There are more taxes than income tax. But let us assume that is correct. The wealthy derive greater benefit from being a member of this society, so shouldn't they have to fund it a little more than those that do not benefit?

I am not talking about welfare, I am talking about quality of life. If they were not a member of this society, would they still have the same quality of life?

 

They benefit the least from all this money their pouring in...

Yes there are tons of other taxes in society...gas taxes (based on what YOU consume), sales taxes (again based on what you consume), along with SS and medicare and that just scratches the surface...not to mention all the taxes in new cars/boats etc that the rich are exposed too, the rich are taxed at a MUCH higher rate than the poor when it comes to total dollars AND % of income...

 

You completely missed the point of my post, and you are wrong.

When we are spending 2/3 of the budget on defense, what is that money protecting? Is a bum afraid that terrorists are going to blow up his cardboard box? Maybe the wealthy are happy that DOD protects their interests overseas. Maybe they enjoy being able to live freely in this country. Do they not drive their cars on the streets, or rely on the fire department or the police?

I would have you recall that the three basic rights a person has are life, liberty, and property. In order to protect these rights, reason governments are instituted among men. The wealthy have more property and more financial interests that the government protects. They have a higher quality of life than the poor, by and large. They benefit the most from government and should have to pay more.

 

Ofcourse they pay the majority, $$, in taxes, but how it impacts their waay of life, and the economy, is quite different than a household earning > $100,000.

And who earns what?
The top 1% earns 17.53 (2000: 20.81%) of all income.
The top 5% earns 31.99 (2000: 35.30%).
The top 10% earns 43.11% (2000: 46.01%)
The top 25% earns 65.23% (2000: 67.15%)
The top 50% earns 86.19% (2000: 87.01%) of all the income.

*One-third of tax cuts benefit the richest 1 percent of households.

*The richest 1 percent of households got a much larger tax breaks than those in the middle 20 percent.

*Two-thirds of the benefits from the '01 and '03 tax cuts went to households in the top-earning quintile (top 20 percent).

For someone who keeps preaching stats are and can be misleading, you seem to choose you sides..

 

Wow, where do you guys pull these random numbers from 2/3 of the budget goes to defense? Before you make statements KNOW YOUR FACTS jesus christ...the defense budget this year is about 420 BILLION dollars on a federal budget totaling more than 2.6 TRILLION...since you obviously can't do the math that is 16.1% of the budget our about 1/6th of the budget, nowhere NEAR 2/3 of the budget...even if you include the sure to come 80 or 100 billion tacked on for the wars you're still talking about 520B out of a then 2.7 trillion dollars...which makes it 19.2% of the budget or just under 1/5th of the budget.

 

Sorry, it is over 50% of discretionary spending and creeps closer to 2/3 if you include the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan and all related defense expenses.

If you add in all defense related spending to the Pentagon's budget, which includes pension, DOE nuke building, wars, etc, for 2006 all defense is going to be about 1/3 of the total budget.

 

Do you have a link to support this info? A CREDIBLE link??? Department of Energy DOES NOT qualify as defense spending.

 

I don’t like big government OR big government spending no matter who is doing the spending, but you really need to do some research before you start throwing figures around and I’d suggest you be a bit more precise with your choice of words.

There is quite a HUGE difference between 2/3rds of the total budget and 2/3rds of discretionary spending…by the way, non-discretionary is between 50%-66% (depending on what year you are looking at) and defense is about 44% of discretionary spending and that includes ALL defense spending for Iraq, and Afghanistan.

As to who pays the taxes to fund that spending and who benefits?

You tell me who benefits more; the guy earning a high 6 figure income and paying the government 40-50% of that income or the person who contributes NOTHING to anybody but gets their whole subsistence from the government?

People who think the “rich” don’t pay enough and/or their “fair share” of taxes (and “rich“ is a very subjective term, usually meaning anybody who makes more than “me”), is speaking out of jealously and a belief that people, simply because they haven’t assumed room temperature yet, are entitled to a guaranteed equal outcome rather than a guaranteed equal opportunity.

It is not the “rich” who have benefited more from society; it is society that has benefited from them and the hard work they do…if you really don’t like the “rich” then I suggest you only start asking poor people for jobs.