape keeps things from happening” is not based on any strong foundation. While it is true that government has efficiencies, investment in infrastructure is what has historically helped this country get out of a depression. Many have said that the United States took longer to get out of the depression; this is true. But what they do not mention is that far more people died in Europe and other countries even though they got out of it quicker. The United States got out of it slowly, but with the benefit that most of the population was employed and not starving.

The standard approach for a recession has been a government stimulus since the private sector cannot be always relied upon to create jobs (especially in a recession when they are strapped for capital). It is interesting to note that in the last 3 years corporations have made a large amount of profit and have largely recovered from the recession and yet they still haven’t made a dent in the unemployment because they simply haven’t hired. Infrastructure projects will employ a large part of the population even if temporarily. This will get money flowing as those who were unemployed start being employed again. This means that they will have money to spend which will increase consumer demand. Another reason for the recession is extremely low consumer demand because people are hanging on to what they have and saving because so many are unemployed.

In conclusion this isn’t theft because in that case everything would be theft. While I am not a fan of government involvement in every facet what you have to realize is that the government does serve an important function. The freeways you use to go to work, the police force you depend on for safety, the firemen you depend on if your house caught on fire, the dams that provide you electricity: all of those are paid for by tax dollars and many of those were created by government funded projects.

To use a blanket statement that “taxing the rich is wrong” is disingenuous; it requires a hard look at the actual facts on the matter.

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