Conservatives: What are your arguments for not raising taxes on the rich to 93% of their income?

I'm trying to think of some good arguments to go against taxing the rich to Eisenhower levels (93%), but it's hard.

Most rich people aren't ideologue; they just pay the taxes.  Otherwise, the country that taxed their income the least (the UAE) would have all the billionaires.  But the rich pay whatever tax is imposed upon them because they are beta males (not an insult) who just go along to get along.

When you earn more than what is needed to survive, earning money is like a game.  The rich would still continue to produce to try and earn more.  If they were taxed at 100%, then they would cease to be productive since there would be no point.  But 93% still lets them keep some of what they earn.

Was America socialist in the 1950s when we were fighting communism?  Because taxes on the rich were at roughly 85% then.

I'm just thinking out loud.

This isn't my ideal tax method (my ideal tax method is outlined here and raises the money for all that I think is needed to fund).  But it is my plan B incase the plan doesn't go as planned.  We are able to balance every budget if we taxed the rich at 90% of their wealth.  Then we can afford a tax cut for everyone under $200,000.

Thoughts DARTers?

Cambodia tried that. Equalizing the wealth of everyone leads to a Luddite existence. It's inevitable.

Society would actually be better off if we subsidized the most able productive people in the world instead of the opposite.

Imagine a world where the best athletes had to wear weights equal to 93% of his body weight around his neck.

Imagine a world where The smartest writers had to tear out 93% of the pages they wrote.

How much worse off would society be for that meaningless action?

Theft is immoral, expounding is available upon request.

If you have not read Harrison Bergeron...I fully recommend.

Because their money belongs to them?

Is more of a reason needed than this?

Because a substantial part of the social contract (that the government will protect your rights and your right to property against banal class envy and majoritarian prejudices) will be irreversibly undermined, making America into a country with dysfunctional and untrustworthy institutions where nobody wants to do business?

Oh...also Russia tried this too and suffered enormously.

"Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the kulaks, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their production with the production of kolkhozes and sovkhozes." A decree by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on 5 January 1930 was titled "On the pace of collectivization and state assistance to collective-farm construction." The official goal of "kulak liquidation" came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination. The campaign to "liquidate the kulaks as a class" constituted the main part of Stalin's social engineering policies in the early 1930s. Andrei Suslov argues that the seizure of peasants' property led directly to the destruction of an entire social group, that of the peasant‐owners.

On 30 January 1930, the Politburo approved the dissolving of the kulaks as a class. Three categories of kulaks were distinguished: kulaks who were supposed to be sent to the Gulags, kulaks who were supposed to be relocated to distant provinces, such as the north Urals and Kazakhstan, kulaks who were was supposed to be sent to other areas within their home provinces. The peasantry were required to relinquish their farm animals to government authorities. Many chose to slaughter their livestock rather than give them up to collective farms. In the first two months of 1930, peasants killed millions of cattle, horses, pigs, sheep and goats, with the meat and hides being consumed and bartered. For instance, the Soviet Party Congress reported in 1934 that 26.6 million head of cattle and 63.4 million sheep had been lost. In response to the widespread slaughter, the Sovnarkom issued decrees to prosecute "the malicious slaughtering of livestock" (хищнический убой скота). Stalin ordered severe measures to end kulak resistance. In 1930, he declared: "In order to oust the 'kulaks' as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development. ... That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class."

Should I go on about what Hitler did to the Jews for the sake of economic normalization?

 Eisenhower 's top marginal income tax rate in 1953 was 92%. The 92% tax bracket applied to income over $400,000 in 1953. Trump dropped the top tax rate to 23% which saved him $1 billion.

Why would anyone think it's okay to take 93% of someone's income?

Also the 92% Eisenhower tax wasn't really designed to tax the rich. It was designed to force rich people to comply with government regulations in order to take advantage of tax shelters, effectively laundering money into the politicians coffers to create tax loopholes. It was simply a personal money making scheme for politicians that ensured they could maintain a monopoly of political power.

Not one person actually paid that rate. Not even Eisenhower himself.

The national debt recently passed $30 trillion. The publicly held debt (minus Social Security lending to the Treasury Department) is $23.5 trillion, a bit over 100 percent of GDP. Within a few years, the U.S. will bust the record of 106 percent set in 1946 as World War II ended. Then, rapid economic growth reduced that ratio, which ran “only” 35 percent as recently as 2007, before the financial crash.  Putin got Trump elected to bankrupt the USA. This will happen when the Yuan becomes the World currency.

And I suppose Putin got Merkel elected to bankrupt Germany's energy production as well?

Guy is a fucking genius I tell ya.

The thing is.

Rich people are rich for a reason.

And not so rich people are jealous for a reason.

You work it out.

There are plenty of "taxes are for poor people" type of ideas out there. If you once held such ideas but no longer do, well changing your mind about something isn't bad. I do it all the time. It does, however, at least mean that you should understand the mindset even if you no longer agree with it.

Taxes on very high incomes should be increased, but 93% is far too high. There’s this thing called the Laffer Curve which basically saying that at some point of income taxes are too high the amount of tax revenue actually declines because there’s no incentive to work past a certain point or to pay your executives above a certain amount. Economists debate at what point tax revenue starts to decline but I think they would universally say that 93% is past the point 

When income tax rates were that high super high incomes basically didn’t exist, but instead executives who reached that level had extremely lavish spending spending accounts. Price controls on labor (and that’s what a 93% income tax is in practice) probably aren’t a good idea. In such a globalized economy I would be extremely worried about brain drain if income taxes were that high. I don’t know what you’re defining as “rich” but doctors or top level software engineers can easily make $250k+ a year and their skills are applicable anywhere 

On a moral level I don’t feel comfortable taking 93% of what someone earns, even if that’s only a marginal rate after they’ve already earned and received a ton of money post tax. 

I'm pretty sure Jesus himself said give Caesar his due, but God demands something other than money.

Since Many in my family are doctors and lawyers, I can tell you many services are not money transactions. For instance, one lawyer got a new back deck patio custom built in exchange for legal services. Zero taxes involved.