I am surprised at the expectation level for the administration's first year. IE "A spring 2009 redistribution check WILL show up in my mailbox."

We do not tax the rich, only those working Americans with large earnings.

With the repeal of 401K deferment and the cost of energy after the imposition of carbon emissions taxes every American will be hit dramatically by increased taxes.

The dirty little secret that we don't tell our children is that if you(or are partnered with someone who does) creates, develops or distributes something of value to the public at large you will be payed. If you aren't so inclined, well you can still take a job, and make a nice living with something to set aside for another day. The choice is ours. My personal view, that I hold only myself to, is that to just take a job is to enslave myself to others.

Being in the minority and being on the wrong side of this issue are not the same thing.

In politics they are.

Barack Obama is on the right side of the redistributionist issue while John McCain and Joe the Plumber are in the minority

Being in the minority and being on the wrong side of this issue are not the same thing.

No economic activity is worth 3500 times that of the least valued activity with out the system being gamed. period.

Actually any activity is infinitely more valued than nothing

This whole argument is just a lot of words to say that many think the world owes them a living.

No economic activity is worth 3500 times that of the least valued activity with out the system being gamed. period.

Why not? Certainly, 3500 more people get value out of, say, watching Peyton Manning play than, say, the dude yelling "Bud Lite! Get your Bud Lite! at the stadium."

I support proportionality in paying taxes, in the sense that I don't support paying for government through a head tax. Someone making $250,000 a year is going to pay more tax than someone making $25,000 a year regardless of how you slice it.

If you do a flat tax, it'll be proportionate. If you do a flat tax with a standard deduction, it'll be slightly less so. If, conversely, you do it through a consumption tax, it could be vastly more so, since the rich may consume disproportionately more than they earn.

Smith's advocating a consumption tax that will necessarily fall more heavily on the rich, or at least those who spend more.

Actually James, Smith proposed "Ground Rents" which are property tax not consumption tax. And with the top 5% owning something on the order of 90% I would be all for this.

But Sam is right, you say you can go along with the underlying principal of those with more paying a bit more proportionally yet you quibble with a progressive income tax on some kind of moral ground. To be sure income is not an exact proxy for the amount of property one owns, it is often correlated.

The income tax does have arbitrary levels but any tax would other then simply whacking up the bill for government and splitting the check. But then every man woman and child would owe something like
15K each. I find your support of Adam Smith in principal and your denunciation of a progressive income tax as punitive contradictory.

One more thing, the argument over the income tax misses one gigantic point which is why do we have an economy where a few people can get so unimaginatively wealthy, but produces so few jobs offering incomes that can't even meet the lower levels to pay income tax? Seems to me that there is something structurally wrong with the system. The reward to some activities are over rewarded to the the extrema where some kinds of work are devalued arbitrarily.

No economic activity is worth 3500 times that of the least valued activity with out the system being gamed. period.

That's far different, though, than choosing an arbitrary earnings level and levying a punitive tax rate on it.

Aye, James, but it's the principle underlying the quote that's the main thing. You and Smith would prefer that it be instantiated one way, I perhaps another--but the principle remains.

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Smith's advocating a consumption tax that will necessarily fall more heavily on the rich, or at least those who spend more. Specifically, in that passage, he is saying that taxing rents will fall disproportionately on those in opulent housing but that this is fine. And, indeed, that would be precisely the type of taxation scheme I'd prefer.

That's far different, though, than choosing an arbitrary earnings level and levying a punitive tax rate on it.

List his accomplishments, Anjin. I dare you.

Well, he has helped expose you as a ranting lunatic. Not a very high bar to clear, I will stipulate...