Progressive taxation does mean happiness for the largest number of people, since the government is taking from the rich minority and giving to the poor majority. I hardly think one could argue otherwise.
It's also taking from the middle class. Regardless, it's not right to take from someone JUST BECAUSE they are rich.
I thnk inheritance tax in the UK is high enough to be distributive without being a disincentive (50% for the higherst rates). The argument I have against inheritance is that since neo liberalism relies on the tenet of mertiocracy to justify its existence, it completely shirks away from enforcing one. If the world were truly meritocratic people would be born equal in terms of rights and access to services. However that would be a dream world. However, at least progressive parties acknowledge the fundamentally good idea behind this, rather than living in denial from an uncomfortable truth, as conservatives do.
I'm not going to lie. That's somewhat sickening in my opinion. I do not envy rich kids who inherit their wealth, because either those kids learn to handle their wealth or they lose it. Parents who work hard to become wealthy often know the importance of making sure their children are responsible before inheriting anything.
I'm okay with people inheriting their parent's wealth because their parents worked hard and deserve to have a say in what happens to their possessions when they die.
Equality is not fair when those who are above are unjustly taken from. Why should someone who inherits their wealth lose it just because poor people are unfortunate enough to be born poor? If I make 1 million dollars, why should my children be able to inherit only half to none of it? How is that fair?
What's fair to you, which is forcing people to be equal at birth, is unfair to me, because I believe that people who work hard and earn their pay have the right to pass their good quality of life to their children who they worked so hard for.
Well that certainly depends on how you define 'fair' doesn't it? Has it never occured to you that a key reason people are able to work is because they had a helping hand in life?
Everyone needs help to achieve their goals. Some people are able to get that help, others aren't. It's not the government's responsibility to give that helping hand, it is the responsibility of the people.
The more you try to force people so they all have an equal number of opportunities, the more you limit the number of opportunities given to people as a whole.
Again, it is unfair to take from those who are fortunate enough to have people that help them, just to cater to the unfortunate.
I really don't see why the people should have a say in this. If they did, people would choose 0, and then where would we be?
Not true. Look at all the people who support the health care bill.
I'm not saying we should have individual choices of what we do and do not pay, but we should have a say in where our taxes are going. Again, our tax dollars are going towards drug wars.
The only way to force people not to have a say in where their tax dollars go, is to limit their freedom of speech or to ignore them completely. If you ignore people long enough, they will fight their government.
Look at American protests. Whether you agree with them or not, you have to admit that they are very peaceful. American protests rarely turn violent because we believe in freedom of speech and we believe we should (and can) have a say in where our taxes go.
And how exactly are you going to get the poor into work without taxing the rich to pay for their schooling to give them the skills necessary to work?
Easy, stop forcing people to acquire an education for jobs such as hair styling and radio broadcasting. Stop sending so many students to school to get a degree in cooking, and allow businesses to hire people who have experience rather than a paper that says they graduated something that was nothing more than an expensive investment.
Education is good, but if you are able to cook without going to a cooking school, I don't see why a fancy restaurant shouldn't hire you. The same goes for many other jobs out there. If you want to become a hair stylist, you can't have your mother or friends teach you, you need to go to school.
There are many black American women who are great at breading hair, but the only way they can get a job braiding hair is to get an education they can't afford.
The US could quite easily cater to the poor. You spend a tiny amount on wealth redistribution programmes compared to most developed countries.
If the US caters to the poor, the prices of everything rise. The poor remain poor, the people who were above the poor line are now poor, and the rich are less rich.
Basically, you have more poor people.
As for all the other developed countries doing it, look at Greece.
