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WaPo: Asking Rich to Help Pay for Health Care Will Hurt the Deficit
Fred Hiatt does not think the rich should have to help fund health care reform:
There is a serious case to be made that the U.S. income tax system should become more progressive. The average rate paid by the top 1 percent of households shrank from 33 percent in 1986 to about 23 percent in 2006. At the same time, the share of adjusted gross income claimed by that highest-earning sliver of American society doubled, from 11 percent to 22 percent. So, in principle, higher taxes for the well-heeled could make sense — as part of a broader rationalization of the unduly complex tax code.
But not in practice! Not for health care reform! Not yet! Not now! We’re not ready yet!
But there is no case to be made for the House Democratic majority’s proposal to fund health-care legislation through an ad hoc income tax surcharge for top-earning households. The new surtax would hit individual households earning $350,000 and above. It would start at 1 percent, bumping up to 1.5 percent at $500,000 in income and to 5.4 percent at $1 million. The new levy would begin in 2011 and is supposed to raise $540 billion over 10 years, about half the projected cost of health-care reform. The rest of the money would come from reduced spending on Medicare and Medicaid — though the surtax for the lower two categories would jump by a percentage point each in 2013 unless the Office of Management and Budget determines that the rest of the bill has saved more than $150 billion.
Plus, the rich are going to have to help pay for deficit reduction, so we can’t ask them to help pay for health care reform! It’s not fair! Wealthy people are not used to having to pay for all this stuff!
The traditional argument against sharp increases in the marginal tax rates of a very narrow band of Americans is that it could distort their economic behavior — most likely by encouraging them to put more of their money into tax shelters as opposed to productive investments. This effect could be greatest in certain states, such as New York, where a higher federal rate would add to already substantial state income taxes. The deeper issue, though, is whether it is wise to pay for a far-reaching new federal social program by tapping a revenue source that would surely need to be tapped if and when Congress and the Obama administration get serious about the long-term federal deficit.
Well, Fred, maybe we can have a little extra taken out of your paycheck for that — I mean, seeing as how you’ve been one of the loudest voices defending deficit spending for the various wars and proxy wars the U.S. has been fighting all over the world for the past eight years. Then again, that was money going into those deep pockets, not coming out.
I love Jon Chait’s retort:
No case? Wow. I think the case is straightforward–we need revenue to fund a dire social need, this revenue would come from those most able to bear a higher burden, would probably entail minimal economic harm, and also happens to be political popular. The Post‘s argument against boils down to its assertion that we shouldn’t be “tapping a revenue source that would surely need to be tapped if and when Congress and the Obama administration get serious about the long-term federal deficit.”
So the Post is arguing that the House is depriving itself of the (politically easiest?) source of revenue for future deficit reduction. If this argument is true, I don’t see how it comes anywhere close to backing up the thesis that there’s “no case” for taxing the rich to pay for health care. Nor do I even think it’s true. You could, as the Post prefers, pay for health reform now with a middle-class tax hike, and pay for deficit reduction later with a tax hike on the rich. But it seems just as easy, if not easier, to do it the other way around. After all, very few Republicans support meaningful health care reform, so if you’re not going to get their votes, you might as well pay for it the way you want. (Republicans in the House are going to oppose health care reform regardless of how it’s paid for.)
On the other hand, some people can stand out in the rain for eight years and still not know why they’re soaking wet.
40 Responses to “WaPo: Asking Rich to Help Pay for Health Care Will Hurt the Deficit”
“Reform” is not the proper word for “buying more of the same.”
if i am having to pay a hefty percent of my hard earned wages to help my fellow Americans afford health care and most all other countries offer their citizens universal health care, hell, why not make the richest of the rich pay their share. the usual answer is that they will not invest and jobs will be lost and the country will go to hell. hmmmm, for the last 20 or so years that the richest have seen their tax rates reduced, i'm not quite sure that their cheerleaders in gov. or elsewhere can honestly say that its made our nation any stronger or better off. if i'm not mistaken, thats why the Republicans lost their seats in congress and why Mccain lost last year. OK–THATS NOT WHY MCCAIN LOST LAST YEAR!!!! but i digress.
Speaking as someone who is far from rich I do have a few thoughts.
1. What exactly is 'rich' these days ? People hear rich and they think of C. Montgomery Burns in his mega mansion, but some of the proposals sound like they could impact what most would consider pretty middle class families (one report I saw indicated that a family of four making over $ 50k a year might well qualify as 'rich' under the new tax laws).
2. If taxing the rich is the solution, why not just take it all away from them ? How much is too much ?
Just some thoughts for discussion and debate.
1. Well, rich for the purposes of this discussion (i.e., the surtax on the rich to help pay for health care) is over $350,000 a year.
2. I don't follow the logic of your question. “How much is too much” is obviously a question for public discussion, but I don't see why the concept of requiring people who have more to give more would lead one to ask why they would not be required to give everything.
That's strange Patrick because the report I've seen over and over indicates 'rich' would be a family of two making over $250,000 a year under the new tax laws.
Your argument sounds exactly like the claims regarding the Obama Tax Plan tossed out (and disproved over and over again) during the Presidential Campaign last year.
However if you'll provide a link to your report… I'll provide you with one to the only recent one I could find.
Oh what the hell… I'll show you mine first:
Well first off DQ, I did not ask how much was too much in terms of money but how much was too much in terms of taking it away from people. You've made your view pretty clear on that topic (IE take it all).
Now as to who would pay, the $ 350,000 figure is one bracket that would pay (the 5.4% surtax) but they are hardly the only ones impacted.
For example the issue of how much a small business would be taxed is still up in the air, with some people saying the tax should apply to all Schedule C businesses. So if you're self employed and make any amount of money they could come after you.
Certainly we need health care reform, and I do understand the concept of going to those who have higher incomes first. But if we tax the rich 5% extra for health care and then a little more for deficit reduction and then a little more for programs X, Y and Z, we are eventually going to run out of percents to add on.
That was the point of my 'how much is too much'. Is 100% tax over a certain amount of income ok ?
Also I do have concerns about the attitude of people on this (IE, is it you want to tax the wealthier taxpayers because they can afford it or just because you hate anyone who makes more money than you make).
And of course I also wonder if the proposed tax will really pay for the services or if we will see the tax expanded to more people in the near future.
Again, I probably make less money than most on this site, so I'm not impacted by the taxes, at least not yet.
What civic responsibility do the rich have to provide for the poor? As I see it, the wealthy should not be required to provide for the poor, because it would be inequitable to force someone to pay their own income, whether earned income or unearned income, to support others. There is no legal responsibility to do so, nor should there be. The only obligation should remain that of conscience, else it would be inequitable to the wealthy.
As to the argument that the poor are treated inequitably, my response simply is that inequitable outcomes are guaranteed unless one adopts, wholesale, Marx's theory. Given that that is not only impossible and impracticable, but immoral (as everyone should have the right to what they earn, at the very least), inequitable results are not something that society should be taking into account. So long as the process is equitable, and everyone has the opportunity to do what they can with their skills, then the results are acceptable, even if there is income inequality that makes the likes of Zimbabwe look equal.
Patrick, I'm not looking for 'dueling links' either. I'd just like to see a report (written after 1955) that says that “a family of four making over $ 50k a year might well qualify as 'rich' under the new tax laws“.
You referenced the report as a basis for your position and it just seems like such a stretch… Please prove me wrong.
Well Steve, the HP link shows that ANYONE who does not sign up for health insurance has to pay a 2.5% surtax on their income, that would seem to include the family of 4, along with anyone else at any income level.
PJBfan,
It's not about the rich providing for the poor. That is not what's at issue here at all.
It's about the rich helping to pay to reform a health care system that leaves 50 million Americans uninsured and raises health care costs as well as other directly related social and economic costs for everyone. It's not like wealthy Americans are being asked to shoulder the entire cost of health care reform. The proposed surtax will cover about half of the cost. I think it's reasonable to ask Americans who make half a million dollars a year, or over a million, or over two million dollars a year, to pay a surtax that middle-class, working-class, and poor Americans are not being asked to pay because they don't make that kind of money.
Debt is capitalism’s dirty little secret
the inflation-adjusted income of the highest-paid fifth of US earners has risen by 60 per cent since 1970,b>
And that's a load of crock, a far more accurate statement would be:
the inflation-adjusted income of the highest-paid .5% of US earners has risen by 45 per cent since 1970, the rest was shared by the highest 19.5%
“asking” the rich to “help” is a euphemism for raising their taxes of course, but overall I don't think the amount of increase will be so high as to significantly change their behavior or hurt the deficit. I do think if there is a going to be a huge new program then everyone should contribute, otherwise you perpetuate the “getting something for nothing” mindset so prevalent today.
My main financial criticism of the plan isn't the tax on the rich, it's that I don't expect the numbers to add up down the road. I don't believe the government will make Medicare and Medicaid $500 billion more efficient. If they could do that they would have done it already. I also doubt just taxing the rich will be enough to make up the shortfall. Eventually we will need higher Medicare or income taxes across the board.
Well yeah, the plutocrats can whine longer, louder, and better because they have power and access… but it's still whining. In my view, those who are able to become wealthy because they live in a country that provides them with the resources, infrastructure, an educated labor force, laws to protect them, and consumers to buy their products and services, should logically and morally have the responsibility to give more back in turn. Seems to me that's a pretty basic tenet of a civilized western country. The failure to acknowledge that responsibility only results in widening income disparity, shrinking of the middle class, disenfranchisement, and carried to it's extreme, a return to the feudal system… which I believe was not one of the dreams of the founding fathers.
requiring people who have more to give more
Sounds too much like, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…” . I believe that is what rankles people about this proposal.
Don, those income disparity statistics are fun to throw around in a fit of outrage, but they beg some important questions.
The first is what they're really measuring. Stats based on census figures tend to compare top and bottom quintiles of households rather than individuals. The top turns out to have many more people and more wage earners than the bottom. Their definition of income also focuses just on earned income and excludes the better part of a trillion dollars of subsidies the poor receive in cash or services. Correct those factors and the gap narrows considerably.
The second question is what the real source of the gap is. One factor is that the top works harder–a working-age adult in the top quintile works about twice as many hours as one in the bottom. Another is wages per hour, because the top is better educated and more productive. Unskilled labor is not worth what it used to be, but that's a result of technological progress, not the evils of capitalism.
In my view, those who are able to become wealthy because they live in a country that provides them with the resources, infrastructure, an educated labor force, laws to protect them, and consumers to buy their products and services, should logically and morally have the responsibility to give more back in turn.
I would guess most people agree with you, since we already have a graduated tax system and have had for many years. The issue isn't whether the rich should pay more, it's how much more should they pay.
And the term “give back” is another euphemism for taxing people.
I probably shouldn't even debate this right now. My nephew is in ICU after an accident. He lost his job in the crash and without income, couldn't afford COBRA. He's screwed financially. This system is a heartless disaster that hurts and kills people. My niece went a month without treatment for something that should have been handled promptly. Why? The insurance company tried every trick in the book to deny payment, then delayed appeals and generally pressed for the patient to give up. Screw them. I hope the insurance industry dies!
Now as for “What civic responsibility do the rich have to provide for the poor?” What crap. Because I'm an entrepreneur with a small company, I don't have employer-paid insurance. That means I subsidize YOU, PBJ and PWT. I subsidize health care for everyone with tax-deductible insurance, plus everyone on Medicare, Medicaid, veterans, military and employees of government at every level. How dare anyone characterize our current system as “fair” and shriek about “Marxism” if we talk about EVERYONE getting a benefit that EVERYONE pays for?!
GD: The problem is that your nephew didn't shop around for the best ICU deals. The Free Market solves all our problems if you just give it time to work.
“In my view, those who are able to become wealthy because they live in a country that provides them with the resources, infrastructure, an educated labor force, laws to protect them, and consumers to buy their products and services, should logically and morally have the responsibility to give more back in turn. Seems to me that's a pretty basic tenet of a civilized western country.”
Exactly!! No one does anything alone in this country.
As DG wrote, the question is, what is fair?
GD, I hope that everything will be okay with your nephew. This is the hard reality, and although people need to hear it, I know you must be going through a very difficult time right now. You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.
Wrong, as always. I run my own business and pay for the insurance for myself and also for my two full time employees. You don't subsidize anything. I work and I pay for myself – everyone should do the same.
Nobody gives a crap about illegal aliens. If they subsidize the rich, good; if they don't like it, they are certainly free to go back to whatever rat-hole country that they came from.
Though sad, your story about your nephew sounds implausible.
“”Reform” is not the proper word for “buying more of the same.”"
It's part also of another fact of life, that Kathy and the like may neglect in their desire to neurotically find fault with Republicans and other mythical monsters (and scapegoats…), but as wiser people now well,
“Change” and all that word (truly) means is not the same thing at all, and never implies, _improvement_.
Look before you leap (and stop your childish agitation), kids.
“He lost his job in the crash and without income, couldn't afford COBRA. He's screwed financially.”
I've had a life-shortening illness since sometime in childhood, diagnosed thirty years ago. I've lived all over the USA and traveled all over it and the rest of North America, and am fully versed in the fine ways of health insurance, especially individual insurance with pre-existing conditions. In one state most insurers laughed at me and I ended up (in the mid-1990s) paying $750 a month (with everything possibly involved with my illness excluded, of course) from the one insurer who would take me, and elsewhere I've managed to avoid the high-risk pool (AIDS, cancer), but still pay about $350 a month, same as COBRA.
Those without jobs should probably be qualifying already for government health care of some kind.
Lefties need to start growing up and becoming rational, and if they wish to have government health care, ditch the stupid illusions and grand dreams of what they believe it will mean and realize that our current set of problems will be exchanged for others (Medicare and Medicaid have problems, and their patients are rejected by many health care providers because the programs don't pay enough and have other problems), and that the need to pay for any new public health care should be addressed in a mature and an intelligent manner, not typical leftist class envy and silly gimmickry accompanied by insufficient work being done on the real issues (not to mention taking the initiative to improve Medicaid and Medicare).
“In my view, those who are able to become wealthy because they live in a country that provides them with the resources, infrastructure, an educated labor force, laws to protect them, and consumers to buy their products and services, should logically and morally have the responsibility to give more back in turn.”
This is a logically and morally defective rationalization for the application of the ability-to-pay principle (whose only rationale and support lies on utilitarian grounds), so often dishonestly called “fairness” by the Left.
Please grow up and get real and be honest. How should we pay for public health care? Simply passing legislation making its funding “mandatory” from general revenues will satisfy leftist retardates as a real “solution,” but it leaves the problem unsolved. Class envy (materialized as surtaxes on income or on wealth, if not merely on assets) isn't just morally defective, but doesn't solve the problem, for it won't pay for everything and isn't justified as part of some scummy lot of various piecemeal gimmicks. Stupid activist sumptuary (“sin”) taxes on fat content of foods, on calories, on the demon high fructose corn syrup, etc., is simply stupid. How do you propose to pay for this? A revision of income taxes (which must encompass enough of the people to provide a large enough base to provide the needed revenue)? A new wealth tax, or similar moral failures like the Conyers-Kucinich tax on stock and bond transactions? (Another gimmick, as well as moral failure, in fact)? A broad-based consumption tax, as I long have anticipated, namely the VAT (superior to a new federal retail sales tax)? An increase in the payroll tax beyond that needed to rescue Social Security and Medicare as they are now, but by an even larger amount to pay for the vast increase in provision conceived? Note that a multiplicity of partial sources by many new taxes is stupid and unnecessarily complicated; ideally one source alone should be employed.
“And the term 'give back' is another euphemism for taxing people.”
It's not only a euphemism, but a cowardly evasion of the unpleasant. (So often, dishonest, too.)
“Give back” [sic] is about at the same low-IQ level as the phrase in the literature printed and distributed to Americans (at our expense) by the Clintons during their health care scandal: “asked to contribute.” (a “fair” contribution in every instance, no doubt, were they to elaborate)
What if I respectfully, intelligent, and morally decline to “contribute” [sic] my “fair share” [sic] as I “ought” [sic]?
What if I respectfully, intelligent, and morally (blah blah blah) ~ DLS
That particular “what if” hasn't shown much sign of leaving the world of the hypothetical yet.
I don't agree, JSpencer. If the government requires you to contribute, it's no longer a contribution in the traditional sense, it's a tax. If the government forces you to “give” against your wishes, you're no longer giving but instead something is being taken from you.
It's like people pushing for mandatory volunteer work. If it's mandatory it's no longer volunteering.
I'm not a rabid anti-tax proponent, in fact I think if the government were honest they should just raise taxes on everybody right now. But sugarcoating taxes trying to pretend they're something else is dishonest.
You misunderstood. My remarks were confined to the characterization of the three words alone.
Actually, it shows I was typing too quickly, while you continue to exhibit a lack of logic, J. Spencer, as well as other faults (it was instant disqualification when you referred to “plutocrats” earlier, for example).
* * *
“The issue isn't whether the rich should pay more, it's how much more should they pay.”
If we're talking about an income tax (which most are assuming), the rich will have to pay more, because we ordinarily face the real world by granting everyone an exemption, so that everyone is spared taxes on the bare minimum (in theory, at least) that permits a basic living (“basic necessities” is the common, albeit redundant, term). (Note that any consideration of what connotes the poverty level or threshold and the need for more study and likely revision upward from federal levels now is a separate issue.)
But it is obviously false that they _should_ have to pay more, simply because they have more. That is not logical, nor is it morally sound. (In fact, it is unjust, and intentionally progressive taxes are notably unjust.)
A correct income tax has a single rate (the “flat tax”) because anything else morally compromises, in fact, fouls or ruins, the tax. The correct approach, then, is in setting an appropriate exemption level and choosing the tax rate to yield the expected (or hoped-for) revenue level that one needs (or wants). The exemption can be raised to exclude more people from the bottom upward, at the cost of a higher rate that is applied to everyone else. (Note that the result of the exemption and the single rate is a gradually diminishing marginal rate on the taxable income, which is desireable for incentive purposes, and has been recognized at least as far back as the 1940s during the need to raise vast new taxes for the war effort. The ideal theoretical “progressive” tax applied to an income tax with an exemption would be a gradually increasing rate on each additional dollar or other “tax[able] unit” of earnings such that the marginal rate were zero. Anything higher than zero is defective with regard to incentive to earn as well as to morality.)
* * *
“1. What exactly is 'rich' these days ?”
If you mean income, rather than wealth, you can look at percentiles if you can get the latest tables of this, say from the IRS, and approach it in a number of logical ways. My real-world way for years has been to define the low-mid breakpoint (effective poverty level) and the mid-high breakpoint (defining the bottom income level of “the rich”) of annual incomes by corresponding typical values for ordinary, but somewhat desireable (more costly than the minimum) automobiles and houses. That corresponds to real-world poverty (around $20,000 annually or less) as well as a limit of income that still is constrained by the cost of living in so many metro areas, and obviously isn't a “rich” lifestyle ($200,000 annually).
Another method is arbitrary, but straightforward: determine the income percentile corresponding to the poverty level (or what you believe the poverty level should be) and subtract that percentile from 100 to get a “symmetrical” definition of the high income (“rich”) threshold value.
Note, if you're intellectually inclined, that no mathematical function can truly account for all incomes, or automobile prices, or home prices, but that these and other things tend to follow a log-normal distribution (not a normal distribution or classic-appearing “bell curve”). This distribution complicates what you'll be able to find out about income levels and where you can set values corresponding to “rich” or “too much.”
“2. If taxing the rich is the solution, why not just take it all away from them ? How much is too much ?”
The first remark above is where the redistributionists and the overly envy lead, if they are honest.
The answer to your question is manifold, but the basics are pretty obvious. All government should never exceed fifty per cent of income. Anything more than that amounts to a form of slavery; you're no longer working primarily for yourself. (It's a chuckle to wonder if anything above 50% could be struck down as unconstitutional because it violates the 13th Amendment, unless someone else could claim that the rich are “criminal” and thus earn such high taxes as “punishment” — it's a “sin tax” on “excessive” income.)
An absolute limit of fifty per cent is obvious, but we could go deeper intellectually (and provide an basis, in an inverse way, for collectivists to exceed fifty per cent). Use the “golden” or “divine” proportion, which comes naturally no matter what one's intellectual level is, and it's a comfortable _maximum_: 38.2 per cent or just under forty per cent. (Anything above that, in other words, begins to be Too Much. Extreme collectivists could seize on this an invert it and say that anything above 61.8 per cent is Too Much, or even “better,” that anything below fifty per cent or 61.8 per cent is Not Enough for “society's” share.)
One day I sat down and thought about how to engineer a continuous income-redistribution plan, which could be done quickly by bypassing needs for mathematical formulae by just using income percentiles. The idea would be to tax (take from) those above the 50th percentile and use it to subsidize incomes (give to; redistribute the money to) those below the 50th percentile, on a progressive or “sliding” scale, with the maximum tax at 50% at infinity (100th percentile, effectively) and an effective subsidy at 50% at the bottom (zero percentile, though possibly altered by boosting everyone up at least to the poverty level).
” I think if the government were honest they should just raise taxes on everybody right now. But sugarcoating taxes trying to pretend they're something else is dishonest.”
So is the fake immorality by the frequently immoral, that people are “obligated” out of a bogus moral sense, to pay the taxes (for midnight basketball, or a rainforest demonstration project in Iowa? [snicker]). The taxes, like government, are a necessary evil. Advocates have no right to be dishonest about it or mischaracterize or slander those who know better than to fall for the most obvious lies about it.
As for sugar-coating, maybe if the whole idea of “taxes” hadn't been misrepresented as an evil for so many years, folks would be more rational about it and the “honest” approach would be more practical.
We disagree here too although I see your point. Taxes are a necessary evil, but since they are indeed necessary it is not any more appropriate to demonize them than it is to characterize them as “giving back”.
I think the current approach is dishonest especially with regard to the new health plan, since it gives most people the impression they are receiving something for nothing. I don't believe just taxing the uber-rich is enough to support the plan. I mean look at Medicare taxes, they're now are 2.9% on all earnings and Medicare is failing. Logically I don't see where taxing a tiny percentage at the top will fund a new plan. Eventually they will have to increase taxes on everyone.
“We disagree here too although I see your point. Taxes are a necessary evil, but since they are indeed necessary it is not any more appropriate to demonize them than it is to characterize them as “giving back”. “
I'm not demonizing taxes nor government, just noting what they really are, and that we have a need in this current, stupidly-rushed health care “reform” initiative, to honestly address the costs and how we'll pay for them. (Assuming no additional borrowing, which is reasonable, that means what taxes, and how much?)
” I don't believe just taxing the uber-rich is enough to support the plan.”
This is what I address using different words elsewhere, saying that if we have an income tax we need to select an exemption (which excludes some from the base altogether) and a tax rate in a trade-off that is going to affect the exemption primarily because the tax base has to be broad or the revenue just won't be there.
Related to that:
a) A cynical political note — is this going to be another case where an original Obama feel-good “promise” with a high income floor for taxation gets lowered later? (“Surprise,” again!)
b) Rather than stupidly rush into government-health-care incrementalism, why doesn't Team Obama first do something else, particularly when he and other Dems were so badly misbehaved during the Bush years with Social Security, and actually promise and _deliver_ entitlement program reform, to get its finances under control, before expanding the scope of federal entitlements? I realize that's expecting far too much from these people, but it's still modest as well as reasonable and what the public would like.
And here is the answer to those important questions (PDF file)
Translated in plain English, the top 1% made out like bandits and the rest of the population got the short end of the stick.
If you doubt see table 1 in this document
Basically, everyone is worse of than they were in 1979 with the exception of the top 20%, and within that group most of the gains went to the top 5%.
GD, I am sorry to hear about your nephew.
However, to you and to Kathy, that situation illustrates our point. There is no legal obligation, that is a federal right, and nor should there be, to provide healthcare, food, education, or any luxury not provided for in the Federal Constitution. There is merely a moral obligation on behalf of each individual. While I feel badly for those in the situation of your nephew, GD, I do not believe that the Government, nor the taxpayers, should bear the burden of that situation, and nor should the insured. The hospitals, if they are going to treat those who are uninsured, and unable to afford insurance, should be the ones taking the costs over, not an unrelated party. Thus, no, those who are well to do should never have to bear the burden of paying for those who are less well off. User fees are the best way to go in all of these alleged rights, like education, and healthcare, and even food.
Don, like I said, those household based figures beg the question of how many wage earners are in the buckets and how many hours they work. If the top quintile has twice as many people bringing in a paycheck as the bottom, it's going to come out way on top, even if everyone earns the same. Moreover the income figures are based on income tax returns and ignore the value of public schools, housing assistance, public transit, and the gazillion social programs that benefit the poor.
Fix your statistics, and you'll probably still find the rich have gotten a bit richer, and then the question is so what? It's very glib to say “making out like bandits” as if that proved the rich guilty of robbery, but it doesn't.
Even if your wealth figures were credible, they're not the whole story, especially as regards the welfare of the poor. The poor today drive much better cars than even the richest people did in 1917. They enjoy communication, entertainment, and, yes, even health care that a king's ransom couldn't have bought back then. No question the rich have better cars and bigger TVs, but in terms of quality of life, the difference between a BMW and a Kia is negligible compared to the difference between a Kia and walking.
None of this, btw, constitutes the case that the top 1% shouldn't pay more taxes. I'm happy to have that discussion. All I'm saying is this wealth distribution analysis doesn't prove the rich are robbing the poor.
What nonsense…
Wealth and poverty are relative to the society in which you live. By the standards of the twelfth century I am a billionaire, but I don't live in the twelfth century and neither do. I am pretty damn sure that you don't compare yourself to twelfth century peasants and go boy do I have it good…
So you'd have no problem changing places with a 12th century aristocrat? Your standard of living would go way up, relative to those around you.
I shouldn't have skipped over this before, because it's a super good comment.
I certainly do compare myself to 12th century peasants who owned only one garment and lived without even the basics of a stable government. And I compare myself to people 100 years ago, before novacaine and antibiotics, before refrigerators and vacuum cleaners, when just keeping up with household chores was a full-time job. We're not just a little better off than they were, even the poorest of us is dramatically better off. If we play our cards right, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be dramatically better off than we are.
We owe that progress to steady economic growth of 1 or 2% compounded over decades, to the innovations and trade that increase GDP. Redistributive social programs have their place, but they don't increase GDP; more often they come at a cost of slower economic growth. The difference between 1.8% growth and 2% growth over a century or so is a very, very big deal in terms of the standard of living of hundreds of millions of as-yet-unborn people. I think about this a lot, and I'm consequently reluctant to fund more inefficient social programs or protectionist policies that will help a few people today but slow down overall growth in the long run. Conservative economics isn't greed, it's exactly the opposite.
If you don't think much about how much better off you are than 12th century peasants, perhaps you might give it a try.