@Jon Schwartz, you have provided some great information and well-though-out opinions on this topic. I strongly agree with you and other liberals on the importance of providing assistance to the less fortunate. As a Christian, this is deeply
embedded in my heart. However, it's up to me to give my money away and it's up to others to decide what they do with their money. No matter how important you think a cause is, I don't see how you can justify wanting to take someone else's money to fund that cause. I don't think I'll ever understand the "morality" of taking someone else's money, and I think it's so important for us to see taxation this way- taking money from others.
I do believe in taxation, but I think we have to limit taxation to the Few things that are essential to providing Life, Liberty, and Property to all citizens. I substitute Pursuit of Happiness with Property because I've heard this is how it was originally written and property rights are so important in my opinion. The founders removed property, because it contradicted the practice of slavery. Having a right to Property starts with your own person and we didn't honor that in this country initially. I'm afraid we're moving in this direction again. Obviously, taking someone's money or even their land is not comparable to enslaving someone, but I think it's vital that we move toward stronger Property rights, not weaker.
One of the truest statements everyone should understand is this: Whatever you tax, you get less of. Whatever you subsidize, you get more of. I challenge anyone to find an exception to this rule. If you tax income, you incentivize your citizens to make less income. If you subsidize single-parent households, you'll get more of them (check the stats on this since the 1960's). So, if you tax wealth as CA is proposing, you'll get less of it. This will take place as others have mentioned- the wealthy will leave. The wealthy are obviously much more mobile and much more sophisticated when it comes to protecting their wealth- their Property. Study what happened in Detroit (and many other Blue cities across America in my opinion). They continued to raise taxes on the wealthy. Then, they raised taxes on the upper-middle class when they couldn't get enough from the wealthy. Eventually, those with means, moved out of the city, so the city was left with far more people not paying taxes- the people to whom they made promises. Finally, the city was forced to file for bankruptcy. This is always the result to some degree. The problem is it takes a long time, so the cause and effect aren't obvious.
