There seem to be two very crappy albeit popular arguments against increasing marginal tax on people making over a certain very high dollar figure (let's call it "the Buffett rule"). I am not aware of any good arguments against the idea, but if you are, feel free to direct me to them in comments.<\/p>\n
One argument involves denying that the Buffett rule will solve the debt problem. Another argument consists in pointing out that no one has voluntarily given extra money to the US Treasury. The first argument is something of a weak or hollow man, depending on how it's deployed. It's a weak man if someone makes this claim among many others; it's a hollow man if no one, as I suspect is the case, has actually made this specific argument<\/a>.<\/p>\n The second of the two arguments, a textbook tu quoque, got another shot at life yesterday from the ever clueless Chris Wallace<\/a>:<\/p>\n [I]f I may, David, the question I have for you is: if the president feels so strongly about tax fairness, is he going to he contribute money to the Treasury<\/strong> and they have a special department just for this, to help with the deficit<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n What would make the President a hypocrite in this circumstance is if he advocated for higher taxes on earners such as himself and then refused to pay. Not, as Wallace seems to suggest, that he isn't currently just donating money to the Treasury. <\/p>\n I don't know how this stuff gets into people's brains. But Wallace gets paid a lot of money, and he went to Harvard. Doesn't Harvard owe us some kind of apology?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There seem to be two very crappy albeit popular arguments against increasing marginal tax on people making over a certain very high dollar figure (let's call it "the Buffett rule"). I am not aware of any good arguments against the idea, but if you are, feel free to direct me to them in comments. One argument involves denying that the Buffett rule will … Continue reading An argument that will not die<\/span> \n