Can You Balance The Budget?

I presume you believe in trickle-down economics then. Little chart that could possibly make you think again:

I was more referring to the fact that your tax hike makes it more profitable to make less money, and by a considerable margin.

I think you've missed the use of "marginal" in "Canadian federal marginal tax rates of taxable income". This according to my understanding means that with the "over $132,406 - 29%" example this would mean that anything earnt over $132,406 would be taxed at 29%.

And you said you'd change 29% to over 50%. That means you keep significantly less money if you make over $132,405 than you do if you make less than or equal to that amount. The incentive to actually increase your personal wealth is significantly lower... You put a hard cap on income and punish success. It's got nothing to do with "trickle-down economics", it's got everything to do with the incentive to better yourself.

What I would personally do is hike the corporate tax rate to about 60% but create a new tax for co-ops which would be where the corporate tax is right now give or take a few points to encourage the growth of co-ops instead of corporations.

People lose the incentive to earn because they earn less than they otherwise would? I'm not sure that's true. People always want to earn, regardless of what they are missing out on. Just look at the graph mate. 90% top marginal tax rate and real GDP percentage rises higher than at any point on the rest of the graph. That pretty clearly debunks your theory.

Corporations are sound business models. Compared to sole proprietorships and partnerships, they're significantly more democratic and responsive to markets. I seriously don't understand the left's (or hell, the right's) hatred for corporations.

As soon as you jump up a dollar in income, every dollar you make from there on out has over half taken by the government. That's insane. You cannot deny that you're putting a hard cap on income and engaging in class warfare. Maybe that's okay with you, but I don't want to live in a place that will punish me for being successful (and hell, only marginally successful at that, we're not exactly talking about the super-rich here).

Again, I don't see how you can rationally dispute the fact that people have less incentive to work when they reach your income cap. It's soul-suckingly harsh.

It's all in the name of worker's democracy. Besides co-ops can easily replace corporations as they do the same thing just giving the workers a choice.

Excuse me while I go vomit.

That's just wrong. Worker's co-ops are one of the worst business models out there and they are fundamentally opposed to the corporate model.

Have you ever heard of Desjardins or Agropur?

Why? Income inequality has shot up since the 80s and it needs to be curbed for a better society.

It isn't a hard cap. A hard cap would be 100%.

I'm British. I'm not afraid of class warfare. I'm not afraid of recognising classes and the inequities between them. I'm not afraid for fighting for a fairer and more equal society. Don't forget, most class warfare is engaged by the most privileged. Workers were crushed by Thatcher and power. Corporate taxes are constantly being dropped. The top marginal income tax rate used to be 90% in the US. The Tories are reducing the top marginal tax rate in the UK. So if there's a class war being fought the most privileged and powerful are winning.

I don't equate success with income. Sorry. I don't think our lives are defined by how much money we've earnt. I consider 50% to be on the low end of top marginal tax rates. To even get 10% of money over $100k+ is astonishing privilege when there's still homelessness (amongst other overwhelmingly negative factors of income inequality):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States#Statistics_and_demographics

I somewhat agree, though I would still want to incourage the growth of co-ops, while at the same time not completely destroying the economic foundations of corporations.

You know we're doing this in Denmark, and we're still in the top 10 of the worlds most competitive countries. It's not insane, you just have to adjust to the new situation in which the state provides free education, health care etc.

I never thought I'd hear you talking about class warfare just because of a tax hike. You know, for a moment, I actually started to like you somewhat...

Again with the whining. Just because you're getting taxed mabye 10% more than the average doesn't mean you're being punished for being successful. It just means that you have more money, and can thus contribute more to society than the average person, mind you, the society that has made it possible to achieve your succes and even helped you along the way.

See previous. It's absolutely ridiculous to think that people don't want to make more money just because they'll get taxed more, and you fucking know it.

Desjardins is one of the largest insurance firms in Canada and the largest in Quebec and guess what it's a co-op. Agropur is the company that controls almost all the dairy products in Canada it is also a co-op. These are successful co-ops that have replaced corporations.

This is stupid. There's next to no options that might hurt the rich or their corporations, but they've searched far and wide to beat up on Children's Education and Firefighters.

Also, how did a super-secular government like Canada ever even consider giving tax deductions to the clergy?

Not by engaging in mindless assaults on the rich. Leftists want to drag everyone down to the same level with simple-minded brute force and bind them there in chains. What they don't realize is that we can have a functioning society without slapping everyone in irons and locking them to the ground. It's simply not necessary to trample on innovation and success in order to guarantee everyone a decent standard of living.

It's an extremely tough barrier to cross. You suddenly spike up the tax rate from a quarter to half over one dollar and you're telling people how much success they're allowed to have.

Oh dear God, here we go...

Stop seeing things through that ridiculous classist lens and recognize that "the world" is just a big place full of individual people. Don't construct policy based on the ramblings of a long-dead and long-discredited "revolutionary". It's precisely because you lot look at society as a stratified catalogue of stereotypes instead of a web of individual people that you can never use anything but brute force to accomplish your goals.

I find that concept revolting. Truly, a "fairer and more equal society" can't be built on the bent backs of the successful.

Except when the rich "wage class warfare" no one actually loses any privileges or gains more duties. Well, except for the omnipotent deity of leftism, the state.

I don't think all successful people are wealthy, but I think you'd be unable to deny that the wealthy are successful.

Other people are not our responsibility. We have no obligation to help those who cannot help themselves. You are the master of your property, and no one has the right to strip you of it in order to satisfy another man. Government can work to fix societal ills (and does, in the status quo) without declaring open season on anyone with a fat wallet.

D3VIL doesn't even deny it. It's a blatant example of class warfare.

Except that's not what he's proposed, at all.

Here we go again with this idea that we owe anything to "society". That's bullshit. Fuck "the community" and "the world". The only reason you should concern yourself with the wellbeing of either because you're concerned about how these amorphous concepts will affect you personally, or out of a sense of misguided altruism.

People are always going to want to make more money. We're all climbing up the hill to prosperity, but what you're proposing amounts to suddenly increasing the slope by 45 degrees halfway up the trail.

I don't think that was ever in question.

The amount of effort you need to make to earn the same amount in a system that doesn't take over half your earnings is significantly less. You are incentivized against increasing your wealth, and that's made all the more blatant by D3VIL's (and for that matter, Warburg's) post. He completely fawns over the idea that we owe something to society, and that being rich is a crime which requires class warfare to rectify.

No, class warfare is conflict between social or economic classes. If there isn't a "proper" conflict, it's not class warfare.

Well that's how I understood it. Pedro pretty much sums up(somewhat) what I thought Devil was proposing, though it might have been something else entirely...

That's an incredibly selfish and narrowminded view on the world and "society"(I don't know why you're doing that).

You know, saying:"Fuck the world!" is something I'd expect from a 12 year old emo/socialist, which you constantly complain about on this exact issue. Seeing you writing it is extremly hypocritical and pretty annoying.

Like I said, you're dependent on the community, and denying that they helped you achieve success is arrogant to say the least, and while you might not like it, saying that you don't own them a thing is like doing that to your parents. You own them everything. Without society, you would be practically nothing.

Oh I don't think it should be that way, nor do I think people are "all climbing up the hill to prosperity." If you think all people do their job because they want to be rich, you're very wrong. Wealth and success is not just measured in cold cash you know...

Aye. The game is sadly missing a 100% tax rate for the wealthy type option. Also, where is the nationalization button?

I'm gonna disagree with both Kali and Pedro here:

Kali:
While I do agree that heavily taxing the wealthy for the sake of being wealthy isn't a terribly good reason to tax, I do feel that a higher tax rate that would benefit society would be preferred. Increasing the wealth and wellbeing of society benefits everyone.

Pedro:
While I do agree that a higher marginal tax would be beneficial, I also would stipulate that an 'exaggeration' of what we have now would be irrational, though a responsible hike wouldn't hurt.