What crock. The top 1% didn't get rich from legislation. Also, the top 1% paid more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95% did in 2007. People should provide for themselves instead of looking for handouts.
"Soak the rich" is an easier sell than.... "You're not rich because you haven't done what it takes to become rich. Turn off American Idol, get your ass off of the couch and make your own way in life".
The vast, vast majority of ultra rich are only rich on paper, vis a vis the stock market capitalization of corporations they control. Google by itself has produced 3 of the 40 wealthiest Americans. Until a shareholder sells his shares, the Treasury sees nada. That's why statist, socialists are full of shit when they talk about "taxing the wealthiest Americans." The only "wealth" the tax code can really touch are earnings. Chris Rock has a hilarious bit on why black people aren't rich. Yea he takes well deserved slams at black folks wasting money but the hidden message is, "earning a lot doesn't get you rich, owning stuff makes you rich."
Ahh, it's all on paper! And here I thought they had yachts, mansions, planes, winters in Tuscany, the leisure time to create new business ideas, the means to fund those ideas, and when they die pass all those on to their kids. But, if I follow your reasoning, they actually live like the rest of us, the tens of millions out of work, the (tens of?) thousands out on the street.
I know NBA players living in 5 million dollar homes with a million in cars. Are they rich? And even if by your definition they are, why should I care? The team of assembly workers building their Escalade shouldn't have the work? The guys putting in their marble bath, cleaning their pool or cleaning their toilet shouldn't have the work? But instead it would be a better use of those excess resources to fund the pension of a government worker? As if the third to a half of income they're taxed isn't enough? Like most leftists that I know, at heart you're really little more than a class warfare, jealous fuck, eh?
No, I'm not jealous, I have much more than I need (or want, actually). No, I'm more towards the "bleeding heart" end of that particular spectrum. But you are right about the class warfare part, and so what? you're defending the other class yourself. It's funny, we know you're not a member, or you wouldn't be here. Hoping to get lucky someday? I'm more interested in the nexus of wealth and power, that is, where wealth is able to lobby government, or even work in government, changing the rules primarily to benefit themselves. Sure, everyone would like to do that, but only they have the means. It's all pretty quiet until a true believer like Obama comes to power and shakes their confidence a bit, (notwithstanding his own CEO appointments to councils). In this sense, the NBA player doesn't qualify. His kids? Maybe.
So you feel the have-nots are entitled to leech off of the ones with the mansions and yachts via wealth redistribution because? Here's a novel concept: if someone wants something, how about getting off of their lazy butt and earning it? I know a kid who's going to college full time but still earned over $100K last year through a part time business he started, cleaning out foreclosed houses and selling what people leave behind. Ironically his dad is a fat, deadbeat alcoholic loser who blames everyone else for his failures, lives in a cheap apartment at near poverty level and drives his 20 year old son's hand-me-down car.