Glen Contrarian
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
- Messages
- 17,688
- Reaction score
- 8,046
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
First, your assumption that the rich always use more of the infrastructure is bogus and made up. Many of the rich send their kids to private schools for starters. And the rich are less likely to use public transportation.
Second, even if the rich always use public infrastructure more, the already pay more in taxes anyway. If everyone pays a flat tax of 10%, the rich will be paying more in taxes. Aman making $10k will pay $1k in taxes, and a woman making $1 million will pay $100k in taxes--100 times more than the poorer man.
You are merely asking the rich to pay a higher percentage of their income to taxes to provide and maintain your desires. You can try to spin it all you want, but that's what you're asking. At least be honest about it.
You really don't understand what I mean by infrastructure, do you? It's not just public transportation and schools - per person, those are relatively inexpensive.
For the rich, there's the airspace for their jets, the time taken up for their safety by the FAA. There's the taxpayer-funded infrastructure for their yachts, including having the Coast Guard ready to come save them when their yacht's in trouble. There's their houses on the beach, which the taxpayers replace (yes, we do) when a hurricane destroys them. There's the time that they see our senators and representatives face-to-face telling them what they want. There's the fire and police protection for their businesses, the roads where their delivery trucks go.
On top of all that, the very rich normally pay less in taxes percentage-wise as their secretaries do - Warren Buffet said it himself.
You really need to widen your mind, and stop trying to protect the rich - they're not the 'job creators'. We in the middle class are the real job creators, always have been. Think about the big companies out there - how many of them were started by multi-millionaires? Outside the financial sector and perhaps Big Oil, not many. Apple? Started in a garage. So did Microsoft. Goodyear started in a kitchen or some such. The stories of middle-class people making it big are effectively endless.