Paladin - Gene is a member of the parasite class. It's impossible to convince him because, as a socialist, he is only interested in the government controlling as much as possible.
I've explained countless times what happens when taxes are raised. You simply dry up capital that "the rich" were investing in the economy.
People like Gene won't ever understand because he doesn't understand economics.
At the end of the day it can be explained simply (but not simply enough for Gene):
If you have two people investing money -- one person can take $1 and make it $2 and the other person will take that same dollar and end up with only 50 cents, which person would we all be better off having as much capital as possible?
The answer is the person who can take $1 and make it into $2. But socialists like Gene don't understand that. They keep wanting to take money from that person and give it to the person who keeps squandering it.
Gene thinks rich people are people who simply get a bunch of money and waste it all or something. My standard of living wouldn't be affected at all by a tax increase. I'd simply lay someone (or more if necessary) to adapt. That is what would happen across the country.
Like I said, I've explained this to him before, but Gene isn't intelligent enough to grasp it. And make no mistake, it's an intelligence issue. He simply isn't capable of understanding the complexities (which really it isn't that complex) of the issue.
A person like me (and I'm representative of the top 10%tile) makes $Y. I live on $X which is a much smaller piece of $Y. The remainder I invest back in my business or invest elsewhere as well as donate to charities and other institutions.
If my taxes are raised, I still make $X. I simply don't have as much to invest. So the only question is whether some politician is better at using that money to help our society than I am.