Controversy will always follow humans where ever we go. Humans have argued over many issues for centuries, often times with no conclusion or “correct” answer ever in sight. One common issue that has been debated since the early 1900s is whether or not the more wealthy individuals in a society should be taxed more heavily than their poorer counterparts. Many have argued over the pros and cons of the taxation of richer people, but when one looks at it objectively, the pros far outweigh the cons. Not only do the pros outweigh the cons, but a question one must ask oneself is whether or not prosperous people really need that extra money? Richer people should be taxed higher because it is better for the economy, social classes will become more even, and the wealthy owe it to the society that helped raise them to become successful.
One reason why the rich should pay higher taxes is that it makes the social classes more even. Recently, social classes have been spreading further and further apart. The rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer. Raising taxes on the wealthy will help fix this problem as it will take some of that extra money, and be used to improve social welfare. In the 1920s, there were many different tax cuts. The first cuts began in 1922, and continued to occur throughout the 1920s (Crawford). In 1925, the government was encouraging a growing gap between the rich and everyone else because of the tax cuts that benefitted the rich. During this time, the top 1% in wealth increased their share of total income by 19% (Crawford). This hurts the lower and middle classes because that extra money has to come from somewhere, and it hit their pockets hard. The same thing happened not too long ago...
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...r people should be taxed higher because it helps the economy, it helps social classes become closer, and because the affluent owe it to the society that helped raise them.
Works Cited
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Judis, John B. “Rein in the Rich: How Higher Taxes Could Lift the Economy.” New Republic. The New Republic, 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
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Ydstie, John. “Raising Taxes on the Rich: Canny or Counterproductive?” NPR. NPR, 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Sixteenth Amendment- Authorization of an Income Tax – Progressives thought this would slow down the rising wealth of the richest Americans by using a sliding or progressive scale where the wealthier would pay more into the system. In 1907, Roosevelt supported the tax but it took two years until his Successor, Taft endorsed the constitutional amendment for the tax. The Sixteenth Amendment was finally ratified by the states in 1913. The origin of the income tax came William J Bryan in 1894 to help redistribute wealth and then from Roosevelt and his dedication to reform of corporations. I agree with an income tax to pay for all of our government systems and departments, but I believe there was a misfire with “redistributing wealth.” The redistribution is seen in welfare systems whereby individuals receive money to live. This is meant to be a temporary assistance, but sadly, most that are in the system are stuck due to lack of assistance in learning how to escape poverty. There are a lot of government funded programs, but there is no general help system to help lift people up and stay up, so there continues a cycle of
Talbott, John R. Obamanomics: How Bottom-up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-down Economics. New York: Seven Stories, 2008. Print.
Hall, A. (2001, August). The Flat Income Tax and the Fair Tax Consumption Tax: A
Many of my thoughts throughout ethics have been towards the utilitarian side. This is where I would differ from that view. If I were to go by the utilitarian view it would be to tax the rich more than anyone. This money would then go to the poor where the money could be used up instead of sitting in a bank account. The utilitarian believes you do whatever it takes to make the most possible people happy. If you took the top five percent in America and taxed them more, then gave it to the bottom thirty percent, you have now helped more people then you did not help.
"The Great Recession." State of Working America. Economic Policy Institute, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
In the United States there are four social classes : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Of these four classes the most inequality exists between the upper class and the lower class. This inequality can be seen in the incomes that the two classes earn. During the period 1979 through the present , the growth in income has disproportionately grown.The bottom sixty percent of the US population actually saw their real income decrease in 1990 dollars. The next 20% saw medium gains. The top twenty percent saw their income increase 18%. The wealthiest one percent saw their incomes rise drastically over 80%. As reported in the 1997 Center on Budget's analysis , the wealthiest one percent of Americans ( 2.6 million people) received as much after-tax income in 1994 as the bottom 35 percent of the population combined (88 million people). But in 1977 the bottom 35 percent had about twice as much after tax income as the top one percent. These statistics further show the disproportional income growth among the social classes. The gr...
Krugman points out how despite the obvious and ever growing gap between the rich and middle class in terms of wealth increase, Republicans tend to vote for tax cuts for the rich and for decreases in funding for programs that benefit the middle and lower classes of society, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Cutting funds for these services puts the middle and lower classes at even more of a disadvantage than they already were. Meanwhile, the rich receiving more tax cuts means they receive more money, furthering the economic wealth gap and increasing the money they can spend to influence politics. Krugman suggests the solution to the problem is increasing taxes on the
Kinsley, Michael. “Tax Reform in Plain English. Honest!” Time 9 Dec. 2002: 58. Academic OneFile. Web. 31 Mar. 2011.
The effect that the rich have in policies is enormous and has been discussed in
Gerald, Cathy, and Russel (543) believes that, “The rich separate themselves from everyone else perpetrating their wealth from one generation to the next as nobility of the past century did”. In this society, it appears that individual feel that, if I go it then you should get it; no one wants to help others. Gerald, Cathy, and Russel (545), emphasizes that, “When income or wealth is taxed at high rates, the rich are not able to save and accumulate as
Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens. The United States has often experienced a rise in inequality as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, increasing the unstable gap between the two classes. The income gap in America has been increasing steadily since the late 1970’s, and has now reached historic highs not seen since the 1920’s (Desilver). UC Berkeley economics professor, Emmanuel Saez conducted extensive research on past and present income inequality statistics and published them in his report “Striking it Richer.” Saez claims that changes in technology, tax policies, labor unions, corporate benefits, and social norms have caused income inequality. He stands to advocate a change in American economic policies that will help close this inequality gap and considers institutional and tax reforms that should be developed to counter it. Although Saez’s provides legitimate causes of income inequality, I highly disagree with the thought of making changes to end income inequality. In any diverse economic environment, income inequality will exist due to the rise of some economically successful people and the further development of factors that push people into poverty. I believe income inequality e...
It’s my opinion that something should be done to redistribute the income. The rich continue to get richer while the poor are getting even poorer. Even though some of us have the same opportunities but choose different routes of life most rich Americans are actually born reach.52 percent of Americans agree that the government should redistribute income. In order to redistribute the wealth it would consist of heavy taxes on the richest
The richest people of America continuously receive the largest tax breaks. Due to this unfortunate process, the rich stay wealthy while the poor pick up the extra taxes, staying in deep poverty. “Americans find themselves mired in the same place as their parents” (Class and the American Dream). It is more difficult now to rise up on the class ladder than it was in Gatsby’s era. Gatsby came from nothing, he rose from poverty by chance. Meeting Dan Cody was his opening into the world of the rich. If Gatsby had not learned the basics of how to act and how to be proper, it would have impaired his ability to get rich and climb the ladder. The gap that currently has to be jumped from the poor to the wealthy is now triple the amount it had been in the last 28 years, making the top incomes 74.6 times higher than the bottom incomes (Sherman & Stone)....
Income inequality is a big problem in the United States because the top, wealthiest American saw huge increases in their incomes, which the rest had their incomes go down. Bottom people do not have the same amount of money and the opportunity to move up the social ladder as the rich people do. In order to reduce income inequality, the government needs to tax the rich people more, and give poor people more money and more social services - education, food subsidies, health care.
“Raising taxes is wrong because people should be entitled to keep their own money and because an increase in tax revenue will be stifling to businesses. We should keep taxes low or even reduce tax rates to encourage