Someone should do the math! Sure you could increase the top marginal rate, but where does that get you. Yes, the top 1% is very wealthy, but there aren't many of them.
I would bet you'd have to increase income taxes well down the income ladder, dipping down into what most people call the middle class. You simply can't avoid it, that's where all the money is.
Politicians are happy to talk about raising the taxes of the wealthy and to cut taxes to the middle class. However, in practice, this means a massive loss in tax revenue, so eventually the middle class taxes have to go back up, or cuts need to be made.
Tax wealth more and income less. WHAT?!?!?!! People say? Well that really fancy and expensive military we are paying for.. it's not just protecting your income. It's protecting your wealth. Pay your fair proportional share for security of your assets...
And that's not to mention that you're essentially taxing the same assets multiple times. The stock that, say, Zuckerberg owns was already taxed when he received it. You're asking to re-tax the same thing over and over and over again. This sort of taxing already exists (property tax & excise tax come to mind), but I'm not really sure what sort of gain you think would come of it.
No matter how you run the numbers, the money comes from the middle class.
Which is not necessarily crazy -- I think that a basic income is an attractive idea, though I doubt the ability to implement it well. But just like we shouldn't pretend we could just shuffle some social safety net programs, we also shouldn't pretend that you could just tax the 1%.
Realistically, almost all of the revenue has to come from increasing personal income tax, probably mostly on the top 5% of earners, but realistically everyone would have to pay more. I haven't yet done the calculations, but it seems like we're talking double digit percentage increases.
[1] http://people.opposingviews.com/percent-irs-revenue-comes-ca... [2] http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing...
What's preventing me from having as many babies as I can knowing that they too will not have to work or find a job to be supported?
I know this won't work at scale, because I understand math.
As seen in welfare states in Scandinavia or Germany, where almost no one works because of the unemployment benefits.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/wel...
Take a look at mobile games. People do lots of things just to be 1 rung higher on an artificial competitive ladder (reset every month) about endlessly punching a "Battle" button. I think this idea that necessity has ever driven productivity (look around at your job) is a long running joke.
Sincerely. Many people don't desire large families, if any, or are physically incapable of reproduction. So why pressure them to when others are perfectly willing to pick up the slack?
I know, "just close the loopholes lol". Except that it's a battle of wits of nerds against a bureaucracy with every-bigger portions of the economy at stake, where every government victory is a longer, less transparent tax code.
Make no mistake, basic minimum income would be a massive redistribution of wealth. I'm in favor of it, but let's not pretend we can pay for it by shuffling around some social safety net spending.