For the richest, most evil bastard in the country, what should their maximum income tax rate be?
I say 10%, that's enough for God.
I favor the Fair Tax, but this question assumes we don't change tax systems.
EDIT: Per an excellent point from iamwhatiseem, my intent in the ranges is that your rate is somewhere in that range. I did not mean you are OK with the entire range. I didn't want to get carried away with the number of choices.
Go into any store and read where the products are made. The bulk of your clothes, toasters, computers (and any product you can name) were made in very far away places (some of those places are in the "developing world" and they are politically unstable and occasionally require military "stabilization"). Or what about your oil, the bulk of which comes from a continent filled with terrorists. Do you know the military costs of stabilizing the middle east? And what about your precious metals from Africa?
Our corporations draw labor and raw materials from all over the globe - parts of which require military intervention, or the "softening" of regimes who would otherwise nationalize their resources and obstruct foreign investment. Also, do you know what it costs to run the patent system, which our private sector craves - so that the nanny state can intervene in the market and build a monopoly fence around their products. Have you ever researched the pressure that
private sector lobbyists put on government for subsidies - massive subsidies? Do you know how many public dollars have been poured into constructing our modern industrial infrastructure? And I'm not just talking about the obvious stuff like roads, energy grids and water facilities, the cost of which you've never itemized; and the commercial benefits of which you've never priced.
Did you know that Boeing was, in the beginning, considered a quasi-government entity because of all the money that flowed into it from the pentagon budget? Along those line, have you ever priced out the technology that flowed out of the Pentagon and NASA systems into say consumer electronics?
The pundits and news organizations that you get your information from have given you very simplistic anti-tax rhetoric. I actually agree with a lot of it, and I used to agree with it a lot more when I was in high school. In fact, I tend to play your side of argument when I'm surrounded by my leftie friends. However, I must say that if you cannot provide an exhaustive itemization of all the things taxes pay for - especially those things that the private sector begs for to support their profit making activity - than you have no business speaking about this issue.
You have to stop listening to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mark Lavine, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, etc.
They have left you woefully unprepared to address these issues.
