Taking the tax burden off the middle class and placing it exclusively on the shoulders of those who earn more than $600,000 is a shitty idea. It’s a shitty idea because it significantly reduces incentives for personal success — incentives that drive our economy forward. The American Dream and all that.
Thankfully, Obama’s tax policy is much better thought out than all that.
Yes, because people will stop trying to earn more money because they’re going to pay more taxes.
This does happen. Several of the European low countries feature much less personal ambition because of their overly progressive tax structures. Note that I say “overly” progressive. I’m not suggesting that we implement a regressive tax, and I’m not saying that a progressive tax is a bad idea. A progressive tax is a good idea. But picking a magic number (say, $600,000) and eliminating the tax burden below that number and increasing it above that number is a bad idea.
