let all of the tax cuts excpire

[detbuch]

[QUOTE=mosholu;816806]We all seem to accept as a given that the tax rate will increase incrementally as you make more money. What bothers me about this whole discussion that everyone seems to believe there is some logic in the incremental rate increases stopping at 200/250G. The Republicans have done a great job as selling this as a middle class/small business issue. Only 2.9% of the country are over the 250G mark. There should be increases in the rate as your income goes up with maybe a cap at 50% at the level of 20 million. It will not significantly change the deficit picture, which must be addressed by spending cuts and elimination of subsidized tax breaks, but it will bring a level of fairness to the process.= QUOTE]

It seems like this constant back and forth about if we should extend the current taxes or if we should raise it on the "rich" and keep it for the middle class, or if we should let it expire for everyone is all arbitrary and without a guiding principle. Not everybody accepts it as a given that tax rates must rise with higher income. That most do accept that now is contrary to what was accepted in the first 120 years of our history. It took time to drift away from the Founders intent. The exception being the need to finance the North's fight against the South when a flat type income tax was imposed and was quickly changed to a graduated one--both very modest compared to today. It had a sunset provision and was done away with in 1872. Another income tax was passed by Congress in 1894 but the Supreme Court struck it down in 1895. Not until 1913 and the 16th ammendment was Congress able to establish an income tax, with graduated rates to boot--1 percent first bracket to 7 percent top bracket. One of the SC Justices, Stephen Field, who struck down the 1894 attempt said at that time that a small progressive tax "will be but a stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich." The 1913 rates didn't take long to climb higher and higher. FDR, our "greatest president" got the top marginal rate to 90 percent. He proposed a top rate of 99.5 percent but congress rejected that, so he issued an executive order to tax all income over $25,000 at 100 percent. When asked why, he said why not. Congress repealed that order. The rates have gone up and down since then, without rhyme or reason, other than some Pol's opinion--it's all been a mish-mash of unprincipled tinkering.

What is the principle that you go by to have any graduated tax imposed?

You mention bringing a level of fairness to the process. The founders did not seem to be concerned with fairness. It seems the guiding principle of the governance they created was individual freedom--freedom being that state in which we are not dependent on the coercion of someone else. If you depend on the coercion of another, neither you nor he are free. To be free, interaction must be by consent. They seem to have based their model on nature, human nature, as they saw it, and its natural laws. There being no such thing as "fair" in nature, the only fairness that one can derive from their Constitution is that every individual has a right to his life, his liberty, and his pursuit of happiness so long as it does not deprive another the same. And there being no such thing as "equal" in nature, the only equality they seemed to be concerned with was an equality before the law. Such guiding principle constrained the Congress and Courts against imposition of unequal taxes for over 100 years. Things have changed.

If we are to have a consistent method and rate of taxation, shouldn't it have a principle that maintains that consistency and prevents indiscriminate changes?

What is that principle?

Correction: FDR replied "Why not?" when he was asked why he proposed the 99.5 percent marginal rate income tax, not when he issued the executive order.