A restructuring of the income tax is not socialism.
That depends entirely upon the actual purpose of the restructuring. Lets look at the following line from the OP:
"...wealthy Americans. It's about time they payed their fair share..."
Some of the stats surrounding who pays how much of the tax burden has already been shared in this thread but what you'll never hear is a fixed number as to what constitutes "fair". The top 50% pay 96% of income taxes and that same top 50% will soon be paying 100%. When do the "Progressives" find "fairness" has been achieved? Historically, not till there is equal poverty and misery among the people... When there are no "Rich" people left to tax, only poor people wholly dependent on government to survive (Cuba). That's all their emotion based class warfare policy can achieve: Universal Failure. That is the most common way for politicians to cement one party in perpetual power and create a ruling class.
Taxes have only one purpose: to fund the expenditures of the government. If you tinker with the tax code for the purpose of maximizing revenue to the Government while treating all Americans equally, then its not Socialist. Its fiscally sound policy.
When taxes are used as a tool for "social justice" or to "fix" inequities that arise from Capitalism (redistribution of wealth) or are levied disproportionately among the population (tax the rich to subsidize poverty), all without regard to the actual revenue created by such policies (spending that continues to outpace revenue), then you have a socialist tax policy... in our case "Progressive".
Ever noticed that the longer we keep this "Progressive" tax, the farther we spend future generations into debt? Strange how the "wants and needs" always manage to outpace an ability to pay and the the only answer Washington can come up with is for us to become more "Progressive", spend ourselves further into debt while demanding ever increasing income tax from an ever shrinking income tax base.
Even the
actual Communists in the former Soviet Union have seen the light and decided to "Change" their "Progressive" tax system to a Flat Tax. Rather than taxing only those who "can afford it", all people are taxed one low flat rate - as if they were all equal under the law and in the eyes of their governemnt - and the result has been MORE revenue to the government than ever before... Remember, its the Russians and Chinese that have been funding our debt (until recently, and they didn't stop because they ran out of money, they no longer have faith that we are on a path of recovery but one of a total collapse).
PLC, I know you're one of those who say "We've been through worse before... We'll get through this." ...Right... and the titanic was unsinkable... We've never been at this point before, ever... but other countries have and it didn't end well for them. Our last two recessions were brought on by the collapse of market bubbles (the Tech Bubble and the Housing Bubble) and now we are trying to "recover" from the Housing bubble by printing money and creating a currency bubble.
A presentation on the state of our currency, by Satan's mentally challenged younger brother:
Now back to taxes...
"If you make less than $250,000 a year... you won't see your taxes raised one penny, in fact, you will get a reduction in your taxes!" Sound familiar?
Raising taxes on business and industry is an indirect tax increase on me, the consumer.... and I've been watching that "hidden" taxation take deeper and deeper bites out of my wallet. For example, the new Tobacco tax raised the cost of cigarettes by nearly $1 a pack... That was a tax on me, the consumer, causing my yearly tax burden to rise by $720 a year (2 packs a day, 30 days, 12 months [2x30x12=720]. And by the way, I don't come anywhere close to making $250,000 a year.
I can hear the Anti-Smoking Nazi's now, "Good! Dirty smokers deserve to pay more!" (an argument based on the nebulous term of "fairness", a selfish, petty, vindictive doctrine, rather than an actual interest in maximizing revenue). Mark my words, government will come out and report their revenue from tobacco sales has actually fallen far short of projections and the politicians will gladly announce they are making up the loss by raising taxes on something we ALL have to use... like electricity or gasoline. Cheering on a tax that targets a minority segment of the population always turns out to be a tax on everyone. Taxes are not being designed to maximize revenue, they are being used as a tool for politicians to expand their power, wield that power over the citizens, and socially engineer our actions and activities through the tax policy, I.E. Socialism.
