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There is no percentage of income that will ever be "fair".
Let's say you have a single 22-year-old living with 3 roommates making $25,000 a year that is spending 40% of his income on beer, stereo equipment, game consoles, etc while paying 10% of his earning in federal income taxes.
Let's say you have a married 45-year-old with 3 children and a wife making a combined $80,000 a year that is spending all of their money on essentials and college for the oldest 2 children with no frivolous spending at all while paying 20% of their earnings on federal income taxes.
Is that fair?
I don't think so, which is why I believe we should switch to a sales tax based system where people who spend more money on non-essentials pay more taxes. So, if you have 2 rich guys making $500,000 a year and 1 spends his money on sports cars and boats while the other gives 30% to charities, the guy buying the cars and boats pays more in taxes.
Okay, so now I've got the same amount of money I had before
Can't be said of the majority of those in poverty.
"...low income people have consistently been shown to spend a larger share of their money on lottery tickets. The presence of casinos has a tendency to increase problem or pathological gambling, particularly for residents of disadvantaged, low-income neighborhoods" http://hiappleseed.org/sites/default...attachment.pdf
Can't be said of the majority of those in poverty.
"...low income people have consistently been shown to spend a larger share of their money on lottery tickets. The presence of casinos has a tendency to increase problem or pathological gambling, particularly for residents of disadvantaged, low-income neighborhoods" http://hiappleseed.org/sites/default...attachment.pdf
While I don't gamble, I can take a guess at the psychology involved at low incomes:
"My only shot at getting rich (or even getting to middle class financially) is to win the lottery, flipping burgers isn't the ticket to wealth."
Obviously (as those good at math understand) the overwhelming probability is that you will lose your money and become even poorer than you were to begin with, but I suspect lottery players aren't good at math, and entertain many fallacies regarding probability (e.g. they are much more likely to incorrectly believe that a losing streak makes a gambler 'due' for a win).
As for those other vices, I think it's largely about addiction/dependence and self-medication.
How much tax is fair and reasonable to pay?
10%? 25%? 40%? 50%? 60%?
15% across the board. EVERYONE pays it.
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Is it fair to demand those who make more, pay more percentage of their income in tax?
No.
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It seems to me we all have 'skin in the game' with respect to running the nation and each should pay an equal percentage. I would also argue that fraud, waste and abuse as well as overly funded social payouts could reduce income taxes 50%.
"The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.
"All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."
I think it's fair to tax higher all those wealthy individuals and big corporations who made out under the Bush years. They were unjustly enriched while the nation bled to death. For each year that they benefited from those only-rich-supporting GOP policies, they should be taxed much higher than the average taxpayer.
I really don't think Pelosi, Reid and the gang would go for that. They LOVE their money, and plan on keeping it, however ill-gotten the gains.
"The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.
"All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."
Benjamin Franklin, 25 December 1783
“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
As long as you keep proposing schemes where one guy gets back more from the government than he paid for, while another guy pays for a lot more than he gets back, you'll never arrive at a solution people consider "fair".
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