Follow up question. Do you believe in the free market?
In response, I have been around the world and poverty looks very different in America than it does other places. Do you believe it is subjective? Because poverty in America does not automatically equate to starving.
And who decides what is reasonable pay for each job?
You are now a world class doctor (currently a student at John Hopkins top of your class). If you knew, by law, that a world class doctor (I mean if you were creating new treatments for cancer) would be paid the same as a family physician of a town of 100, would you have any reasonable incentive to work hard.
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I believe in a free market, but with regulations. We've now been in 2 recessions & a depression because of lax to no regulations, so clearly it's not the way to go. Btw, poverty in America does translate to starving. If it wasn't for welfare, minimum-wage employees would literally have to choose between having somewhere to live or eating. It looks different because of our welfare programs, but it's very much the same. About the world-class doctor thing: that's not how democratic socialism works. Doctors will continue to make as much as they do, they'll just be taxed more. The government won't cut their pay, because they can't. How much someone earns is based on the company they work for. There are people in every company that determine how much to pay the employees.
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Okay you're right about the welfare. So if all jobs were required to pay above poverty line, would you abolish all welfare. If not, why not? And if you are taxing those who make more at a higher rate you are essentially altering pay. I don't have the figures you want to tax per bracket (whatever the brackets are), but there will be "space" in each bracket that is a net 0 basically or a dead space where the top of tier 2 will make more because the bottom of tier 3 because of the tax rate. What would be your solution to that?
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Not abolish welfare, but I could cut spending on it since not as many people would need it. Our tax system already taxes people more if they make more money. Our system also taxes progressively, not flat. For example, let's say the tax rate on any earnings under 15K is 10%, & above it is 15%. In our current system, someone who made 14K would be taxed 10% flat out, & someone who made 20K would be taxed 10% on 15K of their earnings, & 15% on the remaining 5K.