No, I was just replying to charlieg. Why don’t you ask him?
But since you want to get in on the discussion Mr Helper…
Every time we have enacted confiscatory tax policy has our debt grown or gotten smaller?
Hint: It hasn’t gotten smaller.
We don’t have a tax revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
yes. The money that Warren Buffet has is WORKING. Have you ever worked for a poor person?
Let me be very blunt - at what point does the government stop taking money? Buffet could donate all of this $$ to the federal coffers and not make a dent. The problem is spending.
I’ll also toss in a philosophical opinion - taking money from one to give to another is not generosity - it’s theft. Once FDR stacked the SC, we were in trouble. I’m so glad idiots in the government are so generous with my money. " When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. – Ben Franklin"
I’ll answer - yes, I see the Federal Government and the bloated beauacracy as an enemy of the people. When the $$ runs out because they cannot use their guns to find it, then they print money. Again, why would the IRS need to track every account accumulating more than $600 annually?
How do I view the government? It’s a necessary evil in a limited form. What we have now? I don’t have words to describe it.
As others have posted, ever increasing tax rates only impact the wealth producers - the small businessman. Make it too much of a hard job, the business gets shut down because its just not worth it. Why do you think John Deere is moving its factories to Mexico?
There were a lot of things that were different before 1913. The world is very different now, and I’m not sure why people look to pre-1913 as some kind of ideal.
There are things that need to be done on a national basis that can’t be done at the state level. The US standing internationally is different than pre-1913.
While we all would like to see common-sense spending and taxation, this ideal of having no tax is ridiculous.
I don’t have children, but I’d gladly pay more to fund daycare, early childhood education, and feeding school children. But a certain segment of the US doesn’t want this, even though it would benefit families (family values!!) and even companies (their workers’ families are being better cared for).
Nobody likes paying taxes, but I gladly pay to support this country. Those who cheat or manipulate the tax system to increase their profits are not patriots.
I’ll say it again, WE elected them.
If you don’t like the way THEY are running things, vote to replace them.
Of course it it’s working, it’s working for them! I know 25 or 30 people who are in the top 3% of income and/or wealth.
Most of them are amazed at how much of the tax burden that the bottom 90% are willing to take on.
Added: If you haven’t already read the book, “The First American,” you may want to. It’ll give Ben Franklin’s quotes a little more meaning for you. 
Then you might want to apply for citizenship in one of the South American countries. I understand that many of them have attractive systems of taxation. 
I’ll look it up, but for you to reference that and not understand basic economics and working capital, makes me wonder. These days, you absolutely must vet every author.
thank you for making my point. Any wonder why we have the 2nd Amendment? I’m not advocating anything other than referring back to what the British federal government was doing.
Technically, Peru is looking pretty good right now, but we shall see. It’s amazing to me the idea of communism and socialism - a cancer on the thought of private property - and make no mistake, when you take from “rich” to give to the “poor” it is nothing less than the theft of private property - you can justify anything.
Where would I start? MMMMM, sharpening knives:
Sorry, the federal government is the epitome of the beauracy of people spending other peoples money. I’ve seen it in my career to the point it shocked me. The government, in any form is not your friend. At best a necessary evil.
The book isn’t about economics it’s a biography of Franklin.
The bottom 50% shouldered a whopping 2.3% tax rate. Don’t really feel too sorry for them…
Income tax discourages work.
Consumption taxes discourages spending
Capital gains taxes discourage investing.
Governments will always be inefficient and spend too much because they cannot be put out of business by more efficient competitors like private businesses can.
Government deficits go on until there is a crisis. Argentina just passed its crisis and shows signs of reforming. Our crisis is yet to come.
Remember governments can issue all the debt instruments they want but they cannot conjure buyers for that debt out of thin air. When demand slack, interest rates rise, or governments FORCE investors to buy them, or central banks buy them, creating inflation in the process.
Central banks must have reserves. Lately those of the BRIC countries are turning to gold as a reserve rather than US debt instruments. Yet many say gold is a barbarous relic that is stupid to hold. We continue to dig a hole that will be very hard to climb out of.
My point is that the country existed and flourished well before the personal income tax. The national government’s primary role is the defense of the country. Unfortunately, too many people think it is the federal government’s responsibility to spend money on social programs. The programs can be better managed at the local level where waste can be better controlled.
Heck yeah! I say we get rid of the Interstate freeway and highway system! … What a waste of money. 
You gotta be kidding!
The capital gains tax rates encourage investments. If you had a a gain of more than $90,000 would you rather pay 22% to 37%? That’s the rate scale if it were regular income and not capital gains income…
It’s not the bottom 50% that’s getting shafted, it’s the 50th to 95th percentile folks who are taking the hit. And among that group it’s the top half that’s taking the brunt of it.
The top 1% of all taxpayers are the fattest and happiest. And they pay politicians very well for that benefit.
Flourished for whom? The wealthy? The robber-barons? Certainly not for regular folks, women, non-whites.
The national government’s primary role is the defense of the country. The programs can be better managed at the local level where waste can be better controlled.
Sure, do environmental protection at the state level – one state decides they can pollute and inflict it on a neighboring state. That’ll work really well.
The world is much more complicated than pre-1913. Sure, we need national defense, but we also need other things at the national level – trade, fiscal policy, financial regulations, worker safety and labor laws, environmental protections (if you want clean air, water, land), infrastructure, emergency (FEMA etc), etc.
Pre-1913, non-male, non-white people had no rights. There wasn’t a big middle class. There was none of the current technology. So much has changed, but you want to apply the taxes from over 100 years ago to the world we have now. That doesn’t make sense.
Why do you keep looking backwards as an ideal for a completely different future?
So taxing capital gains ENCOURAGES investments, versus not taxing them, as many countries do not do? Gosh, I sure wish we could resurrect Copernicus so you could argue with him against the sun being the center of the solar system.
And let us not even mention that capital gains are not indexed to inflation, so non-existent gains are taxed the same as real ones. The selling price of a rental house may buy the same number of gallons of gasoline or pounds of filet mignon as the buying price did 20 years ago, yet the seller is supposed to have made a profit when he sells it.
During the period after the civil war from about 1870, productivity and the standard of living in the USA rose dramatically for everyone. This happened principally by prices FALLING on manufactured goods. World War I caused rampant price inflation and the ensuing huge downturn of 1921, ending the long streak of prosperity.
It is working for any one of the people who buy shares of BRK.B on the stock exchange for their IRAs.