LordsFire
Internet Wizard
The basic concept of taxes is not fundamentally unacceptable.Perhaps my left-leaning bias is showing but, I don't think there's a particular problem with reasonable taxes on wealthy individuals making above a certain income? Ideally, if they want to keep living in this country and reaping the benefits that come with living in this country, they shouldn't protest too loudly about a little government incentive to pay their fair share, imo...
Progressive tax rates are evil. Do not punish people for doing well at their work, it disincentivizes it, especially when combined with welfare programs.
A flat tax rate would probably give optimum amount of revenue vs economic activity somewhere between 6 and 12%. Outlier estimates might be as low as 2% or as high as 17%.
Now note, this is optimal for private prosperity, overall economic growth, and government revenue, because lower taxes take some of the shackles off of the economy, let it grow more, and thus actually result in more government revenue.
If you tax someone earning a million dollars a year 8% instead of 32%, that's another 240,000 dollars he's either spending, or investing, or saving, which the bank can then loan to someone else and thus becomes a de-facto investment.
That's enough to generate 3 more jobs earning 80k a year.