1). As a physician I call this "one time at band camp." Basically the exception is irrelevant. Just because A pt had a friend once who got a spinal headache from a spinal and would rather have GA despite their severe COPD and difficult airway because of that does not make it a valid argument.
2). I fail to see how that is possible unless you really mean paid a lower percentage of their income in taxes.... Some quick math shows us that assuming the 300K was w2 income (its even worse if it is 1099 income) that their medicare tax was 1.45% on 300K = 4350. On 65K that is 942.5. The SS tax on the first 102K for 2008 is 6324 (6.4%). On the 65k it is 4160. So prior to income tax we are looking at $5102.5 vs $10674.
Ignoring state income tax rates since almost universally they are progressive or at least flat as well, lets look at possible deductions required to achieve what you assert.
Worse case scenario the 65K person only takes the standard deduction and nothing else... I consider that ******ed, I managed to acquire enough deductions to itemize all during my residency making under 50K each year, but that of course included student loan payments, charitable contributions, and mortgage interest. That means with no other deductions that 65K paid at most taxes on 51147.5, and that is with no other over the line deductions like moving expenses, capital losses, ect. That means that in order to pay the SAME AMOUNT of income taxes those making 300K have to somehow find 300000-10674 (deductions from taxes already paid)-51147.5 = $238,178.5 in deductions. Yes any tax credits they qualify for would reduce this number more, but unless they gave over 100K to charity I find it very hard to believe anyone could have that much in legitimate deductions, and if they do they are definately outliers, and likely to trigger an audit. However, they still have paid 4000 more in payroll taxes.
I do not have the answer for tax policy, I favor a fair tax plan (google it), but I do think that Obama's wealth redistribution plans are a slippery slope. The arguments that we should just do what favors the majority would lead to increasing tax rates drastically until the amount the top 25% or so of the earners was taxed would drastically increase and the bottom 75% of earners would get 50K "earned income credits" from the government yearly. You would gradually approach communism.
I consider that very unamerican, but then I guess the people arguing for this stuff don't believe in school grades, trophies, or making anyone feel bad about themselves ever.
