It's time to raise the top tax rate to 50% and the tax on unearned income, including inflation-adjusted capital gains, to 70%. Oh, we also need to replace all deductions with a much larger zero bracket.
Seriously. Low taxes are great for a short period of time, but the longer we have a substantial deficit -- because it is clear that neither the Democrats or the Republicans (even the Tea Party variety) will actually cut spending -- the more precarious the wealth of the rich becomes.
Our failure to tax ourselves enough is destroying the country and that is destroying the wealth of the rich. Sure, they have been gaming the system lately. The Gini coefficient has been working their way, but every single country that has ever had an incredible gulf between the rich and the poor has had huge social problems.
That would be spelled r-e-v-o-l-u-t-i-o-n.
For reasons no one understands now, George Washington spent some winters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (Jockey Hollow is a wonderful National Park unit. Go see it. They don't even charge). He did that to defend the revolt of the rich in America against the King of England. It worked out.
A few years later, the Queen of France, someone who seemed to be much like Paris Hilton, was alleged to have asked why the peasants weren't eating brioche if they had no bread. She lost her head.
People often tie the two revolutions together, but, other than the name 'revolution', they have almost nothing in common. In the US, it was a bunch of rich folks objecting that they were being ignored. In France, the rich were definitely the target. In the US, it started as a defense of the status quo ante. Americans fought to undo the attempts to tax them enough to pay for the costs of running the colonies. We would have none of that.
Sure, during the war the Colonies paid in useless currency ("Not worth a Continental"), but the rich, who generally took this currency, figured that they would still benefit from fighting the British. They did.
A few years ago, during Reagan's presidency, the rich rebelled (well, quietly asked the actor to be really nice to them) again against paying taxes. Again, they were successful, but they didn't require any blood this time and they didn't destroy the value of the dollar. What they did require was a commitment to irresponsibility from the GOP. They got it. Democrats often played along.
We've had thirty years of this -- a modern Thirty Years' War against the poor and lower middle class. History shows that the oppressed eventually will rise up. Sure, they have often had their uprising misdirected or co-opted, but at some point they will rise up and even if they fail, the rich will suffer.
The wealthy seem to have forgotten that social programs are not only morally upright, but they are also a way to buy off the poor. If there are a hundred million people who have nothing to lose in this country, what will stop them from revolt? How will these whining people who resent paying the taxes that helped make them and keep them rich stop the poor from taking their wealth or destroying it?
The rich have to get over their temper tantrum. The debt was run up to make them richer. They can pay taxes to keep themselves rich. The rest of us owe them nothing.