I have never understood why the guy making $35-$40,000 a year parrots the talking heads from the right about why we shouldn't tax people making $500,000 a year a little more.
At the same time, i have never understood a really poor person saying we should tax the rich more....when that term to them is relative. To them the guy making $15.00 an hour might be rich.
Ultimately the really rich in this country are not really affected one way or the other, because they have tax shelters and trusts to put their money into. So the 'rich' that get taxed is usually the upper middle class and it rolls down from there.
Marty has a good handle on it IMO. "Taxing the rich more" is always a popular cry because it is taking the other guy's money because he is "rich". The 40k a year family is only paying tax on about $25k in adjusted income which means they pay about $2800 a year. Buffet's definition of rich is certainly different than many other politicians who think that the line should be at $200k to 250k. If you are married and make $250,000 with standard deductions you pay the feds $55k. That's a lot of money.
Bottom line is there are wayyy to many loop holes and with a sliding scale the flat tax would be way more efficient and would generate more overall income. However, the DC crowd doesn't need more money because they can't handle the amount they are getting now effectively.
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