Reasons why we should have a graduated income tax, in which
the wealthy are taxed at a progressively higher rate:
1. To cite what has become known as Sutton’s Law: Because that’s where the money is. (Named after prolific 20th Century American bank robber Willie Sutton, who purportedly gave that response to a reporter’s inquiry as to why he robbed banks). In folk terms, this is a practical expression of Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony: don’t seek complex solutions when a simple one will serve.
2. It’s the Christian thing to do, helping wealthy Americans achieve that state of blessedness enjoyed by so many of their countrymen: poverty.
3. It makes being poor seem, well, less taxing, thus reducing competition for wealth.
4. But, more seriously, the amassing of wealth consumes a greater proportion of our country’s assets. Thus, the wealthy are a greater burden upon our raw materials, infrastructure and human resources as well as contributing more to our negative trade balance, environmental pollution, unfavorable foreign relations and military adventurism.
5. The very structure of laws and governance of the United States is an asset to the accumulation and management of wealth, which ought to be supported by those very taxes.
6. Inversely, higher taxes have never proven to be a disincentive to the gathering of riches. While naively idealistic economic theories suggests otherwise, the sequestering of fortunes is more a function of personality traits such as fear, avarice and insecurity and less a result of sound financial planning, our current economic crisis being a case in point.
7. Because the wealthy can more easily afford it, having, in effect, more disposable income. Duh!
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