by David Thill

Created on: September 24, 2011

There is more than one reason Americans earning over $1M per year should pay a higher tax rate than those earning less. There are two basic schools of thought that both support the principle of a progressive tax system, in which those earning more pay a larger percentage of their income. The most commonly discussed school of thought argues on the principle of morality or ethics, while the second looks at the debate from a coldly practical perspective.

The ethical argument is pretty intuitive. It is easy for anyone to look at a single dad working hard days for a landscape company and evenings and weekends at a burger joint to keep his kids in clothes and food, and compare him to a Vice-President of Human Resources at a fortune 500 company with a summer home in Sweden and her own private island in the Bahamas, and just FEEL like the guy working to feed his kids needs to keep the government's hand out of his pocket - the VP won't even notice the oily feel of the IRS glove slipping in for a little snatch and grab. If he earns an extra buck, chances are good it's going to go to the credit card company or to fix his daughter's teeth, not to buy a different color of caviar. Americans instinctively believe that hard work and self-sacrifice deserve reward. Of course, Americans also instinctively believe that success in and of itself is a type of virtue.

If our single dad succeeds, takes over the landscape company and works his way up the ladder, again, why should he be "punished" for living the American dream? But if you ask the guy himself, he'll probably tell you no, he doesn't like paying taxes any more than the next guy but yeah, he's been there working minimum wage and giving up his life for his kids, so he knows there are people out there just as hard-working and self-sacrificing who haven't got their break yet, and ok, maybe it's kinda fair for him to help them out now that his kids are in college and he can see a pretty comfortable retirement a couple years away. This is the argument that it's just plain fair for those who have succeeded to help out those who haven't yet. It's part of living in a big, complicated society that shares common dreams and fears. It hurts every American that some Americans are suffering poverty and isolation through no fault of their own. Part of the bedrock of western belief is that there are depths of poverty that just shouldn't be ALLOWED to happen to Americans.

There's a lot of room to argue about who deserves help and who doesn't.

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