04-04-2013, 12:31 AM
davester wrote:
[quote=Ted King]
That's true, but it never-the-less is the case that since the wealthy are paying such a big chunk of the revenue that runs the government, it still amounts to a redistribution of income from wealthier to the less wealthy. That was the point I was making in the part of the OP you quoted.
I bet that if we looked at an identical graph of the boom years in the US (i.e. the 1950s), we would see a broader distribution of federal taxes simply because all of the wealth wasn't so concentrated at the top. I think it's somewhat misleading to look only at tax burden. It's important to look at the relationship between tax burden and income, which is why percentage of income graphs are probably a more reasonable view. The graphs you've shown don't mean a whole lot to me other than illustrating that the top quintile makes vastly more money than everybody else.
But the point I was making was different from those points, so of course what I showed wouldn't be as helpful for illustrating those other points. I have no problem with you bringing up other concerns and I'm certainly not suggesting that those aren't valid concerns, I was just trying to show why I made the point I was making - that income is being redistributed from the wealthy to the less wealthy through taxation. I don't think there is much disagreement amongst economists about that. Then I went on to argue that taxation and redistribution through government programs is not the most socially responsible way to do that redistribution. I'm just not sure the best way to reduce the disproportionate wealth/income that would go to those who don't merit it before the income flows to them.