Tax the heck out of the 1% to reduce inequality? As a person happy to be in the 1%, albeit in the lowest reaches of it, I wonder how many people would simply decide that working doesn't pay? When 50% of your income is taken, are you really still working for yourself and your family? Or are you simply subsidizing political campaigns?
As Viking comments:
I suppose the Tiger Woods could retire for the year after winning a single golf tournament. Brad Pitt could make half-a-movie.
Or Derek Jeter could play in four games. In Canada, doctors have income caps but lawyers and accountants do not. Docs quit working for the year when they hit them, and open other businesses on the side. I have heard that wine shops are popular with them.
I see that the economics-challenged Charles Blow is on the same trail, agonizing over the data that most Americans are neither particularly envious of, or angry with, the prosperous. He also wants to tax the heck out of the prosperous, not for the cash, but for fairness. It would be more fair to lobotomize the rich. Why not?
Well, here's some similarly arithmetically-handicapped news, Shock: Half of Americans live below the median income level! By golly, the government ought to fix that.
My views are more like those of Jeb Bush in "Capitalism and the Right to Rise - In freedom lies the risk of failure. But in statism lies the certainty of stagnation": make it easier for people to pursue their dreams by getting the government out of the way. If it's lots of money a person wants, fine. Why should I care? Or whatever else they dream of doing with their lives.
