They in fact pay less of a share of their incomes than poor people, when all taxes are included, including the hugely regressive sales taxes. I'm quite willing to look at eliminating ALL sales taxes, replaced with excise taxes on imports (ie.. elimination of Free Trade), and progressive income taxes. We've had it before.. from1946 - 1971 and it worked. What we have now is failing catastrophically.
I don't consider it a 'double whammy', i just consider it making the rich pay there fair share to a society in which their wealth originated and on which it is dependent. It certainly won't reduce them to poverty, probably won't make that much of a difference in their lifestyles.. they'll probably have to be a little less spendthrift.. but welcome to the world the rest of us live in. We've become much too adulatory of the wealth and celebrity, these people are actually not special at all, they are just more opportunistic and lucky.
Take a look at the book, The Spirit Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett which did an in depth analysis of the effects on nations in which polarized wealth predominates. They are disastrous. And yes, one motive of progressive taxation is to impose a more equitable distribution of wealth, to reduce those problems... as well as pay down the deficit.
In any case, i now consider these solutions inevitable. We are on the verge of having revolution in the streets. The only way the rich will be able to protect themselves is to submit to a system of fair taxation and redistribution of income... so they don't end up hanging from light posts.
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