DQ 4

DQ 4 responses

1.

I read an article in which many super rich individuals pay taxes at a rate of 13%. I believe a graduated tax system is based on the premise that people who make more are financially able to pay more. This has always been the American way. I did a study last year in which I researched the federal tax rate going back to 1913. The amazing thing about the results is it showed the maximum tax rate for most of the time period was substantially higher than the 35% rate today. It appears the wealthy were more willing to pay higher rates in the past than today.

 

With this background information, do you think the wealthy should pay taxes at a rate equal to the middle class rate, or should they pay a higher rate?

 

2.

Scholar Bill Galston made the following comment “Most young people characterize their volunteering as an alternative to official politics, which they see as corrupt, ineffective, and unrelated to their deeper ideals. They have confidence in personalized acts with consequences they can see for themselves; they have no confidence in collective acts, especially those undertaken through public institutions whose operations they regard as remote, opaque, and virtually impossible to control.”4 In other words, young Americans were disengaged from the policy process because they felt marginalized within the political process.

 Do you have any personal thoughts on this issue?