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For Two Economists, the Buffett Rule Is Just a Start (on a 90% tax rate)
New York Times ^ | April 16, 2012 | ANNIE LOWREY

Posted on 04/16/2012 1:13:05 PM PDT by reaganaut1

WASHINGTON — High earners who are worried that this year’s Tax Day will be the last one before their rates rise have more than just the White House and Washington to blame. They can also look to two academically revered, if publicly obscure, left-leaning French economists whose work is the subtext for the battle over tax fairness.

Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have spent the last decade tracking the incomes of the poor, the middle class and the rich in countries across the world. More than anything else, their work shows that the top earners in the United States have taken a bigger and bigger share of overall income over the last three decades, with inequality nearly as acute as it was before the Great Depression.

Known in Washington and the economics profession by the of-course-you-know shorthand “Piketty-Saez,” the two have been denounced on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and won mention in White House budget documents.

Mr. Saez, 39, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the John Bates Clark Medal, an economic laurel considered second only to the Nobel, as well as a MacArthur Fellowship grant. Mr. Piketty, 40, of the Paris School of Economics, has won Le Monde’s prize for best young economist, among other awards.

...

As much as Mr. Piketty’s and Mr. Saez’s work has informed the national debate over earnings and fairness, their proposed corrective remains far outside the bounds of polite political conversation: much, much higher top marginal tax rates on the rich, up to 50 percent, or 70 percent or even 90 percent, from the current top rate of 35 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News
KEYWORDS: taxes
I don't know how much a 90% rate on incomes over $1 million would reduce economic growth (I suspect a lot), but I know that it is MORALLY wrong to grab what someone has earned. It's wrong when a thief does it, and it's wrong when the government does it.

America's universities have become her enemy. The Federal government should stop funding them.

1 posted on 04/16/2012 1:13:10 PM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1
More than anything else, their work shows that the top earners in the United States have taken a bigger and bigger share of overall income over the last three decades, with inequality nearly as acute as it was before the Great Depression.

And yet, the "poor" were richer than ever... until Ubama came along.

2 posted on 04/16/2012 1:21:51 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (For every black person murdered by a white, thirty-nine white people are murdered by blacks.)
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To: reaganaut1

Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.

Don’t ask me what I want it for
If you don’t want to pay some more
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman

Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me.


3 posted on 04/16/2012 1:26:38 PM PDT by Scott from the Left Coast
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To: reaganaut1

Do they really think people will stick around and pay the 90% tax?


4 posted on 04/16/2012 1:34:13 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Lord, save me from some conservatives, they don't understand history any better than liberals.)
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To: Scott from the Left Coast

90 percent tax rate led to the failure of the UK car industry.


5 posted on 04/16/2012 1:34:58 PM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: PeterPrinciple

EXACTLY....all the money they want to tax will NOT BE HERE to tax....IDIOTS.


6 posted on 04/16/2012 1:48:14 PM PDT by goodnesswins (2012..."We mutually pledge our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor")
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To: goodnesswins
EXACTLY....all the money they want to tax will NOT BE HERE to tax....IDIOTS.

The only thing governments learn is they never learn. Way back during the colonial period, England instituted a tax on glass. The result is the colonist built houses with itty bitty windows.


7 posted on 04/16/2012 2:17:10 PM PDT by 6SJ7 (Meh.)
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To: reaganaut1

I just found out the reason Warren Buffett is on the stump complaining he doesn’t pay enough in taxes is because he (his company), owes the IRS one billion dollars in back taxes since 2003.


8 posted on 04/16/2012 2:25:34 PM PDT by topspinr
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To: reaganaut1

How about imposing a minimum tax, (say 8%), on the almost 48% of Americans that pay NO income tax?


9 posted on 04/16/2012 2:39:11 PM PDT by Sergio (An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
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To: 6SJ7

INCREDIBLE!

Talk about STUPID. Did they consider that lighting was primarily candles back then? It had to suck to live under that rule.


10 posted on 04/16/2012 3:44:47 PM PDT by BobL
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To: reaganaut1

If income is so evil that it needs to be taxed away from people at a 90% rate, then I promise to do my moral duty as an American and not earn any. :)


11 posted on 04/16/2012 8:30:43 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves (CTRL-GALT-DELETE)
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To: Mr. Jeeves

Bingo.

Some pinhead moron govt type did a study back in the 90’s about how much money fedzilla would bring in if the tax rate were at 100%.
Then they extrapolated that out for 10 years.

How may people would go to work in year number 2 in that situation?


12 posted on 04/16/2012 8:47:44 PM PDT by Texas resident (Hunkered Down)
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