The good rich and what they cost us
As higher earners tot up the damage of the budget deal, many of them can draw consolation from one bit of news. The 2013 deal doesn’t eliminate the charitable deduction. But maybe that particular break for plutocrats should go as well. That is the take-away from “The Good Rich and What They Cost Us,” a series of profiles of our rich countrymen down the centuries and their efforts to burnish their reputations with philanthropy or other gestures of ethical concern.
Robert Dalzell Jr. starts by calling attention to an indisputably American trait: respect for great wealth. Americans approve of wealth, Mr. Dalzell notes, “as a confirmation of the existence of equality of opportunity and thus democracy.” His second observation, likewise reasonable, is that our admiration for the rich functions as a kind of veil, hiding the rich man’s shortcomings from our eyes. Mr. Dalzell aims to pull back the veil, to expose the wealthiest philanthropists for the imperfect creatures they are. …
Was Rockefeller, Mr. Dalzell asks, a good and generous man? The answer is unclear, he says, “but by the end of his life he had come to act like one.” Similarly, Mr. Dalzell traces the origins of the so-called Giving Pledge that Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and other billionaires have signed in recent years, promising to devote at least half their fortunes to philanthropy. Their motives, Mr. Dalzell implies, are mixed, ranging from generosity to a desire to counter populist anger at the notorious 1%.
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Flat tax. No deductions.
davidk on January 16, 2013 at 5:43 PM
Flat rate tax, every person pays the exact same amount.
astonerii on January 16, 2013 at 5:46 PM
Flat tax or consumption tax, pick one.
Much as I’d personally like the latter I’d gladly settle for a flat tax if I had to.
MelonCollie on January 16, 2013 at 5:49 PM
Flat tax, or kill the income tax and institute a consumption tax.
The Rogue Tomato on January 16, 2013 at 5:50 PM
In fact, I would say we should pay 200 flat rate taxes. Age 18 and over approximately 240 million people.
Start with one for the
standing military, $3700 dollar a year.
Followed by courts,
Followed by congress,
Followed by the executive branch.
Followed by other constitutionally specified activities.
Then go down the list of extra constitutional activities, ONE by One by One and every single adult in the nation pays the exact same amount of money for each.
astonerii on January 16, 2013 at 5:54 PM
Dude, how many years have these people been sleeping?
theperfecteconomist on January 16, 2013 at 5:58 PM
I’m with the flat tax or consumption tax people.
Not both, one or the other.
Fallon on January 16, 2013 at 6:11 PM
Me either, it would be a horrible idea.
MelonCollie on January 16, 2013 at 6:14 PM
A true flat tax has the advantage of being one of the simplest and least involved taxes to enforce. Most people end up with tax being taken just a few times a month, and there is less distortion of the market. However, what really has to go is the corporate profits tax, which is little more than a doorway to cronyism.
Count to 10 on January 16, 2013 at 6:37 PM
A consumption tax has the advantage of allowing you to build up your capital, tax free first. If you wish to save.
CW20 on January 16, 2013 at 7:24 PM
The charitable deduction should be a credit. So long as government is in the “Good Works” business, instead of living within its Constitutional limits, it should have to compete with other providers of “Good Works” for resources.
cthulhu on January 16, 2013 at 9:21 PM