Comments by "Zach B" (@zachb1706) on "The 70% top tax rate, explained with potatoes" video.

  1. The reason why we’ve seen such a rise in inequality is competition with other countries. Other countries have more workers, and those workers get paid a fraction of what a American is paid. This means ever since 1969 we’ve seen more and more jobs be lost to China, and other third world countries - which in turn has hurt workers wages. To try and keep America competitive taxes went down, and in 1980 when we started to cut taxes the us saw a massive boost in productivity, which benefited everyone. As long as everyone is getting richer and their life longer, it doesn’t matter if the inequality is high.
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  2. And that’s what we see, everyone getting richer.
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  3. We shouldn’t aim to make every time well off. People without a job shouldn’t be “well off”. People working a brain dead low effort job shouldn’t be “well off”.
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  4. Jeff Bezos who built up a trillion dollar multinational corporation that employs millions worldwide. Yes, he worked for that money - if anyone else had built up such a successful business then they would have been rewarded for it. That’s what low tax rates does, it incentivises innovation, boosts productivity and gives the people more purchasing power so they can invest in their business. And a 70% income tax wouldn’t hurt Bezos, he’d just fund some loopholes. Because when you start stealing a majority if someone’s income to put into your government that cannot valence it’s own budget, you incentivise investments elsewhere
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  5. Not really. The actual problem is that this would have disastrous consequences on the US economy - and add on the fact that taxing anything over 10M at 70% wouldn’t even come close to cutting in on the almost $1 trillion (more like $3trillion for 2020) budget deficit.
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