make the rich pay the debt; problem solved.

[GummyBears39]

Personal incomes are different from capital gains. Which is why he keeps bringing up the personal income tax of billionaires. Billionaires don't necessarily get a terribly high income directly. Which is why they use capital gains tax rates of 15% instead of income tax at 35%, making their effective tax rate much lower.

In 2008, last year for stats....
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#table4

Keep in mind this is income tax
The average tax rate on the top 1% was 23.27%
The average tax rate on the 1-5% was 17.21%

The top 1% paid $392B or around 38% of all income tax collected
The 1-5% group paid $214B or 21% of all income tax collected.
The top 5% of Americans paid around $600B.

Using the average rates, which will be wrong because they're averages and incomes can vary widely....we can get a general sense of what ball park we're talking about.If you taxed the top 1% at 100% of the average rate you'd supposedly (ignoring all negative consequences of such a decision) collect....$1.685 Trillion
If you taxed the 1-5% bracket at 100% of the average rate you'd collect an additional $1.243 Trillion.
You'd be +~$1.4T a year.....nearly 10% of the national debt in one year alone.
Yes taxing the wealthiest Americans at a 100% rate would make a dent in the US debt. Absolutely.

[RedBoNe]

IF WE TAX HEDGE FUND MANAGERS MORE THAN ZERO THEY MIGHT LEAVE AND WE'D ALL BE SCREEEEWWED

[Morganne]

[xXxMetaxKnightxXx]

Of course that would be insanely idiotic though.

[Sydney P]

Nice try, but no. I'd put my realm of understanding up against your crazy any day.

Taunt Fail.

[VampireMike]

Any day... except today...

[BubsiBoo]

Are you talking about the repeal of Glass Stegall that Clinton signed? Didn't we pass a new regulation bill last year?

[jonatinho1]

I know that's just a thinly veiled insult, but it's not a personal problem. It's actually a pretty goddamn big problem in this country.