Draginol

What I am suggesting is not punishing people for creating wealth. The BIG Oil companies are as far from people as you can get. They are powerful corporations who have placed their objectives above and at the detriment of the average person and small business with higher energy prices so a few fat cats can receive unjustified salaries and the stock holders more dividends. The profits they were making were more then reasonable. When you read about the CEO's and top management receiving hundreds of millions you can bet that money came from millions of average people that were paying for that excess. Surtax on the companies and another tax bracket for people that extract high salaries can be used to help our country pay for the security we need, health care, and education. This will pay big dividends to millions of people every day. I am not talking about Bums with their hands out but in helping people that go to work every day and still can not afford heath insurance, education for their children. NO one is worth millions of dollars per year. When you get to hundreds of millions the idiocy just goes off the scale. For people like this I would increase the tax rate to about 50%. Even after that higher tax rate they will still have outrageous after tax incomes compared with the VAST MAJORITY of Americans. Please do show your ignorance by telling me that will deter people from making big bucks. If you receive $50 million and pay 50% in tax you have $25 Million remaining. That poor sole that received $200 million would have $100 million after my higher taxes. HOW WILL THEY MANAGE TO LIVE!!!!!

Here's the thing Col. I live quite comfortably on less than 50k a year. I have neighbors that make in excess of 100k. By your rationale, I should be demanding that they be cut to the level of my existence.

Sure, I can't go take extended European vacations, but GOD man, there are hungry people out there, social security is in TROUBLE!!!! We're bleeding interest on the national debt!!!! How DARE anyone want to go on an extended European vacation when there are all these problems???

Sorry, Brad, no more high-end trips to Disneyworld for you and the kids, we're taking everything but 50k. Forget buying a new car this year, too. Sad for the people who work a Disneyland and make cars, but hey, fek em, we've got social problems to fix.

Oh, but then... they will become a social problem, won't they? Where do you draw the line, then? Why $500,000? Why not $100,000? How do you decide what is going to do the most damage?

I read recently that the people you are talking about, the 500k and up folks, employ 70% of the nation's workforce. I wonder how many more social problems you'll create once you give them no reason to continue their entrepreneurship? Who'll feed these people when they lay back on their wealth and stop paying any sizable amount of taxes at all, or move somewhere else?

BIG oil are people too. It's just business.

If I were a stock holder, I'd be a bit annoyed that given the gas price surges last year, that the profit margin was only 11%.

It is not up to you or me to decide what a "reasonable" profit is.

The money they make does not belong to anyone but the shareholders of Exxon. They are not the "people's" money.

Bakerstreet

No my proposal would not bring a person with 50K equal to a person with a 100K income. I am not talking about salaries in those ranges. I am talking about people making above $500,000 per year for an increased tax bracket.

The employment of that 70% of workers by people making above $500,000 will continue. That is the only way they will be able to keep getting those high salaries.

Yes we are bleeding interest on the staggering debt Bush and his fiscal policies have added. 40% of the interest paid on the national debt held by non federal Government agencies (SS and Medicare) goes to Foreign Investors and is REMOVED from our economy. Most of the 40% of the interest being paid to China! That is a GREAT accomplishment!!!!
We can not balance the budget and STOP the growth in the National debt without BOTH cutting spending ( and I do not mean cutting spending that helps low and middle income Americans or the retired) without added tax revenue.

But WHY aren't you? I can live just fine on about 40k a year. Why they hell should you need 100k? If you make twice as much as me, I deserve the benefit of the other half, right?

OH, BUT WAIT. YOU get to nail the people who make twice as much as you, but the people who make half as much as you can't dig into YOU. Interesting perspective. I live comfortably, pay for health insurance for my family, plenty to eat, cable to watch, broadband internet, etc. Warm in the winter, cool in the summer.

So no one really NEEDS more than me, right? Why stop with the 500k people? Why do you get to say? You think you are "reasonable", but there are radical folks at my level that would slap the level down a lot lower. You'd better not start, or you might find the level of forced equality being lower than you can stomach.

My income is far beyond $500k and I can tell you that if I weren't being paid as well as I am I would never be willing to sacrifice what I do to do my job.

Your idea is basicaly to kill the goose that lays the golden egg because it's not fair that other geese don't lay golden eggs.

I don't work for the benefit of you, Col or the benefit of society and certainly no tthe benefit of the government. I work for the benefit of my family and myself and by doing so, many other people benefit as well -- including you as you use my website which exists thanks to the work of others who didn't make it for your benefit but for their own benefit.

A tiny handful of people are the ones who generate most of the wealth in our society. A smart government is one that encourages those people to keep doing what they're doing.

No matter how hard I try, I just can't make sense of Col's idea. Why? Why is it OK to make those who make a lot of money have to pay more than those who make not so much? Why work hard to make money, which is what this country is all about, so that someojne like Col can say that "you make too much, you need to pay more taxes"? But I thought they did. If you make more money than someone else, doesn't that mean you pay more taxes? Besides, if someone is really bothered by these companies making so much money, why not focus on the cause not the effect. Why not focus on the consumer, the one who does not seem to care to pay $3 a gallon to go to the movies, clubbing, to work when there is alternate transportation. Why is it that if someone, legally, finds a way to make a lot of money that somehow they are evil because people are dumb enough to pay high prices for something?

Again, I find it hard to believe that this country is in some kind of economic problem when PS3's, Xbox 360's, Nintendo Wii's, HD TV's, Ford Mustangs, Netflix movies, Blockbuster movies and games, Stardock software, American Airlines tickets, etc, seem to be selling just fine. I work for UPS and shipments have not dropped since Xmas passed. Homeless people making $30 an hour on street intersections, Mexicans continue to pour across the border for, you guessed it, money.

More money? You complain that the Gov't spends too much yet your suggestion is to make more money by taxing some more, in other words put more spending money in the Gov't hands, but forget about the part where we teach them how to spend it. Man, you sure contradict yourself quite often Col.

You know, I'm a Centrist that leans Republican. I've been told by some that that can not be possible and I asked why. I could not believe the answer I got, because I was poor. Poor? Sure I may struggle to pay my bills and all but I'm not poor. When was the last time you saw a poor person with 2 computers, wireless broadband, satellite on 2 TV's, 3 TV's, 3 DVD players, a full fridge, gas in my tank? Poor to me is accepting that you will never do better, that this is as good as it can get, that no matter what you do nothing will change. Not me, I look towards a better future. Interesting enough, Brad is an inspiration to me. Reading how he was once in my shoes and now look where he is gives me the drive I need to believe that I too can make it if I just keep trying and never give up, and lots of patience of course.

In America it is common. That's because we judge what "poverty" is simply by tagging that word onto a big hunk of the bottom percent of our economy. It's a sliding scale. It's like saying "the idiots" in a room full of geniuses. Sure, there will be 20% that have the lowest IQs, but none of them will really be idiots.

Go to a room full of idiots, and the bottom percent will be a very different deal. I'm sure people in Africa, Central and South America, etc., look at what we call poverty and want to puke. If they had something in their stomachs TO puke, mind you. In America, we can always puke, because our poor are quite often obese.