Poll: A majority of Americans support raising the top tax rate to 70 percent

[DonViejo]

1/15/2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her Republican critics have both called her proposal to dramatically increase America's highest tax rate "radical" but a new poll released Tuesday indicates that a majority of Americans agree with the idea.

In the latest The Hill-HarrisX survey, which was conducted Jan. 12 and 13 after the newly elected congresswoman called for the U.S. to raise its highest tax rate to 70 percent, found that a sizable majority of registered voters, 59 percent, supports the idea.

Ocasio-Cortez has not introduced any legislation to enact the policy idea but the survey shows a broad cross-section of Americans supports it, at least presently.

Women support the idea by a 62-38 percent margin. A majority of men back it as well, 55 percent to 45 percent. The proposal is popular in all regions of the country with a majority of Southerners backing it by a 57 to 43 percent margin. Rural voters back it as well, 56 percent to 44 percent.

Increasing the highest tax bracket to 70 percent garners a surprising amount of support among Republican voters. In the Hill-HarrisX poll, 45 percent of GOP voters say they favor it while 55 percent are opposed to it.

more
https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/425422-a-majority-of-americans-support-raising-the-top-tax-rate-to-70

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. The Millionaire/Billionaire class...a dying breed?

Hardly.

Taxing incomes above and beyond $10 million is a smart thing to do. For too long, the rich have become even more so and thus give nothing back. The rich do not spend, they invest to make even more money.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

2. Yes, it's way past time.

Pay your fair share.

[Caliman73]

15. They do spend, just not the percentage of their money that others do.

I am middle class. I buy clothes, food, my mortgage, pay bills, etc... with occasional luxury items. I spend a fairly large percentage of my income on necessities and save a little. What I invest comes out of my check automatically, pre-tax, because I am fortunate enough to have a job that pays me enough to do that, plus I have a defined compensation pension (that will hopefully be there when I retire).

A wealthy person will out spend me by far. Instead of spending 300 dollars on food per month, they likely spend 3000. Their mortgage (if they have one) is likely higher than mine. They buy a jet where I buy a car.

The problem is not that they don't spend. The problem is that for every multi-millionaire or billionaire, there are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people like me. We spend much of our income on the basics and some luxuries. Wealthy people spend their money similarly, but they have so much more, that unless they were like Trump, who had to be put on a $450,000 dollars a month spending plan cause he is such an idiot, that wealthy people spend way less of a percentage of their wealth than the average person.

With those savings, the wealthy do something else. They use their wealth as political leverage. They can go to a $30,000 dollar a plate gathering and get a few moments with a politician. They can and do get opportunities to influence policy and they use those opportunities to change the rules to protect their wealth.

The wealthy will almost always be okay. No matter which policies (other than confiscation of all assets which will never happen) are enacted, they will continue to be wealthy. What we need as a society are ways to reinvest that unused capital into things that benefit everyone equitably and a way to keep people from using their wealth to rig the system.

[bobnicewander]

3. Got to

play catch up for all the years since 1963. Make it 99.9%. And smile when you say that.

[DFW]

4. Minority report

While it might be a feel-good move to take rich people's money because we know how to spend it better than they do (or something), history has shown (especially in Europe, where I live) that when a state takes more than half of someone's income, even on a marginal basis, that someone looks to move to a place where that is not the case.

I don't care, since I'll never make a million dollars a year (let alone ten), but the countries in Europe that do not tax their citizens, even the richest ones, at over 50% are the ones with the least capital flight. Of course, enforcement and elimination of loopholes at existing rates are requirements to make it wok, but Germany, where I live, is running a surplus. France, Italy, Belgium, etc. with higher rates than 50%, along with constant Gestapo-like raids by their tax authorities (usually on small businesses struggling to get by, since the big boys fight back) are deep in the red. Just another point of view.

[John Fante]

7. The filthy rich appreciate your support.

When they throw $20 bills into the bonfire to keep warm tonight, they'll think of you.

[DFW]

10. Yeah, I figured I'd get a few civil responses like that.

All reason, no emotion

[MosheFeingold]

18. You are correct, but there must be a balance

I think the quote is "Human capital will go where it is wanted, and it will stay where it is well treated. It cannot be driven; it can only be attracted."

High earners just leave and go elsewhere.

You can see this in the outflow of people from New York and Chicago to places like Texas.

It's also why companies move operations and form tax-paying entities in other countries (tax havens).

You don't slaughter the cow. You milk it.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. bad view of loopholes

Sensible loopholes make the whole pie bigger. Loopholes should be chosen for their ability to encourage investment. Money put back into the system helps everybody.

[DFW]

12. They can be diseigned to encourage investment, no argument there

But they can also be designed to benefit those writing them. They can just as easily be abused, like Trump's denial of deducting interest or State income taxes or charitable contributions from Federal gross income.

Of course, spending a few trillion on friends of the POTUS or his VP (as in Halliburton's no-bid projects in Iraq) will bust even the most solidly crafted budget. ANY government can think up projects that require more revenue, and any government can come to the (amazing!) conclusion that it needs to raise that revenue in higher taxes from its population. But if those being taxed have no say in how their money is spent (e.g. infrastructure ¡si! vs. military folly ¡no!), at some point, the money will vote with its feet--something big money seems to be quite adept at doing. While some TV camera will catch someone trying to load a suitcase with $2 million in cash onto a private plane, the real tax evasion is being done by the hired computer expert transferring tens of millions a week on his laptop while watching reruns of Star Trek in his living room.

[0rganism]

11. is there some middle ground? or is it 50%-or-bust?

with a 70% TMR kicking in at $10M income, someone with income over, say, $100M would, in fact, be subject to a rate approaching 70%

would a 60% TMR keep them in the country? 65%? 67.5%? would a straight-up 50% TMR maximize take?

is there a sweet spot for the TMR where the ultra-rich figure they might as well pay taxes to continue living somewhere vs. packing up and moving to their second home in the Bavarian Alps?

do you think EU vs. US really a fair comparison? seems like national taxes in the EU are more analogous to state taxes in the US, and it seems like there's no strong central tax-collecting authority in the EU -- if the rich had to send a big chunk of federal taxes to Brussels regardless of where they lived in Europe, do you think they'd be more likely to stay where they are? in the USA, my state taxes are generally dwarfed by my federal taxes, although after deductions property taxes at the local level end up costing me the most.

[LanternWaste]

13. Wonderfully anecdotal evidence lacking anything objective to support it.

From sentence one, while your little editorial was certainly a good try at the feel-good tact (much as you indicted the original story for... but I realize holding others to a higher standard is convenient), you supply nothing other than Post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments to support your premise.

But still, good on ya for the old college try.

[DFW]

14. What part of Europe do you live in, if you don't mind my asking? n/t

[marylandblue]

5. It's interesting how much more liberal America is becoming

This would have polled badly 10 years ago. It's only our entrenched political and media class that doesn't realize the ground is shifting beneath their feet.

[Caliman73]

16. When your wages stay basically the same for 30 years and the cost of living increases...

You finally start to notice. People are starting to run out of "others" to blame and they are seeing that the wealth is accumulating at the top. The pendulum swings. The wealthy were just able to hold it back from swinging for a couple of decades.

[Hortensis]

6. Did the poll ask how many knew how historically normal that was?

Actually, considering most of us have lived most of our lives with similarly high tax rates for top brackets, WHICH PARTY passed and supports them, and which party lowered them to serve the wealthy should be known by all.

The Democratic Party's intrinsic commitment to widespread prosperity and to limiting the dangers of too much power in too few hands has been in eternal conflict with the Republicans' commitment to serving the few since the founding of our nation.

[former9thward]

17. Unless you are an tax accountant it would be a nonsense question.

No one paid those tax rates. The tax code was full of loopholes which shielded income. In the 1950s all top doctors "lost money" in their practices. Those loopholes were eliminated as the rates went down. That is the history. BTW since the 1950s which party lowered tax rates? (hint: remember what party controlled Congress most of those years -- including the years Reagan was president) I would be interested in what your history would be...

[Hortensis]

19. No one did pay 90%. But that was the top rate passed by Democrats

as part of the New Deal wealth redistribution, which lead to the greatest period of general prosperity in our nation's history.

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

That's Nancy Pelosi quoting Justice Louis Brandeis in her speech to the nation after being sworn in as speaker this month.

A huge clue to what we're about.

But while we're talking history, let's remember that, in spite of an implacable Republican congress determined to block him at every point, Obama managed to raise the tax rates on personal (not business) income on the wealthy back up where they were before Reaganomics put an end to the New Deal. (!)

What a shame people President Hillary was not able to build directly on that start as we intended. When we get control of the senate, though, we'll start over.

We'll have to. Like Speaker Pelosi and Justice Brandeis, I believe this era shows growing our middle class, shrinking poverty dramatically, and in the process destroying our new billionaire class is absolutely necessary to the continuation of our democracy.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Take that Trumpy boy