taxation

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

IIRC you like taxing the rich. Me too. But to do that, you have to generate them.

--snip--

If the US experienced that sort of growth in the next twenty years, there would be a massive surplus. Health care would be an afterthought in the budget. So this is what needs to happen. The best way IMO is to create an atmosphere heavily in favor of the marketplace (not just *business* per se).

We have experience this sort of growth (from your link):

Three-fourths of Asia's 105 newcomers get the bulk of their fortunes from stakes in publicly traded companies, 25 of which have been public only since the start of 2010.

This looks like the tech bubble just before it went POP! There were lots of people who were rich "on paper", because they had gotten in early on the next big thing.

I don't begrudge other people or other countries their success. I am in favor of taxing the rich, and taxing the medium, and helping the poor (we can fight over what constitutes help later). I am also in favor of taxing businesses, since they occupy a space in our lives, in our economy, in our legal system, etc. What I am saying is that money begets money. And especially corporate money is ... if you'll pardon the mangled analogy... genetically void of any moral obligation to pay "their fair share". The share they're paying now is far less than what I consider fair.

Growth is awesome, like oxygen, like oxygen plus rainbows, just the bestest. I want it too. But it is important that the growth is spread around (yeah yeah like spreading the wealth around... whatevah). Businesses need customers too. Customers with money to spend at the business, ya know?

So, how do we encourage growth? How do we reduce the drag on our prosperity? How do we cure cancer? And a million other questions, ones we have to embrace, no, tackle simultaneously. We can't just do these sequentially. Once we get the growth happening THEN we'll look at your ideas about tax reform (followed by a pat on the head, etc). Nor can we seize all the assets of the moneybags only to look around and wonder what's a good recipe for grilled money.

These are real problems, we agree on that I believe. When I have a snarl of problems to solve, I try to triage them. Then I work on the important ones first. I believe the broken corporation tax structure is important enough to concentrate on first.