Why do you think tax cuts for the wealthy is bad?

I don't. I think tax cuts are good, after the national debt has been paid down. As long as the government is $11 trillion in debt, we need a serious plan to fix that. To me, the best plan is a progressive income tax and high sin taxes. Do you have a better plan?

Wealth has been progressively more more concentrated in the US since the 1980s. The difference between a country like the US and one like, say, El Salvador, is not the amount of wealth in the country but how it is distributed. As the rich get richer and the rest of us get poorer, our standard of living deteriorates, we become less educated, less healthy, our streets become less safe, and we turn slowly into a third-world country. This has been going on, slowly, for the last 30 years.

The advantage of capitalism is that it builds wealth the quickest of any system. But the idea is to raise the standard of living, the 'rising tide that lifts all boats the same'. If the system is run such that 95% of us have to face a steady, slow decline in our standard of living so that 1% can double their wealth every five or six years, then I'd say we were doing it wrong.

This isn't to say that tax cuts for the wealthy are bad, only if they're disproportionate. Which they have been now for the last few decades. President Bush's tax cuts were almost exclusively for the wealthy--inheritance, capital gains, etc. All of the Republicans' tax reform proposals 'incidentally' help the wealthy more than the middle class by cutting progressive taxes and replacing them with regressive taxes, and by adding loopholes that can be exploited only by the wealthy and big corporations.

I think the answer to everything is a set percentage rate for everybody. The rich will still pay more, but only because they make more. It's just not right to tax people for making more money. It discourages industry growth. And a tax cut is NOT government spending. In fact, it would be the fastest and most effective way to improve the economy.

A whopping 30%?

I'm paying 33 and it can go as high as 39% depending on what I earn and I am far from rich. Being your own boss in the country I Iive in can be a real swine.

From your Link: "And The Winners Are...

The following nations encourage business development by imposing average effective tax rates that are more competitive.

•Mexico ... 13.8%

•Singapore ... 11.5%

•Ghana ... 9.9%

•Ecuador ... 8.2%

•Ukraine ... 7.7%

•Hong Kong ... 6.1%

I don't know why the author had left out the two most obvious winners, Iraq and Somalia.

Of course there may be some quality of life issues there ?

Libs feel that people who work hard for their extra money to become rich should willingly give up that extra money so the poor and lazy can have good things too. Of course, they exclude themselves because they feel like they are high and mighty by championing the plight of the lazy.

Because under the current system, very wealthy people actually pay lower taxes than middle income people. That's because most of the wealthy earn income in the form of long-term capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at lower rates than ordinary wage income.

No rich person has ever given me a job. I have worked for multiple multi-national publicly traded corporations. Never has my job been dependent on the CEO's personal taxes.

Great, so we can be just like Mexico if we cut our tax rate to 13.8%! Way to shoot high!

Because the wealthy have the means to avoid paying anymore than they have to or able to hide their value.

Tax cuts are government spending. When you consider that Republicans are bigger spenders than Democrats.