Taxes on income dollars should roughly reflect the likelihood that they will sit in an account
and not be re-circulated in the economy.
poor/working people can't afford to save, and are living paycheck to paycheck. There is 0% chance that their income won't be spent. Therefore, taxes on low income earners should be next to nothing.
middle class workers earn that initial amount that is likely to be spent on surviving, but then earn additional income. They are likely to spend that additional income, but they may already have some savings socked away and may save some. A 20-30% tax might be about right for that income.
Affluent people who already have a great deal of wealth are unlikely to spend that high income money. After all, if there was something that they wanted, they would have already spent some of their wealth on it. No need to wait. Multimillion dollar earnings are likely to be banked, shipped out of the country, etc. and never re-emerge to help move the economy. Never flow. And for those kinds of dollars, a 70-80% tax makes perfect sense.
If it is part of tax policy to keep money moving, to keep it flowing, to get it out of the rich's hands and back into the lower economic levels so that it can be SPENT and re-circulated, then progressive tax brackets like these make perfect sense. Give poor people money (through minimum wage, welfare, food stamps, organized labor, progressive taxes), and the economy roars.
