Comment Re:No surprise (Score 1) 1601
Okay, so it starts at 250k and then when that isn't enough it moves down to 200k then 150k and...wait there is no one left to pay because everyone is just living on the government. The problem with many of these social programs is that they aren't temporary. We have created entire cultures and generations of people who live off the government. Do we want to put even more people on the gov. dole?
The top 1% of the population in the US controls 33.4% of the private wealth in the country as of 2001. The top 20% of the population controls 80% of the private wealth. If the lower 80% of the country paid nothing at all, you'd still have plenty of wealth from the top 20% to fund basic government functions. Last I heard, the wealth gap has increased since then as well, under the Bush Administration which shifted the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class.
If you were to try and have equal tax rates for everyone in an attempt to fund government, you'd actually have to raise taxes quite a bit for most people, as it'd require a rather massive tax cut on those who control most of the wealth.
I'm also not sure where you're finding these people who are living high off the government dollar. I know there was a big deal made of them in the 80s, but I've never actually seen any numbers.