Comment · Thu, April 19, 2012
" Obama took a not-too-subtle swipe at his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, declaring: “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.” There remains a role for government to give everybody a “fair shot,” Obama said — not just the wealthy."
What they were answering
lazermole · 1 points
I think your numbers might be skewed.
Only 20% of the nation's revenues are from income taxes...
And while the top 10% pay 71% of income taxes, how much of the wealth do they hold? Pretty sure it's more than 71%.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
I was only speaking to federal income taxes, since that is what the Buffet rule is speaking to. I feel state taxes should be higher, while federal lower. States are the ones that provide the services societies need (Roads, schools, fire, police, etc.). Now they have to survive off federal money because we've flipped the system around.
The top 1% own 38.1% of wealth and pay 38% of taxes. The top 10% own 50% of the wealth and pay 71% of income taxes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States
I am not denying that there is a wealth inequality in the US, that is obvious. I am arguing that there is not a top favoring TAX inequality in the US; it is actually a bottom favoring tax inequality. So raising the taxes on the top makes no sense at all. This is the point where our conversation turns from equality to fairness. Unfortunately that is a very subjective topic, and one I do not wish to get into at the moment.