(Regardless of what you think of Tony Robbins personally, this is an excellent video. I love how he breaks down exactly how much money it would take to really solve our financial issues.)
Something is wrong with the math there. To net $31 billion over 11 years, you merely have to tax a million people an extra $2818 per year. $234/month. Surely there are a million people in the U.S. (that's about the top 0.4%) rich enough to not even notice that. You could go much higher before they even feel a pinch.
To put the $7 trillion in perspective, over 11 years, that's about $2500/year in extra tax per American citizen. Now, most citizens definitely can't afford that, it's true. But looking at it in per capita per year amounts makes the numbers look a lot more tenable to me.
When someone quotes values "over the next 11 years" I can't help but wonder about their objectivity.
Taxing the rich isn't about solving the budget problems, it's about solving the fairness problem. It doesn't matter that it isn't enough to make a fiscal difference, people want to feel the laws are fair and the rich are paying at least as much of a percentage of their income as the middle class. That's what the Buffet rule tries to address, equality.
"the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10%"
The rich are getting richer not because they pay too little in taxes, they're getting richer because they rig capitalism with the help of their buddies in D.C.. Level the playing field of commerce, and you'll start to see some redistribution of wealth.
There's nothing wrong with the rich getting richer as long as they're paying an equivalent share of their income to taxes and not getting special treatment. Crony capitalism is a different problem entirely.
And there's nothing unfair about the top 10% paying 70% of the taxes, in fact that statistic doesn't include the relevant data to even see if it's fair. It's not their share of total taxes that is relevant, it's what percentage of their income vs the percentage ordinary people pay that matters.
For example, if that 70% only represents 20% of their income, then 70% isn't enough, they aren't paying a fair share.
You're assuming that "capitalism" doesn't naturally lead to the rich getting richer. There is absolutely no evidence on which to base the idea that capitalism doesn't naturally lead to massive wealth inequality.
Yes. Tony Robbins did a great deconstruction of this in a video, "Is taxing the rich enough? Will that solve our problems?": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jboTeS9Okak
(Regardless of what you think of Tony Robbins personally, this is an excellent video. I love how he breaks down exactly how much money it would take to really solve our financial issues.)