I'll answer your question, first, with a question. How does funneling middle class dollars to millionaires help getting our economy moving again?
The enormous wealth of the few is basically subsidized by the many.

booyah!!! and thx !! didn't I say thx?
Consider the taxes you mentioned. If millionaires and billionaires were taxed by the schedules in effect in 1980 more revenue sharing dollars would return to the states, reducing the states, local communities and special districts the need to raise fees and taxes. More money will be available for wage earners to pay for college, go to movies, eat out and enjoy life - in short stimulating the economy.
McConnell, Boehner, Murdoch, Limbaugh are all wealthy - surely they all earn over $250,000 per year. How many f/t employees do they employ?
Cut taxes for the American Family, they will put money back into the economy - and the economy will grow. More jobs = more income tax revenue and government at all levels able to finance rebuilding our infrastructure, creating more private sector jobs.
That few is already paying 75% of the Federal Taxes. What percentage should they pay? They also probably pay the majority of local taxes as well (with the exception of property and sales taxes probably.)
And say you do increase taxes on the wealthy, you get the same problem unless you lower taxes for everyone else. Now that extra 100k you got from Dr. so and so goes to the government, dissapearing into the hole of the federal budget. So no new lexus, less dinners out, no new roof on that 1.5M dollar house. So screw the roofer, the car salesman, the resturant employees. Since rich people have more to spend, they tend to be able to spread it around more, enabling jobs for all those nice middle class people.
Taxes take money OUT of the economy at all levels. It is then re-inserted via government contracts. So in the end, you are still making rich people richer, just in a more convoluted, and I guess for a progressive, more politically acceptable way.[/QUOTE]
I suspect a roof every 30 years, one car every year a dinner out every night does help employment; I also suspect dinner out once a month for 10 or 20 million, one car every five years for 10 or 20 million and one roof every 30 years for 10 or 20 million trumps your post.
That said, most very wealthy individuals invest their income, an argument which might help make your point. However, even that cannot trump the amount of capital the masses could put into the system, including investments.
Are you familiar with the term "iron law of wages"? It seems the attacks on unions and wage earners has reved up in recent years, and imho another example of a rennissance of reactionary thought.
The iron law of wages states that wages must remain at the subsistance level. This level, according to 18th century economic theorist David Ricardo, is labors natural price, the income of which is necessary for the worker to exist. Ricardo argued that wages should be left to free competition and should never be controlled by government interference.[/QUOTE]
ever hear of the law of diminishing returns?