Friday, November 11, 2011

There's Gold In Them Thar Hills!

The notion that the super-rich don't have enough money to tax in order rectify our current imbalances is repeated with tiresome frequency. But few people are saying that taxing the super-rich will eliminate all our problems in an instant. What most advocates for fair taxation are saying is that increasing taxation on the wealthy will begin to change things for the better.

Redistribution of income has been taking place since 1980, when the top 1% already had a large piece of the pie (7%).

Then they took a second piece (7% more).

Then they took a third piece (7% more).

That's over a trillion dollars a year of after-tax income that would be going to the other 99% if it weren't for 30 years of tax cuts and deregulation.

If the median household income had kept pace with the economy since 1970, it would now be nearly $92,000, not $50,000.

Besides which, remember that the end result of all this tax-cutting and other sorts of pandering to the wealthy has been the economic disaster we have now.

2 comments:

Beijing York said...

Monkeys seem to have a better handle on economic justice:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/does-inequality-make-us-unhappy/

thwap said...

I would advise other people to read that link!