Quote:
Originally Posted by loquitur
Dippin, if total tax burden is consistent across time, irrespective of variations in rates across time, that tells you that overall payment of taxes is resistant to more than marginal attempts to increase them.
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But it tells you nothing, absolutely nothing, about how much, in proportion to their income, people in different income levels pay. And that is what progressive taxation refers to. Taxes can be extremely low and be progressive or extremely high and be flat. From the start I talked about progressive taxes, not how much total taxes people pay. So whatever overall "resistance" to taxes there might be, the fact is that a generation ago the top 1% paid more their income in taxes, and now that number is much smaller.
Oh, and whatever stability there seems to be in total federal revenues, that leaves out state and local taxes,
where the number fluctuates a lot more, but is still completely beside the point related to how progressive taxes are.
And I would love to see where I said that taxes do not affect the behavior of the people taxed. You seem to be having a conversation where parts of it take place entirely within your head. All I've said is that taxes were significantly more progressive in the past without any of the disastrous effects you claimed there would be.