When it comes to things like economic policy, I simply apply mathematics and basic principles anyone can get in Econ 101 class. I’d actually like to see the govt successfully raise the money to run their programs and stop the huge deficits, but they’re not being smart or efficient in the way they raise money.

BTW, all the numbers above, both those that I like and dislike, come from years when Republicans held the White House.

Brian, your comments are especially thoughtful. If we just optimize the revenue collection of a progressive tax system using dynamic analysis instead of static analysis, we’ll do much better. Your comments remind me of a book I recently completed – “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Thanks for this great post. Hopefully it will make sense to a lot of people. And SoftLayer really does help business succeed! My small business has grown tremendously, entirely based on SoftLayer servers.

See this table:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates.5B20.5D

The top tax bracket for the eighties was 50%. Today that top rate is 35%! The point is that its meaningless to talk about what the top taxpayers are contributing as an aggregate percentage. It does make sense to talk about what individuals pay relative to their income.

I encourage people to check out this graph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg

What it shows is simply that the top 5% of earners have seen their incomes rise much faster over the last 50 years than lower earners. THAT is the cause of the growing share of taxes paid by the top %1, NOT changes in the tax code, which in fact have been lowering the individual tax burden for top earners over the last 15 years.

It’s simply naive to imagine that the child of a single-mother in an economically depressed inner city neighborhood will achieve the same success as the child of the top 1% of the population. The same is true of a poor kid in rural Texas. Even if they put in 150% of the effort that their wealthier peer does, it is incredibly unlikely they would see as much success. People just don’t start from scratch each generation, there is a mountain of historical circumstance leading up to your birth.

To return to your athlete analogy, we could just as easily compare a wealthy (though uninspired) swimmer who is lavished with the most expensive sports equipment and training to an poor kid that practices in Lake Michigan every evening. Without a coach, good nutrition, the ability to train during the winter, etc. the low income kid will never realize her potential – even if it greatly exceeds that of the wealthier kid.

Just my two cents, as a member of the top 1% of US taxpayers.

Dear Gary, Don’t mix politics and work. Although if you continue down this road, I fully look forward to your next awesome articles comparing softlayer to religious persecution, slavery and possibly nascar.

he mad.

You guys would have been far better served _not_ pandering to the right wing and instead remaining apolitical like an intelligent business.