Thursday, December 22, 2011

An Interesting Proposal To Address Inequality

But It Won't Be Under The Tree This Year
A New York Times article Don't Tax the Rich, Tax Inequality by Ian Ayers and Aaron Edlin, Law Professors from Yale and Berkeley respectively, was discussed today on WNPR - Connecticut Public Radio's Where We Live.   The PodCast should be available soon.

The authors are concerned about the demise of democracy in the face of political control by the wealthy.

The gist of the plan is to have a tax on the wealthy kick-in only when the disparity between the income of the 1% and the median income exceeds a certain ratio.  They arbitrarily choose the 2006 ratio of 36 (36 times the median income, which I, and most of the callers think is too high).

The plan would insure that "All boats will rise with the tide", i.e. that the wealthy could only get richer as the median income increases - as the 99% increase their income.  The incentive would help job creation, grow the economy and be the closest thing to a real trickle down economics.

As all solutions create new problems, this plan would not be without some flaws, drawbacks or unforeseen consequences.  But it is an interesting new concept.

Many of the audience who called in cited the dysfunctional congress as the major block to making any efficacious changes in tax law, let alone one that is as creative and innovative as this.

7 comments:

Russ Manley said...

Oh that's so fucking goofy. You know the bright boys in accounting and finance would immediately come up with a way to juggle the numbers so that the taxable ratio never happens.

I say tax 'em all at 36 percent straight across the board, for starters. Plus there's no reason why somebody making a million-plus per year shouldn't be paying Soc. Sec. and Medicare taxes too.

Unlimited wealth, like unlimited power, is always a bad thing.

Bob said...

Interesting idea, indeed, but with most of Congress filled with the 1% it might be a hard bill to get passed/

Moving with Mitchell said...

Fascinating

Frank said...

Russ, Trouble is, no one in congress gives a rats ass about your or my opinion. They don't even care about the assessments of learned economists and professors from Yale and Berkeley. Hopefully many who are up for reelection will be voted out...like Bob said, they are the 1%, so things won't be changing anytime soon, I'm afraid. Mitch, well, you're just far enough away to not take it all too seriously...unless those European nations start falling like dominoes...

Anonymous said...

There is also a proposal to tax all stock and bond transactions at .03%. It does work but I say that's far too low. Make it 5% and you could parcel out $6 Billion to ever state in the union EVERY year.

Imagine what a state like mine, RI could do with that. Fix the highways and roadways, improve the schools, those are just a few. I saw what the stimulus money could do and this would be SIGNIFICANTLY more.

William Dameron said...

I am not sure if anything will get passed with this Congress....

Russ Manley said...

"Nobody in Congress gives a rat's ass about your or my opinions" - that's just the problem, isn't it?

wv - shiveri

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