Do you believe that if the rich people had less money,?

NO!

Wealth in the US is more concentrated than at any time in our history, including the period we call The Gilded Age. The economy grew by leaps and bounds between 1980 and 2008, but 90% of us made very little progress and had to struggle to stay in the same place.

Put it this way: If the minimum wage in the US had kept pace with the compensation of Fortune 500 CEOs, the minimum wage today would be around $40/hr. The corporations say they need to pay this money to get the best people, but look what these people have done to the car companies, the banks, etc. etc.

I judge the success of a system not by the gain of a few billionaires but by the standard of living of your average working guy. By that standard, the US has been losing ground for years. We no longer have the highest standard of living, we are now around no. 15. If -capitalism- means that 90% of us have to face a steady, slow decline in our standard of living so 0.1% can double their wealth every five years, then I think we're doing it wrong.

Suppy-side economics is an idea that has been unequivocally proven NOT to work. And you can't say we didn't give it a fair trial. I think 30 years is long enough to be able to say for sure that the idea has failed.

Conservatives like to say that the top 1% pays a much higher share of the total tax burden now than they did under Jimmy Carter. And that's true, but it doesn't mean what they want it to mean. It means that even though the rich got a HUGE tax break from Reagan, they STILL pay a bigger portion of the total taxes because they make so much more money now than they did then! When you cut their taxes from 70% to 30% and they end up paying more than they did before, it just shows you how much richer they are.

Well those people who say that that is what the Republican solution is don't even understand our stance. We don't want to "give" all money to rich people. We DO want a person to keep the fruits of their labors. And if rich people had less money; then they would thus have less money to spend; and thus the lower classes would actually have even less money coming their way.

And BTW tax cuts for EVERY class of income WORKS. Why were the roaring twenties the roaring twenties? Because Calvin Coolidge cut taxes for every income class. Reagan did the same in the 80's; and that succeeded in getting us out of the Carter depression. Bush did it in the 00's; and that helped to end the Clinton recession.

The only way that would work, is if the rich people gave me their money, otherwise it's just plan stupid. The so-called rich people are the ones who hire the middle and lower class. In other words it trickles down via a paycheck. But there are those that believe that it should be just given over to them, which makes no real sense. unless you are a brainwashed liberal, who thinks government will care for them regardless if they work or not.

That would depend entirely on HOW they got less money. But if they had less money by actually paying some decent wages, they'd have even more later.

Because you see, they got rich by the Middle Class "spreading its wealth" in exchange for products. But the deal was, the rich were to provide us jobs with a decent pay so we could continue to buy their sh*t and they could continue to make a profit and attract investors.

Unfortunately, the rich aren't paying attention all that well to the process, and only thinking shortsightedly. They thought that if they cut some jobs, and kept wages low, they could keep more of their money and be rich. Problem is, if the Middle Class doesn't make money, they can't buy the products of the rich, and then the rich don't make a profit. That loss of profit discourages investment, which means at the end of the day the business starts losing serious money from all of its sources.

Then the rich saved some money, but lost their business and were unable to make any more after that. If they would give up more of their money by giving a decent number of jobs with a decent wage, they'd make even more money when their employees became customers and gave that money back in exchange for their products.

That would encourage investment, which in turn would give the rich back their money and then some.

The Republican "solution" of letting the rich keep all their money, and then taking even more money from the poor and giving it to the rich as well, is the reason the Middle Class doesn't have any money. The rich have become too greedy and shortsighted.

So if the rich will not give up their money, then it will have to be taken from them and giving to the ones who create profit--THE MIDDLE CLASS.

Add-on:

Reagan RAISED taxes, each successive year for the last 7 of his 8 years in office. He raised them on everyone except the top 1%.

His economy did pretty well. Bush Sr. lowered taxes, his economy went into recession until he raised taxes to pay for the first Iraq War.

Bush Jr. lowered taxes, and the economy went all to h*ll. He refused to raise them, and it is still in h*ll. The economy only went up when Reagan and Clinton raised taxes; and went down when both Bushes lowered them.

Republicans have the right idea, but they don't follow it. Carter's economy ran into serious trouble because he had taxes way too high, that is true. But Bush's economy ran into serious trouble because he had taxes way too low and couldn't pay for his Iraq War, thus destroying the value of the dollar when the National Debt very nearly tripled on him.

Lowering taxes can work. But first, spending has to be decreased. Problem is, the three biggest spenders in American history were (in order from most to 3rd most and already adjusted for inflation):

1) George W. Bush (R)

2) Richard Nixon (R)

3) Ronald Reagan (R)

Republicans are spending way too much. They like to say that Democrats spend like crazy, but the three biggest spending spots in history are held by Republicans. But their taxes are way too low to cover their spending.

Carter had taxes way too high, pulled too much money out of the economic system, and it failed.

Reagan raised taxes, was able to cover his massive spending, and the dollar maintained its value and the economy recovered.

Bush Sr. lowered taxes, spent way too much in the first Iraq War, and his economy hit the skids. He raised taxes, and in conjunction with Clinton raising taxes, the two of them were able to pay what Bush Sr. had done in the Iraq War. So the two together led to the great economic times of the 90's.

Bush Jr. spent way, way, WAY, too much in the second Iraq War, but did not raise the taxes to cover that spending. That led to a near-tripling of the National Debt (from $4 trillion to nearly $11 trillion), and the devaluing of the dollar, which led to our current economic fiasco.

Taxes must be low enough to avoid taking too much out of the system like Carter did; but high enough to pay for what the government does, unlike what Bush did.

You're missing the point.

I take it you're referring to things like the Bush-era taxes that Democrats want to roll back. The problem with disproportionately light tax burdens on the rich is that they make it easy for the rich to stay rich and harder for the poor to advance themselves.

Capitalism needs the hardworking and intellegent to be able to succeed and the stupid and lazy to be able to lose it all. As soon as you create unreasonable barriers to class mobility (both up and down), capitalism itself fails.

No, I don't believe that. I do believe that if we were to scale back federal government to its originally intended purposes, the revenue requirements would decrease and so would our tax burden. We would ALL have more money. Of course, this would only happen in my utopian world. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will cut any of the spending. They'll just redirect it based on their own agendas.

i think that most rich people deserve to be rich because they earned it . i am far far from rich but i believe if a person has what it takes to be rich then good for him. i am not jealous and i am not looking for a hand out

If rich people has less money there would be less jobs, Have you ever got an job from a poor person?

Republicans/Conservatives do NOT believe in giving money to the rich.

We just believe people should be allowed to keep as much as possible of what they have worked hard to earn.

Tax the magic "O"s 5% to high and they just might say to hell with this and get in line for the FREE RIDE like everyone else. Then who will you work for? THE STATE that's who! YOU WILL NOT LIKE YOUR BOSS!