Going from $2 million in income after tax to, like, $1.75 million isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. A lot of money is still a lot of money, so I don't think it'll de-incentivize hard work by a significant amount. Still, I suppose our poor millionaires deserve better than being forced to pay their fair share.

Isn't that a "stupid"argument that USA spends the most money for education of any country. The USA with population of 350 m is probably the highest populated country of any country in the western world by far.
And if we going by per capita spending the USA spends considerable more per than any country for health care. Far more per capita than even Western Europe who have superior health care systems for it's people.
Lets's continue the figures, the USA has by for the largest prison incarnation rate of any western country. Does this mean it has a better police force than can catch and convict these people.? Sure.
Many Western European countries have compulsory military service. As far result, many people have military weapons in their homes. Still the % of people shot or killed by violence is considerable lower than the USA.
USA tax rates. In the 1950s and maybe into the 1960s, the higher personal tax rate was 91%. 91%. !!!!! A lot higher than it is now. Still the USA was a successful capitalistic country. I'm not sure what the best model is for taxation is, but certainly in the USA the rate is low for high end earners. Actually the US tax rate including social programs is lower all western countries and considerable lower than many western countries.

Just saying, right or wrong, the USA appears to less money on social programs than any other western country as it collects less tax money per capita than most countries.

Just a point about CEO salaries. As a shareholder in many companies, I think it's appalling (theft) that CEOs and their cronies use company money as their own piggy back. It's quite a group that can get pay raises for themselves and when fired, get 5 years severance pay.

My point is that we spend more than the next (3) countries and we aren't the "smartest" in the world. We are around 20th or something.

Health care here needs to be reformed. Allow it to be on the market and competition will lower the prices. While it may be unconventional, it needs to be started sooner rather than later.

The tax should be proprietary, not progressive, something that Adam Smith and Bentham agreed with.

CEOs that use shareholder money to pad their wallets is theft. CEOs making tons of money from the market is not.

And the big deal is?

Right, it's not called theft, and that's because of the super advantageous US tax structure. Lemme use an example, a simple one: Enron. Kinder Morgan. I'll explain.

We all know what Enron is. Energy company, caught red handed, major tax fraud scandal, leading to their CEO serving a big time jail sentence.

Enron created a child company in the 90's, called Enron Liquids Pipeline LLP. This company was created for the sole purpose of being a tax shelter, which is a financial arrangement made to avoid or minimize taxes for the parent company. Enron used this in many ways. Don't want to get too into details, but for example, there is something called a Natural Resource Tax or something? In which corporations which makes 90% or more of their profit in the oil industry, become exempt from paying corporate taxes. So guess what, no taxes for Enron! Or project Tanya; this was based on duplicating deductions between different Enron companies. In short, they would collect the same loss twice. Project Tanya resulted in U.S. federal tax savings $66 million.

In 1995, Enron began to do a series of transactions that, according to the U.S. Joint Staff Committee on Taxation, this was designed to "satisfy the literal requirements of the corporate tax laws, yet produce results that were not contemplated by Congress and not warranted from a tax policy perspective. Several of the projects were structured to duplicate and accelerate tax deductions." Basically, they did illegal stuff in a legal way.

Among the notable people conducting these thefts, yes thefts, from the government, was Richard Kinder, an Enron executive at the time. William Morgan, another Enron executive, was also instrumental in these frauds.

And in 1997, with the company going down in a major tax scandal, Enron Liquids Pipeline LLP was bought, and renamed into Kinder Morgan, after being purchased by....Richard Kinder, their current CEO, and William Morgan...

It goes to show how corrupt companies are. The man in charge of your pipelines was the guy who stole money from your government. How does that make you feel?

In addition, it gets worse. In their board of directors, out of the nine board members, SIX were Enron employees. A seventh member was Michael Morgan, who was William Morgan’s son. Also, ALL of the 141 employees of Enron Liquids Pipeline, L.P got the same jobs at Kinder Morgan at the same salary
My point is: while this company is now called “Kinder Morgan”, their entire “new” company is filled with Enron employees. If you have read about the Enron scandal, you would know why this is a serious problem.

Skip to 2015: the tax rules are slightly and merely becoming better, so Kinder Morgan decides to change its structure to continue to avoid paying taxes. In August 2015, Rich Kinder announced in a conference call to investors that Kinder Morgan would go through a major makeover and a change in corporate structure. Kinder called the deal as a “tax shelter”. He went on to say, "From the purchase price alone, including the step up, we will realize over 20 billion dollars in cash tax savings over the next 14 years." So, Kinder Morgan avoids paying $1.4 billion per years for the next 20 years in the U.S.
After this conference call, Rich Kinder made $800 million the next day. I wonder why....

As a Canadian, this concerns me massively as well. In Canada, we have this thing called the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which Kinder Morgan had previosuly bought, and wants to expand. The project is terrible for a number of reasons: it kills jobs, kills the environment, and causes a major risk of an oil spill. But worst of all, is how Kinder Morgan is not paying any taxes to us. Like, none.

Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson informed analysts Texas last January that, despite generating an annual average of $172 million from the Trans Mountain system, Kinder Morgan has only payed an annual average of $1.5 million in provincial and federal corporate taxes over the past five years. All of the money they didn’t pay goes to its U.S. market, or shall I say to the pockets of CEO Kinder.

Jabroni, if you dont have a problem with CEOs like Kinder and his companies ruining our economies, I don't have anything else to say to you.

That is literally what I have a problem with this in scenario. I don't have a problem with smart people having no ceiling for making money. I have a problem with a progressive tax, primarily because it de-incentives work. Tax loopholes need to be addressed and revoked, otherwise, smart people are going to take advantage of them.

I would consider some of the events in 1997 as "insider trading". Thats illegal, Imo and in most opinions. I don't have a problem with Bill Gates making some serious dough. Or Mark Zuckerberg making bank. They did their operations legitimately, to my knowledge.

I have a problem with limiting the individuals' ability to maximize their utility, legally.

There should be a "political" website somewhere where you guys could go on and on

I just realized, that we care more about racism than your lunatic President does. That's just embarrassing. And heck I'm not even an American

The number of black people killed by other black people is actually closer to 90% (according to FBI data from 2014-2015).

I know... That seems shockingly high right?

But do you know the number of white people killed by other white people in the same time frame? 82%.

All that is pretty easily explained. Almost all murders occur as crimes of passion, not random acts, meaning that in most cases, murder occurs by someone the victim knows or is acquainted with. And, while we are not still segregated officially, the country is still very much split into black and white communities.

So yeah, it makes sense that most murders do occur within their own race. It's not some shocking conspiracy or anything.

But the whole black-on-black crime argument is the biggest strawman argument ever. Do you think that black people aren't outraged when their friends and family are killed by other black people? Do you think there aren't initiatives at every level (city, state, and federal) to reduce crime? How does that relate whatsoever for not wanting officers to abuse their power in their authority position, and wanting to ensure that all individuals get their constitutionally mandated day in court when accused of a crime?

DavidBooth: Thanks for your insight into KinderMorgan and other tax loopholes. k
Philljabroni: I don't know how why you think progressive tax is a disincentive for folks to make money. In the the progressive tax, it's like the a 40% tax rate is taken down to the first $$$ earned. It might start at $250,000. Back in the 1950s or it even might have been the 1960s, the highest personal tax rate was 91%. It sure didn't stifle capitalism in the USA. Not saying it should be 91%, but your logic that progressive tax rates is a disincentive to making additional money, just doesn't ring true. OK, you you don't like progressive taxes, OK, but your logic behind progressive taxes doesn't seem to factual accurate.

Back to the topic at hand -- I 100% believe that what Kaepernik started protesting is something that needed to be brought to attention. But I don't see kneeling for the anthem as the best way to do it. I'm sure the intention wasn't to disrespect the flag, but that's what I see it as. There are much better ways to get the word out than kneeling during the national anthem. The national anthem means too much to this country to not stand up and pay the flag respects. It represents the men, women and their families that have died for their country. A different way of protesting should have been the course of action here.

The NFL players that have started their protesting last week wasn't even protesting what Kaepernik was originally protesting. This was them showing the disrespect they have for Trump. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you agree with his stances. I don't agree with everything he does, and I'm not sure that there is someone that does. God forbid if something were to happen, the quick decisions that this man makes would be the difference between life and death.

or just dont die for your country..

What does this even mean?

figure it out