You misread. It's create a tax and give everyone the same amount. If your household has $0 income you get $20,000,if your household has $1 billion income,you get $20,000. I would leave safety net programs,as is.

I was talking to an old gentleman the other day at a local coffee shop. He is 70 years old. He started working hard, long shifts, invested his money smart, and made a handsome fortune. His net worth right now is about $10 million. Never married, never divorced.

Elon Musk, came to America. Worked hard + he was a genius. Risked everything, could've gone so broke a few times. He's now a billionaire and he does wonderful things - and he never did it for the money.

Just a couple of examples to contradict your point there, pal. :)

Except they don't.  They got rich gambling.  Musk gambled his way to millions and gov't subsidies made him a billionaire.

well, you have to tak into account the cost of the tax itself. Our Tax on capitalists and fortune here in France costs a lot, people leave the country, and the tax is more a symbol of "socialists" in total wreckage, than useful in anything.

best way to have no poverty seems to avoid to import poverty, another debate. And, de gaulle approach, just deal with pbs inside, and let other countries manage their problems, cease to give them food and be paid with insults. Imho. 

They made money from their employees work,not theirs. Work gets your hands dirty,and you break a sweat. If that doesn't happen,you are making money from someone elses work.

Work= force x distance.

Musk created PayPal. He created something of value. Later, he did take bailouts but paid everything back - with interest. But so did many others. And there are a lot of people who create legit wealth and they still get punished for it through heavy "progressive" taxation. That discourages many others to follow the path.

Nonsense.  Nobody says "screw it, I don't want to make more money because that will put me in a higher tax bracket."

Musk got his big gov't subsidies for Solar City and Tesla.  He hasn't, nor is he expected, to pay it back.

When the dollar amount of the poverty level changes we'll change the program with it. The rich will be paying for the gauranteee against poverty.

Freedom from poverty is a human right. 

Hello! Right here! I do it! And so do many others. Also, a lot of immigrants are playing it on two fronts. They won't sell their houses overseas because bringing money to the US will result in taxation. And, many have the strategy of taking the wealth out of the US back to their countries because of the stupid system in the US. So, feeding the lazy people is not an option. Sorry. :) And this is unfortunate because, back in the day, it was the other way around. People were coming to the US to stay for good. Now, it's not so clear anymore. With the US's debt going higher, so does the taxation. Believe you me, a lot of folks see this. Heck, I even know some people who have moved some of their assets overseas. That millionaire gentleman is one of them. He has a few safe places out there so that if the US economy folds, he'll have a safe escape place. How about that? :)

Trying to avoid paying tax is not the same as intentionally limiting your income to avoid paying taxes.

One is dishonest, the other is stupid.

America has never been about that. It's been a land of opportunity and not socialism. Socialism works and it does have some advantages too. The USSR was a great country but... It lost the race to the moon because it could not compete economically with a dynamic US. A dynamic US that had plenty of poverty but also plenty of wealth. And US had a lot of other social and racial issues too. But, despite all of that, it had a vibrant economy due to capitalism being a better option that socialism. But all of that has been eroding for quite some time now and the US is becoming more like what USSR was. Except it'll probably be called a USSA. :)

It's only your, not so educated opinion. It's obvious that when you have a disincentive to make more money, you may chose to do other activities other than make money. And if you have handouts, it's even better. You may end up in poverty but sill be comfortable. Happened throughout history, from the Ancient Roman times - bread and circus to the masses and everybody's happy!

Thomas Payne would disagree. Culture evolves. People said outlawing Slavery is suicide,or giving women the vote was madness. Now we can say freedom from poverty is a human right.

   ---   This would be a very very good idea if people were logical instead of being so unstable. If one does any reading of history then the truth about humans comes out: War War and more War thoughout recorded history. Therefore the defences must be maintained in preparation for the next war, very sad but true. 

I suppose I can agree with how you reason and articulate your ideas, in post #38, Senior-Lazarus. There's some logic to what you say. But, that doesn't mean that you're right in your opinion. Certainly, not about the way the Government should intrude upon and redistribute wealth for the sake of eliminating poverty. Because it won't work. At best, we'll all be equally miserable. Spreading wealth around, as Obama put it, is a disasterous strategy. But then, again, the USSR was not too bad. Actually, it was a much better place comapred to the Tsarist Russia. Why's that? Well, after the WWII, scientific and technological breakthroughs enabled a much better standard of living. And that's despite the regressive system of redistribution that took place after the Russian revolution. By the way,

here's a link about that if some of you might be interested further on the topic:

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1 of 7

So, again, if you want the US be more like the USSR, it may work, but there will be a lot of downsides. So much so that people may revolt.

So, my take on the issue is this: we need to be concerned about the increasing of the pie, not its redistribution. That's what drives the prosperity up and poverty down. Some people will have a pigger slice of the pie, but, the most important thing is that it will be a bigger pie.

 The so called taxes that the top earners pay wind up in bank account

Accounts in the Caiman Islands.   Investment in a politician or two is the best investment a wealthy man can make.

Economic problems will never be solved as long as we have greed and corruption.