I’m reading Robert Reich’s most recent blog post and its accompanying comments section (the comments on his posts are sometimes insightful! imagine that!) and one thing stuck out for me.
We often hear about how taxing the people at the top will take away incentive to perform better, but does that really make sense? If I tax you to where you are making a mere $500,000 per year, let’s say, and you’re miffed because you used to make $800,000 per year, so your performance drops to a dismal level, won’t there be someone else in this nation of millions who says “Hey, I’ll do that job better for half a million!”? You’re going to lose that paying job to someone who isn’t as greedy. Someone who was educated with the tax money we got from making you pay your fair share back to society.
I think it’s pure mysticism to suggest that there is only a very small set of Americans who are capable of doing the jobs “at the top.” They’re just using that mysticism to keep us from taxing them properly.
This is all very basic, but it’s one of those things I hadn’t really thought about before, which is why I love reading Robert Reich’s blog.
Sam, when is your dad going to make a new video?
7 hours ago
