Note that at 39.10%, the United States already has the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world; Only Japan, at 39.54%, taxes corporations more heavily. (2009 OECD data)
Yeah, but we also all know that big US corporations use a creative variety of tax dodges to avoid paying anywhere near that. We could easily shave a bit more off the top.
The gist of the article appears to be proposing a 90% tax bracket on incomes of $400k+, and a 70% tax bracket on incomes of $200k+. These funds would be used to fund a federal employment program. The author states that it's intended to be an introduction to his longer essay, We Must Transfer Wealth, Again.
That longer essay builds a case for wealth redistribution around the following argument:
Our economy is very active and productive. It generates over $45,000 of value each year per human -- man, woman and child -- with a population of 305 million humans. With an average of 144 million workers working everyday of the year, workers create an annual product (GDP) worth $14.2 trillion. Each worker is producing almost $100,000 per year. Yet 67.2 percent of workers earn less than $38,000 a year, and 40.7% earn less than $24,000 per year. (Mishel, 2007: 126) And furthermore, of that 144 million daily workers only 92 million -- 64% -- are working full time. Some 36% of workers work part-time. So each full time worker can be said to
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I would certainly argue that there is a flaw in the logic that the so-called skilled labor jobs produce more value. While that may be true with certain skills, I have also seen more wasted time in corporate jobs than anywhere else, but when I worked receiving groceries for Trader Joe's, I saw much harder work doing a lot more in a day then I saw most corporate workers do. Again, this varies by the type of work and the workplace.
I do agree that there should be more pay for positions that require schooling and the gentleman who wrote this article does not say that everyone should be paid the same. What it does say is that there shouldn't be such Extreme Inequalities. The difference in pay doesn't even equate to the amount of schooling. Certain fields that require just as much schooling as other fields pay a lot more.
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That longer essay builds a case for wealth redistribution around the following argument:
Our economy is very active and productive. It generates over $45,000 of value each year per human -- man, woman and child -- with a population of 305 million humans. With an average of 144 million workers working everyday of the year, workers create an annual product (GDP) worth $14.2 trillion. Each worker is producing almost $100,000 per year. Yet 67.2 percent of workers earn less than $38,000 a year, and 40.7% earn less than $24,000 per year. (Mishel, 2007: 126) And furthermore, of that 144 million daily workers only 92 million -- 64% -- are working full time. Some 36% of workers work part-time. So each full time worker can be said to ( ... )
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I do agree that there should be more pay for positions that require schooling and the gentleman who wrote this article does not say that everyone should be paid the same. What it does say is that there shouldn't be such Extreme Inequalities. The difference in pay doesn't even equate to the amount of schooling. Certain fields that require just as much schooling as other fields pay a lot more.
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