Could we pass a tax increase on the wealthy if we tied it to the Wall Street bailouts?

[yurbud]

I imagine a commercial something like this:

When Wall Street said they need a $700 BILLION bailout or our economy would collapse, Congress believed them and gave it too them.

What did they do with the money?

They spent it on parties, billions in bonuses, posting record profits, and buying out their smaller competitors to make companies 'too big to fail' even bigger.

It's time we got our money BACK.

Someone who makes most of their money on Wall Street now pay LESS of their income in taxes than people who go to work every day and make things or serve others.

They should pay more, A LOT MORE. Because they need to be reminded that they are citizens of this country, not the owners.

I think this would have two beneficial results:

1. We'd get more money into the Treasury
   
   
2. It would break the back of the GOP's ''no new taxes'' meme that they have been successfully riding for 30 years.

Would this work?

[no limit]

1. Absolutely. And if we can tax people for not having insurance we should be able to tax them for this

I just wish they thought of all this when they wrote the original bail outs (Im sure they just forgot to add these things by accident)

[yurbud]

4. great analogy!

[FiveGoodMen]

2. We could put a tax on the wealthy at any time...

if only the non-wealthy would stop imagining that they are about to JOIN the wealthy any day.

95% of US citizens continually shoot themselves in the foot just to maintain the dream.

[yurbud]

3. We could do it at a rate that the rich would still be rich

[FiveGoodMen]

7. We certainly could!

The Beatles were taxed at 95% and still got rich.

[JVS]

5. That sounds a lot like robbing Peter to pay Peter.

But sounds good anyway.

[yurbud]

8. we should rob peter then put his head in a bucket, fill it with concrete, and throw him in the East

River.

[LiberalArkie]

6. Why do people want to tax the affluent so much?

Don't you realize that they hung the moon in the sky, out of their extreme generosity allow us to work and earn some money. We should be kneeling every day towards Wall Street, thanking them for all the wonderous gifts they bestow on us.

OH Gag, I can't continue... Tax them at 90%