What is this "disproportionality"?

Reader comment on: Bush's Ten Year Presidency

Submitted by Harry Binswanger (United States), Jun 26, 2014 21:22

The Bush tax cuts "disproportionately" favored the rich? I have some questions about that.

1. Tax cuts are a lessening of the pain. They don't "favor" anyone; they allow some to be harmed less than others are being harmed. If a man has 2 children and beats them several times a day, but decides to hit the younger one a little less often, is the proper complaint "Hey you're disproportionately favoring him"? Or shouldn't he simply stop beating them?

2. "Disproprotionately"--what is the proper proportion here? The rich are punished by having to pay a higher proportion of their taxes in the first place. Isn't that disproportionate? If Mr. Rich pays 40% and Mr. Average Pays 20% isn't that literally disproportionate?

3. Is there any complaint about the disproportionality in "favoring" the poor? Why is it ignoble to earn a lot of money and noble to fail to? What is the concept of justice assumed here?

In my Forbes column, I wrote:

"For their enormous contributions to our standard of living, the high-earners should be thanked and publicly honored. We are in their debt.

"Here's a modest proposal. Anyone who earns a million dollars or more should be exempt from all income taxes. Yes, it's too little. And the real issue is not financial, but moral. So to augment the tax-exemption, in an annual public ceremony, the year's top earner should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/

(I since learned that the Medal of Honor is reserved for military heroes, but you get the point).

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