Does capitalism require both low and high taxes?

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I'm from the Midwest. To me, sprawl is miles and miles of subdivisions and strip malls that just consume the profitable ideas from that area.

How is taxation "extortion?" IMHO, what gives the govt the supposed "right" to tax, even in small amounts, is the need for the government to provide public services to us, such as say schools and/or infrastructure such as roads among other things.

Without taxation or "extortion," the capitalist alternative would be private services that one voluntarily receives depending on if they can pay for it or not, only for almost everything in a world without *any* government taxation.

This would leave out the poor, homeless, people with disabilities, etc.

Does that sound even remotely humane?

taxation is extortion when you allowed government unions the right to collective bargaining.

California's liabilities are not so much from infrastructure, or the lack thereof. Matter of fact, if California simply took the money it generates from the car driving public and invested that back into infrastructure, it would be the marvel of the world. But much of it is diverted to fund public transit which is not self-sustaining anywhere in the US, and other things that have nothing to do with its roadways.

Much of California's liabilities come from unfunded pensions that eat up much of the revenue the state takes in. When you are raising my taxes to fund union pensions, I would call that extortion, especially since those public unions are only accountable to you, the Democrat that they helped elect, and not me, the taxpayer whose money you take.

If we analyze the source of American progress, it stems from a combination of freedom of ideas and willingness to undertake risk. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, GM, Ford, and GE could never have been started and been successful in the social-democracies of Europe. History somewhat proves that to be true. Innovation in the last 100 years has been mainly American in nature.

Actually capitalism probably benefits more from low taxes, and a simplified tax code instead of the mess we have currently.

I wonder why? Could it be that it is because of individual initiative and not by government programs?

The quickest way to ruin anything is to let the government run it.

ruveyn

I tend to think that its in part due to the people who originally went to America to start a life would have been the "risk-takers" which may lead to a higher amount of risk taking in the population. Secondly, on the part of initiative, I tend to think that's strong within most peoples but America has a way of letting it flow and grow, whereas European governments seem to only care about entrepreneurship in terms of how hard to regulate and tax it.

Norway is one of the only countries in the world to tax working capital at 28% for instance.

Living in a scandinavian democracy is great if you're working in the public sector, where you can do almost whatever you like and never get fired. Have few if any performance demands, start work at 8, leave at 3:30, short days on fridays, pensions out of the ass, the most public holidays of any country. Not so good if you're working in the private sector, trying to run a small business or something that doesn't involve sucking your fellow citizens dry.

*Note* a 70% real** tax rate is high, which is what the norwegian one adds up to with taxes on a median income being roughly 37%, 8 - 24% VAT on everything, special taxes on tobacco, alcohol and gasoline, tax on wealth, capital gains tax, and everything else.

**The 70% rate is the total sum calculated by calculating all the taxes into one rate.