Question

express your current opinions about one part of the topic of "Economic Justice".   Simply offer your opinion and provide a reason.  

The government uses our tax money to provide various kinds of benefits for citizens like you and me; there are too many to list. Currently, our tax laws are such that wealthier Americans pay more in taxes- as a percentage of their income- than poorer people do. For example, a person who earns $1,000,000 in a year might pay a 20% income tax ($200,000) and a person who earns $45,000 per year might pay a 0 - 5% income tax (0 - $2,250).

Does this seem "fair" or "just" to you? Yes or no?

First, you will need to explain what you mean by the word "fair" or "just" here. Pick which of the two you want to define.

Second, please provide one reason that you think this situation is or is not fair or just (by your understanding of the word).

Answer 1

Generally speaking Fair means treating people equally without any favourism or discrimination. So here in the above context fair means that whether or not the government is treating all the citizens equally. So if government is fair, it means that it should not favour anyone and at the same time it should not discriminate anyone.

If we talk about the word Just, in general sense it means that behaving according to what is morally right. So we can say that Just means treating someone in a way which is appropriate according to the circumstances.

So if we see according to the meaning of the words, the above situation of taxing the rich people higher than the poot people can't be considered fair but it can be considered as just.

It is not fair because here the government is favouring the poor people and is discriminating against the rich. It is favouring the poor by collecting less tax from them and giving equal ( or more to poor in many cases) benefits to everyone from the tax revenue.

The above policy can be considered as just because, if we think morally than the rich must be taxed high and poor must be taxed low i.e. people must be taxed according to their capacity. But everyone must be equal and if a part of people in the society is left behind, it is the duty of the government to work in their favour for their upliftment.