Trickle down economics

  • Thread starter Thread starter JamesATyler
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Crocus said:
Absolutely. Work benefits society and the individual. It must be recognized and rewarded, through whatever devices result in a decent living condition…
Click to expand...
Having some income disparity, but not as much disparity as we have now, would still provide plenty of incentive for work to be rewarded and recognized. No one is suggesting that income disparity be entirely eliminated - just brought back to a reasonable level instead of the record levels of disparity we have now.
 
If there was hard data that backed up taxing the rich less grew the economy more than taxing them higher, and that the grown economy created more jobs for people and lifted them out of poverty, no matter what the income inequality was, would you agree that is a more desirable system than one in which there was less economic growth, but that the higher taxation paid for social services and helped the poor in their current situation but did nothing to lift them out of it?
 
LeafByNiggle said:
I think it is fair to say that it does not harm those who have a way to live a simple but secure and dignified life if someone else is able to live in splendor.

It is also fair to say that it does not harm the super rich to tax them at 45% of their income. They will still be living a very comfortable life, secure and dignified.

Wealth disparity is not an injustice unless someone is suffering in an intolerable living situation.

It may not be an injustice, but is it desirable for a society to promote a system that makes for extreme income disparity? And who gets to decide if their living situation is intolerable? Can we ask them? Or can we just decide for them based on what we think and what we know of their lives?

Feeling jealous that someone has more material wealth than you do when you have enough is not the same as suffering an injustice.

And being taxed at 45% is not necessarily suffering an injustice either.

For instance, if the “poor” in this country were all food-secure, warm, had access to medical care and had a standard of living that others doing manual labor elsewhere in the world would find enviable, it wouldn’t necessarily be an injustice if some other people in this country made many times more than the poorest.

Is that how we want to judge our own country? As long as there is some place on earth where people are worse off than our poor, we’re good. Nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...
No, having the top portion of your income taxed at 45% isn’t an inherent injustice. The top bracket was 90% under Eisenhower; I don’t think those earners could complain that after taxes they just weren’t compensated fairly for all they did.

I am saying that there is plenty of room between what justice obviously demands on either end. That is not to say that there isn’t a system that could manage to be unfair to someone on either end, too. I’m only saying this is a matter for making joint decisions, not something where there is just one right way to run the society that can be deduced from first principles.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
Having some income disparity, but not as much disparity as we have now, would still provide plenty of incentive for work to be rewarded and recognized. No one is suggesting that income disparity be entirely eliminated - just brought back to a reasonable level instead of the record levels of disparity we have now.
Click to expand...
Here is the thing: it is usually necessary that society compel indviduals to contribute to the public welfare out of their private property. There is nothing inherently immoral with taxation, even when the taxation wasn’t going to be used to help the indigent. As the Lord said: Render unto Caesar. People do have the right to own private property, however. It isn’t OK for government to deny that and so obviously there is a limit to how much the government can rightly take from those not willing to contribute freely.
 
Please tell me what is inherently wrong with one person having more than someone else? There’s nothing wrong with inequality; it is the natural state of human affairs.
 
Last edited:
I’d say you have to look at the greater good. For me, this means:
  1. guaranteeing that as few citizens as possible really have horrible lives due to lack of financial resources
  2. making the lives of the greatest number of citizens as rewarding as possible, and in particular educating them to create innovation and backing up their efforts to bring innovations into the world.
Overall, I think the US is pretty good in these regards, but I’d say there are still a lot of poor kids out there, and if they were a little less poor, they would have a better chance to grow up and contribute something to the society.

As for the rich: I mean. . . there is only so much caviar you can eat, and only so many mansions you can buy, before you realize that the money just isn’t going to improve your life any more. Beyond that. . . well, one would hope that the super-rich would seek the overall betterment of the US (or whatever country they are from). That means making more jobs, but also training workers.
 
Last edited:
whyeyeman said:
Please tell me what is I wrong with one person having more.than someone else? There’s nothing wrong with inequality; it is the natural state of human affairs.
Click to expand...
The poster never said there was. The poster implied that it is not reasonable that someone so deserves to be compensated five or ten or 20 times as much as someone else that it is unfair to tax the upper end of their income very heavily indeed.

I think it is disingenuous, too, to imply that labor is a mere comodity, such that any wage an employer offers that someone out there is willing to accept must be a fair wage. There is such a thing as taking advantage of someone in no position to stick up for themselves. (Not that you said this, but some people use this to defend how the lowest-paid workers make so little and yet deserve no compensating support from anyone, public or private.)
 
Last edited:
My point really wasn’t about trying to help the rich. Never has been. But I’ve met people who believe that no matter how many people it benefits for the wealthy to have lower taxes in terms of the overall economy, they’d still rather tax the rich higher to economic detriment simply because “it’s not fair they have so much.”

I’m trying to ascertain where the other user falls.

I personally believe and I think the evidence backs me up that free markets have done more to lift more people out of poverty than any other system.

But I have met Christians who think we are called to alleviate the poors suffering in their status vs lift them out of it.

The church doesn’t weigh in on matters of science in things like geology, archeology, etc. I apply the same thing to economic science. I agree with the church we need to help the poor. I don’t think the church is qualified to determine what exactly the best way to do that is. I think that is something Catholics can hold as personal opinion.
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
But I have met Christians who think we are called to alleviate the poors suffering in their status vs lift them out of it.
Click to expand...
I imagine it’s going to be a mix. But my main concern is that a lot of moves to lift them out of poverty aren’t the kind of things that can be applied across an entire society. I think job training often falls into this category - there are only so many skilled jobs out there, and I think that number is significantly lower than the number of people who need to support themselves via work. So you’ll just end up with trained people doing unskilled jobs.
 
We have that problem now with college graduates working as baristas. But, I will make the argument that the huge amounts of cheap/free government money to go to college skewed the pool applicants because the barrier of cost was lowered and people who normally would have gone to apprenticeships for skilled labor instead went to college which is why we now actually have a shortage of skilled labor in this country.
 
I’d say that religion starts with the acknowledgement that all people are bound together. A sincere desire for the betterment of quality of life for others must be at the root both of thought and behavior.

But that’s just my opinion, right? 😃

(hint: it’s not)
 
Last edited:
I do not disagree with that. But there’s also varying levels of responsibility among groups.

A husband/father has more duty to his family than someone else’s. A citizen has more duty to his country than a foreign one. A government has more duty to its own people, than to others.

It’s a delicate balancing act
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
they’d still rather tax the rich higher to economic detriment simply because “it’s not fair they have so much.”
Click to expand...
I haven’t met anyone who wants to wax the rich because ‘it’s not fair they have so much’… I think most reasonable people want a fair tax system that benefits the entire of our society. Now the word ‘fair’ is obviously open to multiple interpretations, but I think we can look to the bible in Luke 12:48 “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required…” According to the bible, the rich should be expected to carry are larger weight.

The Church has laid down teaching on the economic matters… look to Rerum Novarum - Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor for the Church’s stances on many of these issues. In it you will find the Church’s support for the rights of labor to form unions, a rejection of socialism and unrestricted capitalism, and an affirmation of the right to private property.

We still have a long, long way to go in the US to achieve what the Church calls for…
 
People are characterizing this as black and white. It is not only the rich that benefit. I am a small business owner who is strictly middle class. Tax cuts help me directly. More taxation hurts me directly.

I don’t care what the rich do in their personal lives. My clients are all heads of industry, rich people. When they have more money in play, they spend more of it with me and a lot of other people I know. It has nothing to do with where they vacation. Rich people trying to get richer creates opportunity for people who sell to the companies they own. When they have more capital, they create more opportunities.
 
Last edited:
jfz178 said:
Because it’s their money. Not yours, not mine. The fact that they get to keep what they earn means we get to keep what we earn.
Click to expand...
You don’t get to keep that portion of what you earn that goes to taxes, so this comment is irrelevant.
People are characterizing this as black and white.
Click to expand...
I’m not.
It is not only the rich that benefit. I am a small business owner who is strictly middle class. Tax cuts help me directly. More taxation hurts me directly.
Click to expand...
Of course, all taxes hurt those who have to pay them somewhat. It is a question of degree. Not absolutes. (You see, it is not all black and white to me.)
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
If there was hard data that backed up taxing the rich less grew the economy more than taxing them higher, and that the grown economy created more jobs for people and lifted them out of poverty, no matter what the income inequality was, would you agree that is a more desirable system …
Click to expand...
I promise to answer that question if you will agree to answer this one: If there was hard data that showed raising taxes enough to provide free college or trade school education and free basic health care to all improves productivity to the point where more jobs were created for everyone and everyone had a higher standard of living, would you agree that would be a more desirable system than not doing those things?
 
PetraG said:
No, having the top portion of your income taxed at 45% isn’t an inherent injustice. The top bracket was 90% under Eisenhower; I don’t think those earners could complain that after taxes they just weren’t compensated fairly for all they did.

I am saying that there is plenty of room between what justice obviously demands on either end. That is not to say that there isn’t a system that could manage to be unfair to someone on either end, too. I’m only saying this is a matter for making joint decisions, not something where there is just one right way to run the society that can be deduced from first principles.
Click to expand...
Sure. I can agree to all that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top