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Originally Posted by dogzilla
What difference does it make whether it alters their spending, savings and investment patterns or not? It's that person's money and their right to do what they want with it. If they want to spend it, save it, give it away or just light it on fire, it's none of Washington's business. It's not Washington's money.
It's also none of Washington's business whether someone's income stimulates the economy or not. Once again, it's that person's money to do what he chooses to do with it. If he wants to emulate Scrooge McDuck, that's his right.
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So you have abandoned your initial argument that an increase of 3% on the marginal rate would adversely impact the top 2% of taxpayers to the libertarian argument that it is their money to do with as they please.
I would point you to the libertarian icon, Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations:
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The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion
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