So, the thing is, I can't reply to the comment you wish you had written. You said "the rich", I think it's pretty clear that the top quintile (collectively earning more than the rest of the country put together) are rich. I'd say they're "the rich", even. I know, I know, people in the 99th percentile think they're middle-class because they can't maintain three houses and a jet, but they're stupid and crazy to think that.
BUT ACTUALLY, even your completely ludicrously irrelevant claim is still false!
The top 1%, earning nearly 20% of income, got taxed at 29.5% in 2007, which made up 28.1% of federal individual income taxes. Obviously if you crank that to 100%, and cut all other forms of government revenue, you can run the country for, uh...
1/0.295 * 0.281 = 95.25% of 2007 total individual income taxes
0.9525 * 40% or so of total federal 2007 revenue = 38%
Looks to me like the budget deficit is under 24%, that is 901B / 3803B (figures according to requested budget for FY2013, which is obviously complicating things since my previous numbers are from 2007, but I'm attempting to take the worst-of-both-worlds to make my claim as hard-to-prove as possible).
0.38 * 2.902/3.803 = 29%
0.29 365 = about 105 days. 3.5 months.
If you taxed the top 1% at 100% (but no wealth tax), and you cut ALL OTHER FORMS of government revenue, including corporate tax, payroll taxes, fees, businesses, everything.... AND you won't let me use the same deficit spending that the current real-life government uses.... AND you take wealth distributions from 2007 (which is less extreme than today, but better-documented) and combine it with the insane spending habits of this year (i.e. worst-of-both-worlds).... you can STILL run the federal government for more than a quarter of the year.
So any claim that taxing the top 1% at 100% will only last the government for a few days is... guess what.... totally bullshit. Let's try to have a fact-based discussion, instead of just quoting completely-preposterous hearsay that some wingnut blogger posted.
Note, again, that the reason all this math works, of course, is that the rich already pay most of the taxes (nearly half of fed indv inc paid by the top 5%). That, in turn, is due to a very-mildly-progressive tax schedule, combined with absolutely insane income distribution.
(aside to intended: no one should be discussing this, exactly as you said, but I won't let that stop me!!! bwahaha!)
BUT ACTUALLY, even your completely ludicrously irrelevant claim is still false!
The top 1%, earning nearly 20% of income, got taxed at 29.5% in 2007, which made up 28.1% of federal individual income taxes. Obviously if you crank that to 100%, and cut all other forms of government revenue, you can run the country for, uh...
1/0.295 * 0.281 = 95.25% of 2007 total individual income taxes
0.9525 * 40% or so of total federal 2007 revenue = 38%
Looks to me like the budget deficit is under 24%, that is 901B / 3803B (figures according to requested budget for FY2013, which is obviously complicating things since my previous numbers are from 2007, but I'm attempting to take the worst-of-both-worlds to make my claim as hard-to-prove as possible).
0.38 * 2.902/3.803 = 29%
0.29 365 = about 105 days. 3.5 months.
If you taxed the top 1% at 100% (but no wealth tax), and you cut ALL OTHER FORMS of government revenue, including corporate tax, payroll taxes, fees, businesses, everything.... AND you won't let me use the same deficit spending that the current real-life government uses.... AND you take wealth distributions from 2007 (which is less extreme than today, but better-documented) and combine it with the insane spending habits of this year (i.e. worst-of-both-worlds).... you can STILL run the federal government for more than a quarter of the year.
So any claim that taxing the top 1% at 100% will only last the government for a few days is... guess what.... totally bullshit. Let's try to have a fact-based discussion, instead of just quoting completely-preposterous hearsay that some wingnut blogger posted.
Note, again, that the reason all this math works, of course, is that the rich already pay most of the taxes (nearly half of fed indv inc paid by the top 5%). That, in turn, is due to a very-mildly-progressive tax schedule, combined with absolutely insane income distribution.
(aside to intended: no one should be discussing this, exactly as you said, but I won't let that stop me!!! bwahaha!)