Why We Tax: A Timely Reminder for Tax Day

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-we-tax-timely-reminder-tax-day-1364829791

Randolph Paul probably thought about taxes — and their role in our society — as deeply as any American of his time. Paul lived and died taxes, literally. In 1956, he slumped over and passed away while testifying about tax policy before a U.S. Senate committee.

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Two years after the war, back in private practice, Paul published his masterwork, the ultimate distillation of his thinking about tax policy. His new book, Taxation for Prosperity, presented a carefully argued case for continuing high wartime tax rates on peacetime high incomes.

By “well-planned taxes,” Paul meant progressive taxes, steeply graduated levies that kept as much money as possible in the pockets of “people in the lower brackets.” Lower-income people, Paul explained, “have a higher propensity to spend.” Their spending keeps “the wheels of industry turning.”

For people in higher income brackets, by contrast, a “well-planned” tax system meant high tax rates.

“The people with high incomes can best afford to contribute to the support of the government,” as Paul noted, “and the failure to impose substantial taxes in the upper brackets would seriously injure the morale of the rest of the taxpaying public.”High taxes on people of high income, Paul continued, also “perform the valuable service of preventing more saving than our economy can absorb,” soaking up the excess that would otherwise wind up devoted to destabilizing speculation.

[Demeter]

1. YES! YES! YES!

Not to mention corruption of the political process and general abuse of power that has followed the vast hoarding of the 1%.