Greece did not drop taxes for the rich - the comparison with the US

[malaise]

is nothing but fear-mongering.
STFU Joe Scum et al.

[Igel]

1. You confuse what's said with what's done.

Greece did not drop tax *rates* for the rich. But the rich routinely found ways to avoid paying taxes, meaning that the percentage of income paid was quite low.

It was much the same in the US when the official tax rate was 90%. Yeah, it looks like if you're making $2,000,000 you should be paying $1,800,000 and have $200k take-home. Didn't happen, not even close. First of all, the top rate was only on income over a certain amount. The cut-offs were low, so on paper they'd still have a really heft tax bill and take home maybe $300k. On paper.

Otherwise, it was Defer, average, off-shore, shelter, invest.

The lush trust funds that Heinz (Mrs. Kerry), the Kennedys, the Bushes, and many, many other of the vieux riches have were a way of making sure that the millions of dollars earned *weren't* taxed at the nominal rate. Moreover, the truly rich also found ways of avoiding what has for decades been called the "death tax," the estate tax. Again, see the list of wealthy old-rich families.

Either way, the problem isn't the tax rate or who paid taxes. It's the level of indebtedness vs the means to pay it. Greece is scary, I think, for a different reason: The assumption has always been that the public debt was somehow collateralized by American (not federal government) assets, inasmuch as Congress could tax as necessary to muster the money needed or cut expenses. Greece is showing that this is a false assumption: There's a large sector of society whose needs, perceived or real, trump their obligation incurred as part of a social contract that they subscribed to, tacitly or explicitly. As soon as it's too inconvenient, their word and their obligation means nothing and they can just turn their back on what they owe even while insisting on what is "owed" them. (True altruism? Perhaps not.)