<DIV> <DIV>Have you tried the argument from diminishing returns? (This is in fact the precise rationale behind progressive taxation.) The point being that a dollar means a lot less to someone who makes a $200,000 a year than it does to someone who makes, say $10,000 a year, because it is is a smaller proportion of the total.. That doesn't go to whether the person who makes 200K deserves it or has earned it or is entitled to it, but it does go to where the money would do the most good.  If you combine the argument with the point that $10K is really not enough to live on for a persona nd his or her family in America, you may touch some empathetic chord.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>With regard to desert or entitlement, one point to be made that won't necessarily persuade but may get people to see that there is an issue is that there's an vast element of luck in how much you end up with can't have anything to do with desert.  If you have been born with or developed talents that sell in the market, you're lucky -- you didn't do anything to get good genes except choose the right parents. And if you picked the right talents to develop, you're still lucky -- it's not even mainly a fact about you that the market/ other people will pay you for the use of your talents.  You don't control demand, you can't predict it very well, and you can't even readjust very fast when it changes. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And I think most people can see it's not an issue about hard work. Most working poor or just working class people work very hard, and the lawyers and doctors and businessmen and professors wouldn't want to do what Wal-Mart workers or even unionized auto workers do. You don't have to deny that the professional classes work hard and that hard work and effort deserves reword. It's just that hard work and effort can't explain the difference between you or me and the staff that cleans up the place for a tenth the salary, because they work just as hard as we do for a lot less money.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Btw, progressive taxation isn't like welfare -- it's not, e.g., taking money from those who are talented and hard working and giving it to lazy bums who contribute nothing. It's just a matter of the way you treat the incomes of people who are already using their talents and working hard, because otherwise they wouldn't have income to tax. The question of providing welfare to those who don't work, for whatever reason, is an entirely different question.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So there are some points to raise with people.<BR><BR><B><I>"B." <docile_body@yahoo.com></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Joanna wrote:<BR><BR>"You think a wise essay will satisfy a greedy infant?"<BR><BR>No. These people have a sense of entitlement that puts<BR>any others' to shame. I know that they have it all<BR>worked out in their heads that they are deserving of<BR>whatever-the-hell they have, and that nothing will<BR>change that, but I would at least like to be able to<BR>present them with some sound, reasonable analysis,<BR>that lets them know not all demands on the rich are<BR>born out of simple "sour grapes" or "losers' envy." In<BR>other words, I'd like to show this person there exists<BR>some sort of sound reasoning behind progressive<BR>taxation, whether they agree with it or not.<BR><BR>B<BR>___________________________________<BR>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><p> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!?<br> Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/new/*http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail">Check it out!</a>