Media Endorsements of Presidential Candidates

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I'm not a tax policy expert but here are a few reasons that come to mind:

1. Raising taxes on investments hurts retirees living off their investments.

Note that I stated investments should be taxed at wage level for those above a certain level of income, this does not include grandparents who survive on their meager pensions and social security.

2. Targeting high-investment-income people targets the most mobile group of people in the world. Many/most would want to live elsewhere to avoid the tax and they have the means to do so (and they're not tied down to a job). So you ultimately lose revenue rather than gaining it. If your purpose is to raise revenues, its counter-productive. If your purpose is to just punish people who have been financially successful, most will avoid it.

As you point out in your fourth statement, we already tax these high income earners at a higher rate than anywhere else, but they haven't moved yet. I agree that there is a tipping point at which people will leave rather than pay taxes, but where exactly does that point lie? Plus, I think a sense of nationalism plays into this as well, not everyone would leave, some will see it as their duty as well-off Americans to stick around and help out the little guy (a la Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, though admittedly they are in the minority).

3. Taxing investments at the same rate as wages just incentivizes people to keep working longer, or retiring later, thus remaining in the labor pool and holding onto jobs that could be held by others. In other words, it raises unemployment.

Again, I'll point to my support of taxation of investments at wage levels for individuals who earn over a certain amount.

4. You won't like this one, but a sense of fairness and proportionality. The top ten percent of income earners in the US already pay the highest share of taxes (45%) of any nation on earth. The next highest is Italy at 42% but most of the G8 nations are in the 20s and low 30s. See http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/wate...larger-sh/ for more on this.

You've got to look at the big picture on this... The top 10% of income earners in the US range from making about $175,000 a year on up. There's a huge difference between being at the bottom of the top 10% and earning 175k a year and being closer to the top of that 10% and earning $16 million a year. There are a lot of people who earn $175k a year and still struggle to pay their mortgages and kids' education costs (either private school or university/college tuition). They should be individually more fiscally responsible (buying a $600,000 house as opposed to a $1.5 million dollar McMansion) as well as being held to a lower tax standard than someone earning a multi-million dollar a year income. Where do I get this figure?? It's slightly outdated from 2003 found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_i...ted_States
But as the 2012 census showed us, the income disparity of Americans increased so I'll stand by that. The pyramid is so lopsided one should look at accumulated wealth, rather than income... http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...ot-income/

In my view when someone earning $16+ million a year (without even having a job) is only paying 14% in taxes, that's needlessly hoarding money that could be used for far better purposes.

I think you get into very dangerous territory when you start having the government decide that someone else's assets or property could be used for far better purposes. It's not far from there to deciding that you have nice child-bearing hips and we need more babies.

Perhaps... and I'm not saying that the government couldn't learn a thing or two from the private sector, the bureaucracy is silly, often crazy, and ultimately results in a huge waste of money. But if we were taxing high income earners at greater rates, revenue would increase giving the government more funding for things like education, infrastructure, health care, etc. I'm not just saying, "Take the wealthy swine's money!!" I'm also saying tax them at equitable rates and use the resulting revenue for things we (as an American people) need. I'm not saying they shouldn't get to vote to decide what is done with said extra revenue. They should still be able to vote for leaders who would use this money for whatever it is they would want to see it spent on.
For what it's worth, I'll throw this in too: I support a cap on how much one can leave in inheritance to one's family/dependents/children. I'd allow for leaving one's wealth to a charitable non-profit organization, but surely Gov. Romney's kids (and grandkids, and great-grandkids for that matter) would be completely financially comfortable and secure if he were only allowed to leave each of them, oh let me pick a number out of thin air here, $5 million.