Friday, February 06, 2009

Wanna scare a Republican?

Show him/her this op-ed - Please Raise My Taxes - written by Reed Hastings, CEO and founder of the highly successful Netflix:
This week, President Obama proposed imposing a $500,000 compensation cap on companies seeking a bailout. It’s a terrible idea. We all want the taxpayers’ money returned, and capping compensation at bailout recipients will just make it that much harder for those boards to hire and hold on to the executives who can lead their companies to compete and thrive.

Perhaps a starting place for “tax, not shame” would be creating a top federal marginal tax rate of 50 percent on all income above $1 million per year. Some will tell you that would reduce the incentive to earn but I don’t see that as likely. Besides, half of a giant compensation package is still pretty huge, and most of our motivation is the sheer challenge of the job anyway.

Instead of trying to shame companies and executives, the president should take advantage of our success by using our outsized earnings to pay for the needs of our nation.
Not only will higher taxes on the rich pay for the needs of our nation according to Hastings, but they'll also "finance opportunity for the next generation of Americans."

Makes sense to me, but somehow I don't see Republicans lining up to vote "yea" on that proposal.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 50s was a pretty good time economically, it seems to me. And the top tax rate for most of the decade was over 90%.

Anonymous said...

The 'tards insist that black is blue, day is night, and tax cuts are good for the economy. Yes, any child can disprove any of their dogmas in seconds, but they simply don't live in the same world we do.

I thought I hated Boehner before. My hatred has exploded in the last couple of weeks. How on Earth could anyone see that inbred alcoholic as being fit to represent them in Congress?

Kathy said...

Abi, thanks for the link to that table. I don't remember the 50s too well, but I do know that our economy was pretty good during the Clinton administration too, and the tax rate then was less than half of 90%.

We need to increase the tax rates on those most able to pay in this country. Hastings is right: "half of a giant compensation package is still pretty huge."

Jolly Roger, I've wondered why Republicans embrace Boehner too, but then I remembered they also embrace Limbaugh and Coulter. The bar is low in the Republican party.