Ongoing enormous quantities of both death and taxes will be seen.

Taxes will likely not increase, simply be shifted back toward those who can most afford them, the wealthy, who've been on a free ride since 1981.

So the people who pay the majority of the taxes need to pay more because when they pay the majority of the taxes they're getting a free ride. Thanks for letting us in on one of the fantastical delusions of the fact-free depraved left, Herb.

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Look at the results. In the 50's, with high tax rates on the upper brackets, society ran well. Today? Not so much.

Clearly the wealthy are not paying their fair share. If this system were operating in any sort of acceptable framework, we would not have the drastic disparity of wealth which we do have. And look at the stats for how much that has increased since 1981. Hmmmm....

So... you'd maintain that the country was evil and delusional until Reagan gave away the store to the elites? THAT was godly? Not in this universe, sorry.

I've made no claims on the period prior to Reagan in 1981, but it was pretty miserable during the entire hyper-Keynesian period from 1965 through 1980. And no, you are absolutely incorrect when you lie about the wealthy not paying their fair share. Unless you have a drastically different definition of what constitutes "fair". Apparently, for you "fair" means "all." And that dear Herbster is an evil and delusional idea. Brought to us once again by an apologist for the evil and delusional left.

As to your assertion regarding the 1950's. Do you know how many tax shelters there were back then? Do you know how little tax the wealthy actually paid back then?

Now, for the last part, I'm going to actually ask you to do some thinking. I realize that Leftism and thinking are not two things that should normally be included in the same sentence unless we're talking about how the two are not particularly congruent, but here goes. What exactly is wrong with income or wealth disparity? You can choose either or both.

The arguments regarding the disparity of income distribution come in two flavors, the one moral, the other economic. As economic, the issue is what is good for the economy as a whole. One could argue that what fueled the growth in American wealth was, at least in large part, due to the distribution of income. When workers were paid more, they had more money to spend, In spending more, they fueled demand, and so it goes. We can imagine paradigmatic extremes, where all the wealth goes to a few. In such a case, what is the motivation for enterprise? Who are they going to produce goods for. OTOH, if there is not a concentration of wealth anywhere, then will there be enough "excess" funds for investment; and without investment the economy won't grow or explore new avenues of goods.

The moral issue is motivated by comparison and perhaps envy. I have no idea what it is like to earn millions of dollars a year. I frankly don't image that they live much better than I do mostly on my generous pension. Yeah, I suppose that they can fly to Hawaii (Covid permitting) almost anytime they want. My nephew lives in NYC and works as a high finance lawyer. He is single (although over 40) and travels often by plane to various places. His income is at least five times mine, but I frankly don't think he is living any better than me (in fact worse). I feel the same for the person making five million. I just don't think they are living any better than me.

OTOH, I do the taxes of lower income folks. I frequently see people living off of less than $10,000 a year. I see marginally employed folks. You get the picture. Now, all of these people are not starving. But they may have to make important decisions regarding healthcare or even the care of their cars. I would say that I am living better off than they are.

What I'm trying to get at is this notion of envy and fairness. I don't care that someone makes a billion dollars a year. I can't imagine the cost of such a life. I probably wouldn't want it, and I don't think they are gaining very much from it. The diminishing returns from increasing wealth is exponential with regard to actual benefit. IOW, we make a mistake by measuring benefit in terms of dollars. The person making ten times what I make has by no means ten times the benefit. It's not clear to me that he or she has any increased benefit.

This is not so on the lower rungs of our economic ladder. What this leads me to ask, from the moral perspective and not economic one, is how much income is "enough"? I can't answer that exactly. But I frankly think the average American has enough or close to it. This means people somewhere in the median income as a function of family size. In saying this I include all the social benefits accrued by various people. I say this after walking around my small town. I can walk past every house in about 40 minutes. I know many of these people. I've been in many of their homes as an EMT. I know that some of them need help (perhaps psychological). Anyway, that's my perspective. Yeah, they might like to have a little more cash. The question is how much more?

What this perspective suggests to me is that there is a moral issue associated with the moral issue of income distribution. I've indicated this already. First, there is the moral mistake of associating dollars with "worth." Second, because of this flawed association one is motivated by envy, jealousy, even hatred.

I think that we've, as a country, done much to alleviate poverty at the lowest end. It is here that it is most difficult to amend. The problems run deep, culturally, etc. They are a difficult group to administer to. They are difficult to locate, etc. They dwell in fractured communities. This is why most social benefits accrue to the middle classes. I don't know how to specifically target this lowest fraction of our society. I'm pretty sure that most of our legislation does a poor job doing so. The approach needs to be two pronged: immediate help and long term. It is the long term that we miserably fail on. It's too hard, apparently, to crack the nut.

1970's were a time of a perfect storm of high interest rates, high unemployment, hogh gas prices, and wild inflation. We are seeing some of that today; the new economy. Then, as now, economists had no answers. Carter paid the price in a big loss at the election, but it was well into Reagans first term before things started improving.
"I'll never pay 25 cents for a dern cup of coffee!" Last heard in the 1970's. Can drinks in the vending machines also went up to 25 cents. Service stations gave way to "convenience stores" with insane prices that people lined up to pay.

Good economists have the answer: quit expanding the money supply. But economists drunk on Keynesian socialism dont want to hear it. And it's unpopular because the average person ignorant of econ believes money printing solves all problems.

The arguments regarding the disparity of income distribution come in two flavors, the one moral, the other economic. As economic, the issue is what is good for the economy as a whole. One could argue that what fueled the growth in American wealth was, at least in large part, due to the distribution of income. When workers were paid more, they had more money to spend, In spending more, they fueled demand, and so it goes. We can imagine paradigmatic extremes, where all the wealth goes to a few. In such a case, what is the motivation for enterprise? Who are they going to produce goods for. OTOH, if there is not a concentration of wealth anywhere, then will there be enough "excess" funds for investment; and without investment the economy won't grow or explore new avenues of goods.

The moral issue is motivated by comparison and perhaps envy. I have no idea what it is like to earn millions of dollars a year. I frankly don't image that they live much better than I do mostly on my generous pension. Yeah, I suppose that they can fly to Hawaii (Covid permitting) almost anytime they want. My nephew lives in NYC and works as a high finance lawyer. He is single (although over 40) and travels often by plane to various places. His income is at least five times mine, but I frankly don't think he is living any better than me (in fact worse). I feel the same for the person making five million. I just don't think they are living any better than me.

OTOH, I do the taxes of lower income folks. I frequently see people living off of less than $10,000 a year. I see marginally employed folks. You get the picture. Now, all of these people are not starving. But they may have to make important decisions regarding healthcare or even the care of their cars. I would say that I am living better off than they are.

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More important than "How much is enough" is "Who decides?"

If we assume that the rich got rich by providing a service others value, then they should decide. If others decide, envy will be the guide.

Also, we must consider that 98% of the total value of new inventions goes to the public and only 2% to the inventor according to Nobel winner William Nordhaus.

"If we assume that the rich got rich by providing a service others value". That's quite an assumption. Many of the rich got rich simply by being born. Others got rich essentially by means of lucky guesses. Even those who did get rich by providing a service others value often did so by dint of underpaying and exploiting those who work for them.

The moral argument until the 20th century was that the state must tax all people the same percent of wealth or income. With the rise if envy, socialists made envy a virtue.

The economic argument shiws that he wealthy do all the investing that creates jobs. Tax them more and they invest less, leading to fewer and worse paying jobs.

You claim it is all envy on the left which is ludicrous, but in the same vein maybe it is also all covetousness on the part of the very wealth. This clip might well apply to the Bezos or Musk types of the world.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

In what moral universe is it fair - rather, righteous - that some people have access to more money than they could spend in 100 lifetimes, while others have to subsist on less than $2 a day?

That Jesus thinks badly of accumulating for oneself more wealth than you can possibly need - especially at the expense of those in need - is I think indicated by the parables of the Rich Farmer and 'Dives' & Lazarus.

In what moral universe is it fair to assert that because inequality exists that any evidence of such inequality is ipso facto wrong and must be subject to the forcible redistribution of income and/or wealth? Moreover, in what moral universe does Jesus ever indicate that the government being the one to determine said redistribution in any way alleviates anyone's responsibility for caring for the poor? And who says that those who do have more don't give back? How much to they need to give back for it to be "fair"? Who gets to decided what this level of "fairness" is? If the wealthy are obligated by Christian moral ethics to care for the poor and less well off, how does the government taking income and/or wealth from them relieve that obligation and how does it actually alleviate the condition of the poor?

Please note, I said nothing in my previous comment about government doing anything. All that you have extrapolated for yourself. I was simply responding to your question about what is wrong with inequality of wealth.

The fact that you feel the need to move on to rail against the idea of government being the most appropriate body to address such inequality implies that you agree with me that such grotesque variation in wealth is immoral and against God's law. Which is good, because the whole tenor of Scripture, from the Jubilee regulations (and other similar provisions) in the Torah, through God's warning to the people via Samuel that a king will enrich himself at their expense, through the prophets' repeated condemnation of the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy, through Jesus' teaching already referenced (among others), through James' instruction that the rich should weep and wail for the miseries that are coming upon them - it all goes to show that God does not approve of vast disparities of wealth, and in the world to come, that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The high rates in the 50s were fake. They applied to very few and had thousands of exemptions. Reagan lowered the top rate but removed most exemptions so that the effect was a major tax increase for most.

Argue over the specifics all you like, but the fact is that what Reagan did created our current pattern of deficits, and enabled the drastic skewing of wealth toward the top. Look at stats on wealth distribution for the 50's compared to now. Well, something sure did happen...

And it is a fact that corporations are not paying their taxes. And govt is essentially hamstrung anyway due to GOP manipulations, obstructonism, and the entire pattern of non-cooperation by which they violate their Constitutional duties.

The status quo is not viable. Take a good look at small-town USA, full of mostly white people, dying of opioids, under-employed, under-paid... how did this happen? I'm old and can remember when the country functioned, when all the stores were open in the small towns of WV. What happened?

The simple answer is Reaganomics. Undo EVERY aspect of that and we'll be better off.

I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of the top 1%. A quick search found that the top 1% was worth from 35-40 trillion dollars, and 3.5 trillion in taxes were collected in 2020. If they paid 10% of their net worth, the other 99% would have to pay nothing. I'm not suggesting that as a solution, but billionaires could probably be able to afford paying more.

The top 1% of the 1% is going to still pay a large percentage of the taxes paid the by the top 1%. As to contention that "they can afford it" - that is not the same thing Herb falsely asserts "the wealthy have had a free ride since 1981." That is demonstrably untrue and Herb is lying when he posits that as fact.

You cite the the "net worth" of the top 1%, but we don't tax (yet) "worth." We tax income. According to taxfoundation.org, the top 1% paid 26.8% of their income on taxes. The bottom 50% paid 4%.

There is no clear meaning of fairness. Were it me, I would try measuring fairness by benefits. That is, I would prefer that roads be paid for by road users, etc. That is, you pay for what you get. By that measure, it may seem that the "rich" are paying a lot more than their "fair" share. The "poorer" receive a disproportionate benefits from social spending Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, public funding of education, daycare, This doesn't mean that the "rich" don't also "profit" by these indirectly. Another large portion of the Federal budget is for the military. It seems that this is something that for the most part we profit some equally. This can be argued, but it is more a general welfare issue.

What people apparently often mean by "fair" is how much you can afford. We're looking for some kind of measure of "equal pain." "Fair" indicates some kind of "equality," but the term leaves utterly open as to what we are making "equal." So, should fair, be measured by the "cost" of paying your taxes. Something like this is behind the idea of a progressive income tax. Apparently many think that paying six or seven times as much fractional income is not painful enough. The "rich" can "afford" more "pain."

So the reason we are looking for more revenue is because we want to distribute more "wealth" to lower income folks. There are two ways (at least) to look at this. The first is that income is individually owned, the other is that it is communally owned. If income is individually owned in requiring the "rich" to give up more of their wealth for those who are less (much less) wealthy, ideally is something that they volunteer to give up what is theirs to others who are less fortunate. OTIH, one might regard the wealth of the "rich" to be essentially an "accident" resulting from the "mismanagement" of the economic system. In that case, the wealth of the "rich" (or for that matter anyone's wealth) is not theirs. It belongs to the community. The purpose, then, of "redistribution" is to correct the "flaws" of the economic system. IOW, the metrics that resulted in the extant wealth distribution, while perhaps functional and efficient, are in error when it comes to the "equitable" or "fair" distribution of income. That means that we have to come up with another metric.

Again, there are no objective metrics for income or wealth distribution. As far as I can tell, they are arbitrary. We could give all the wealth to the king and queen or divvy it up exactly equally among all citizens independent of age, sex, creed, etc. Of course, in establishing some metric of "fairness" or whatever, it will entail an entire world of values, aims, and virtues. As such, it is essentially a cultural/spiritual exercise. You can't find it in the weight of rocks or quantities of wheat. It has to be a human invention, whether established by religion, ideology, or tyranny.

I stated it badly when I said to pay 10% of net worth, I was just trying to put it in perspective.

I do agree that there is no fair method, but once someone reaches a certain amount of wealth, any excess is just that; excess. That's not to say that it can't be reinvested into a business or other capitol venture. There are many people who could easily afford paying a lot extra and not even notice, more so than someone barely making ends meet having to pay a few dollars more. Unfortunately the whole system is unwieldy, confusing, inefficient, etc.

The people that it would really hurt to pay more, are not being asked to pay more. In fact, because of redistribution, are paying less. The more important issue is whether we are improving the lot of the least fortunate. I don't think we have a good understanding of the "poverty" problem. It is more than economic. I think it is significantly cultural.

When the ultra rich like Bezos and Musk can engage in vanity projects like flights into space or they own a yacht so big it needs its own ancillary smaller yacht, just because they can afford it, it is such outrageous decadent conspicuous consumption that it calls for some healthy taxation.

You're comparing earned income to taxes paid. If you compare total income vs. taxes paid it's close to 1:1 percentage wise. Also, the top 1% own 30.1% (and that's the lowest estimate I've found) of the total wealth in the country.

Wealth is not income. They are related but distinct. It is the Left that deliberately conflates the two and goes about its devilish business of lying to people.

Looks pretty damning, until you realize this data isn't taking into account corp. taxes, it is just based on individual income.

Further, if you break it down more (i.e. not just the top 1%) you see the picture changes considerably.

Ex. if you look at the top 0.1%, 0.01% and 0.001% (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs... fig. B). you see that the top 0.01% earned 10.2% of all individual income and paid 19.5% of the taxes, and the top 0.001% earned 2.1% of the income but paid only 3.5% of the taxes.

the reason for this disparity is because those 0.01% or more are getting most of their money from unearned income (i.e. dividends, capital capital gains etc) which is taxed at a lower rate than earned income.

From Fig. D you can see that none of the top 1% paid more than 28% of their income in federal taxes. And the top 0.001 percent has consistently paid a lower percentage of their income in taxes than all the rest.

That presumes entirely that the double taxation of corporate income is morally justified.

No, it simply means you aren't seeing the whole picture in that graph.

Pardon if this is slightly off-topic, but several of the predicted trends, involving as they do various divisions, shake-ups, angst, etc., I was reminded of Desmond Tutu's recent passing, and how there have been greater divisions, harms and angst than what we are now experiencing, and the lives and work of saints such as him and others throughout history do point us back to the same Way forward. Here is a link to just pieces of Desmond Tutu's legacy. I found it encouraging and timely, as I think it ever will be.

And let's not forget John Madden, who made a fairly large cultural imprint in the USA (and globally) by his advocacy for the turducken and 8 legged turkeys at Thanksgiving and subsequently lending his name to an extraordinarily successful video game franchise.

Boom!

My favorite John Madden quote:

"Usually the team that scores the most points wins the game." :D

He was wise to qualify his remark with "usually."

"Oops, it turns out that several of your players were cheating. Victory denied." Rare, but sometimes they get caught.

His concept of Ubuntu interests me~ I don't think we have a corresponding perspective. Like other survivors of the 20th century, I've come to accept psychological solipsism as a cultural consequence.

There are similar notions and overlap with Jewish / biblical notions of "justice/righteousness" as well as "shalom/peace." We tend to think of the former in individual and legal terms, but the scriptures more often speak of it as an ongoing set of right relations among people and God. The prophetic calls for "justice" are not merely for those doing evil to be stopped, but for right dealings to replace what is currently being done. Similarly, we think of "peace" as either the absence of conflict or as an individual's inner feelings. "Shalom" is wholistic and communal.

Tutu had a concept of Linux distributions? :p

You may want to read a bit more before you speak. You have little idea about what I speak about regularly here at this blog and elsewhere.

The government has decapitated the family by social policy that does not recognize the father as the head of family.
The social devastation occurring has some basis in government policy.
I predict that the citizen-reporting of late abortions in Texas will begin to turn this around.
Fathers will have standing to sue medical staff breaking the law.
Marriage intrinsically relates to the covenant of God and man.
Here is an excellent article defending Biblical standards of marriage. https://www.thegospelcoalit...

Will the erosion of rights continue? We have seen governors treat the Constitution as something to be used as a convenience.
"The Constitution never came to mind" said one governor as he was issuing mandates, guidelines, rules in 2019.

The destruction of rights will continue in Democrat controlled states.

And of course you can elaborate not one case of this. Destruction of rights to do what, exactly?

I live in VA. Youngkin was just elected. Do I have more rights now?

All this connedservative rhetoric is ungrounded in reality. It's all just cliches and catch phrases. This is how Faux News ensnares the less intelligent and educated among us.

I love it when leftists tout themselves as being intelligent and educated. It is the epitome of irony. Judging by their policy prescriptions they never actually demonstrate this supposed "intelligence" they regularly remind everyone they supposedly possess. And they might be "educated" but in what? Their actions belie no innate intelligence or education but rather a studious disregard for facts, logic, or the concept of actions having consequences.

Piles of dead people likely did come to mind, though.

YOU not being vaccinated threatens the rest of us. You will not come into my presence in that state. I enforce that. You have no choice, and I did not even think about the Constitution when I decided upon a personal policy of no tolerance for virus-spreading sociopaths!

I was vaccinated inJuly. I support vaccinations, but not dictatorial, inconsistent, political rules.

So, screw the rule of law if violating it prevents you from delusions of piles of dead people. The mirage of public health to justify tyranny is still a mirage especially when we're seeing that mandates and coercion don't stop the spread. Get vaccinated and then live your life and let others live theirs. If you've been vaccinated the unvaccinated pose precious little threat to you and acting as a petty tyrant won't make conditions better for you or anyone else no matter how much you to try to excuse it away as preventing those imaginary piles of dead bodies.