Texas Proud said:What others were trying to say (and I am not anywhere near a fan of this argument) is that because of the US system, your hard work can pay off handsomely and THAT is why you should pay more taxes.... to support that system....
That is not how I've been understanding the argument. I've understood it as the rich benefit more from the government's resources so they should be made to pay for more of those resources.
well what texas proud said is close to the point i was making and it appears that it was in response to my posts that people felt the need to defend that they had been solely responsible for their own success because either they hadnt gotten any direct financial help from the government or had just taken advantage of government programs/subsidies that were available to everyone. that defense was led using the example of state schools and progressed to people taking full credit for their own success due to their own hard work and good decision making. but it showed their apparent total blindness to how much their income depends on them living in this great country whether or not they got some sort of payment from the government.
i made the assertion that their (everyones) income IS a benefit of living in this country (or whatever country they live in). given that assertion is true it follows that people who have a higher income have received a higher benefit and should therefore have a greater responsibility to pay for the continued operation of this country (whether this operation includes every thing it includes now or is changed. i was not talking about how the tax dollars were to be spent, just collected).
i also pointed out that the value of the last dollar earned/spent is less to a person who has a high income/wealth when compared to someone with a lower income/wealth so therefore high income people were paying their taxes with less valuable dollars than their lower income counterparts. this implies that the higher income people are in a position to pay taxes at a higher tax rate while not giving up any more value/utility than the lower income people give up when they pay their taxes albeit at a lower rate.
these two points easily and logically lead to an income tax code that has higher marginal tax rates on higher levels of income and i was saying that i think more of these "higher marginal tax rates" are appropriate on even higher levels of income than are in the current code since we are in such great debt and need more revenue.