Quote:
Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate
Many on the "left" tend to view taxation as a means to equalize inequality, and to make sure that the "rich" pay their "fair share."
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Strawman. Only a tiny fraction of government spending is in the form of direct transfers. The great bulk is delivering services that the citizens have decided are best delivered publicly - that is education, roads and infrastructure, police and courts, emergency services, and health care.
So once we've decided that public school should be accessible to all children regardless of parental income, and that we need roads and airports and water treatment plants and police, and that health care should not cost out of pocket and should be available to all Canadians, we're left the question of how we distribute the cost of these services.
Progressive taxation is the model that virtually every developed state in the world uses. Weigh the scales too heavily towards the poor and they cannot pay for basic needs, and pose a burden on the rest of society through the poverty, crime, and gradual corrosion of civil society and mutual trust. Weigh the scales too heavily towards the wealthy and they take their skills and money elsewhere.
But again, every civilized country in the world has recognized that the wealthy can afford to pay a greater share, taking into account that they benefit more than anyone from a secure, broadly prosperous society where they don't have to live in walled compounds with armed guards.
Lastly, progressive taxation has not stopped the skilled and ambitious from capturing a greater and greater share of the economic pie in the last 40 years. The rich today are doing far better relative to the poor and middle class than they were 40 years ago.