I'd like to share a small story about my family.

[MinneapolisMatt]

I'll be brief.

A close family relation of mine founded an airline that most of you have heard of a long time ago. He started it in the late 1940s. It was a private company. He sold it in the 1970s to another family who kept it private. Then they sold it to another family and they went public, and of course, that's when the problems began. Blah blah blah....but by that time he was out of the company obviously. But it was sad for him to see what he had created get all screwed-up.

Anyway, that family relation made a ton of money. And you know what? He instilled in all of us that paying taxes (and he paid A LOT) was his civic duty to help those who were less fortunate than him. He would constantly tell us "With the money I pay to the government, I help build these roads. I help take out the garbage. I help the schools. I help the poor who can't help themselves."

He never ONCE complained about handing his money over, because he knew that 99% of the country would never have as much as he did. Nor did he care why someone was poor and needed help. It wasn't his business.

He lived modestly. You would never know by appearances the vastness of his wealth. He hated ostentatiousness and conspicuous consumption. He loathed most other people in his "class". He was low key. Just as normal as one could get, I guess.

My point is: with great wealth comes great obligation to their country, or at least that's what I was taught. Despite the fact that the top 1% tax rate was so much higher than today's rate, he still had TONS of money! Say his taxes were halved. What the hell would he have done with it? Bought another house? He already had one. You know what I'm getting at.

It is so disgusting to see extremely wealthy people bitch and moan about taxes. I have a hard time wrapping my head around this selfishness. It's completely un-American.

We really need to raise the taxes on the wealthy and the corporations. You can only take so much from the poor. Then there is nothing left. We're never going to get out of this debt mess unless everybody starts paying their fair share. And since corporations are now people, they count too.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Going with your premise then everytime a Regressive Party

member talks about lowering taxes on corporations and the wealth we need to ask LOUDLY why they are so un-American
everytime ask them...........

Make it just one of the battle cries, for we are in a war and if the war is not won by us then this country is lost.

[boston bean]

2. what makes me more sick is everyday people who

think that the rich paying less taxes is a good thing for them.

it's so AMERICAN!

[eleny]

3. He understod that democracy works when the money revolves all around

It's the only way democracy can survive. It has to stay on the move to all income levels of society. Taxation is the vehicle that drives the car.

[Raven]

4. Igrew up learning the same lessons. Unfortunately, many of my peers

missed it and are in Congress tearing at the fabric of the country that was carefully woven by your relative.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I grew up in a suburb that bordered the wealthiest neighborhood in the city

So I went to school with the children of the wealthiest families in my city.

The vast majority of them gave back to their community and never complained about paying taxes. I never heard a wealthy person complain about taxes or 'socialism' until these far right wingnuts got into Congress.

[Mister Ed]

6. There are actually two morals to the story

The first, of course, is that a patriotic American who makes good ought to be willing to give something back.

But the other thing I like about your story is the way your relative made his fortune. He did something, he built something. He provided a service to society that hadn't been there before, and so he prospered.

I'm afraid that model of entrepreneurialism is fast fading. There's much, much more money to be made in Wall Street flim-flam that produces absolutely nothing. The economic incentive to "build a better mousetrap" is not as strong as it once was. This, to me, seems likely to cause the death of American capitalism.

[Lugnut]

7. That sounds like my brother-in-law.

He is a retired business owner who is extremely wealthy. He says it's his civic duty to pay his fair share. He's a peach.

[Ramulux]

8. Its called "unearned income"

Its an economic term coined by John Stuart Mill that means that all income earned over a certain level should be taxed at an extremely high level because that income was earned because of the public. If you have a business that is doing extremely well and you are earning a lot of money, you are obligated to reimburse the public that has made you extremely wealthy.

No one in this country contributes so much to society that they deserve billions of dollars. No one. If you are the CEO of a major corporation, you likely had nothing to do with the success of your company in comparison to the public who has bought you're product or service. You're company succeeded because the public invested in you're company, not because you are massively contributing to society in some way. Thats why I think we should tax all capital gains over $1 billion at at least 90%, because all that unearned income does not belong to you, it belongs to the public who has already made you extremely wealthy.

You're relative clearly understands this.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. Thanks for sharing your story. From my experience with wealth or high paid people

that adopt an mentality of "it's not enough"...the more they have the more they think they need to survive.

[Search4Justice]

10. We can thank St Ronnie Raygun for making greed fashionable.

[seabeyond]

11. i hear ya. being well past 1940's, even in my time, that was the attitude and how i was raised

why i am so bothered today.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. I have a wealthy branch of the family as well.

Like yours, you wouldn't know it to look at them. Modest house, no designer duds, and my great-uncle drove his trucks until they fell apart around him or broke 250,000 miles, whichever came first. Never once heard him complain about taxes, but I did hear him tell off another relation once when she suggested he hire a particular accountant who could find him some tax loopholes. She earned herself a little lesson in civic and social responsibility.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. Noblesse oblige

Forgetting that lesson has hurt everyone. The Atlantic had a great article the other day about how isolated the wealthy feel. Your relative felt both connected to his community as well as respected by it.

Wealth concentration and an entitlement to zero taxes (or less) has hurt the entire social fabric.

[TheKentuckian]

14. The wealthy have to pay more taxes for structural integrity

Current tax levels provide to many perverse incentives to make quick bucks off of someone else's back over investment into your business to make it grow to provide more long term revenue.

Too low a tax rate discourages investment and innovation an encourages scams and piss poor long range decisions.

[Ratty]

15. My father was conservative, but just like yours

He said on many occasions that paying taxes was his civic responsibility. He lived comfortably and never tried to use loopholes or tricks to reduce his taxes. We never really talked politics and some of his views were quite frankly odious, but on the subject of taxes he was a firm believer in them.

[KittyWampus]

16. Noblesse Oblige- you are totally correct. Many wealthy people today lack any feeling of obligation

to contribute. OR if they do contribute, they want to have total control over where that money goes and how it's spent.