Will Taxing the Rich Fix the Deficit?

The government's budget deficit in 2009 was $1.5 trillion. Many have suggested raising taxes on the rich to cover the difference between what the government collected in revenue and what it spent. Is that a realistic solution? Economics professor Antony Davies uses data to demonstrate why taxing the rich will not be sufficient to make the budget deficit disappear. He says, "The budget deficit is so large that there simply aren't enough rich people to tax to raise enough to balance the budget." Instead, it's time to work on legitimate solutions, like cutting spending.

Source data: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/file...

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[Bruce Wayne]

"It does not matter how good your theory sounds, it does not matter how elegant it is, if it doesn't agree with experiment-- its wrong" Richard Feynman.

Now I dont care how bad you think it is, but it worked everywhere it was implemented. Look at the purchasing power parity of someone from singapore and compare it to keynes paradise france, hint-the country with more skyscrapers has double the one with a shitty tower.

[Jordan Rusche]

Here's something to consider...without the investors' money, many of the employees wouldn't have a job with that company. Investors allow companies to grow at a faster rate (i.e. hire more employees). High taxes slows down the rate of a company's growth and slows down the growth of jobs in the process. With that said, if your empathies lie with the employees, I think it is best to support low corporate and investment taxes because it will result it more jobs available.

[Gavin Harrison]

A bit disingenuous, considering it ignores corporate, capital gains, and dividends taxes. Dividends are taxed at only 15% no mater what level if total income the owner has and is not subject to social security tax, compared toa national tax rate of 25% paid by people making more than 36k/year or more

[player276]

Wouldnt that be nice? You sit on the couch doing nothing while those who worked theis asses off have to keep working their asses off so you can do thing. Seams legit.

[Antony Davies]

You are incorrect.

The CBO data quoted in the video is here: w w w . cbo . gov / sites / default / files / cbofiles / attachments / Tax_liability_Shares . pdf

[garthbartin]

Any discussion of tax rates by income level that measure by total income rather than disposable income is laughable and misleading. Any fair and intelligent tax statistic should account for cost of living.

[Raattis]

29 * 1.5 = 43,5

[Ken Smith]

The R & R spreadsheet was not actually where the "errors" were. The spreadsheet was used as the front end for some software. The "errors" were in that software. The thing that I found the most interesting in it was the reason I placed quotes around the word "errors". We need honest data and honest math to do evidence based policies.

[mmann66666]

I think they are missing the point of:

per que no los dos

[Coerciveutopian]

29*2!=44

[GrungeyDude]

And this completely stupid suggestion to cut spending to fix the deficit has already been proven false. Reinhart and Rogoff's Austerity economics were based on a spreadsheet error, so how about however made this video stops spreading idiocy so we can talk about real solutions like taxing the rich, closing loopholes, regulating banks, and using deficit spending to get us out of this mess like we did in the Great Depression. It worked once, why wouldn't it work again?

[GrungeyDude]

This video is completely skating around facts to help support its point. The taxes on the richest Americans are nowhere near 29% because of capital gains, corporate tax loopholes, and income tax deductions. The top 0.1% saved about 150,000 dollars a year each from the Bush Tax Cuts, nowhere near as much as anyone else. If the that income tax rate, capital gains tax rate, and corporate tax rate were raised to even 50%, and loopholes were closed the rich would bring us right out of this crash.