Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

The general sentiment about this from the conservative side is that the top earners in the united states are generally the ones who employ most people and create the private sector work-force, and increasing taxes on them would affect hiring decisions in order to maintain a profit margin, thus reducing jobs and ultimately negatively affecting the economy.
Conservatives generally want to refrain from adding more taxes to the rich based on the idea (or assumption, however you want to look at it), that if the rich are not taxed more, more of their capital is free to employ workers.

Another sentiment by the conservative side is frequently that the rich already put in to the tax base far more in terms of dollar percentages than do the middle and lower class, and that increasing the taxes on top of that is a penalization for success. Conservatives and Republicans generally feel like personal success, whether it's monetary or otherwise, should be the "goal of the American dream", rather than something that is capitalized on and redistributed by the government.

As far as my own personal opinion is concerned, I think a lot of the problem can be resolved without raising taxes on anyone. Unlike most Republicans, I think government can definitely play a role in private business by placing reasonable restrictions on businesses in regard to shipping jobs overseas, enforcing ethical and equal workplace opportunity, and creating tax incentives for businesses that hire more workers and at competitive salaries and benefits.
I think that would create more of a positive trajectory that would create more jobs which, in turn, puts more of that earned money into the economy, meaning, taxable income and sales taxes.
I don't believe that simply taxing high earners across the board is the solution. It might add more to the tax base than is already there, but where it adds, you can probably expect businesses to scale back on how much they're paying and hiring as to offset the cost of that tax increase, and they might even opt to ship even more jobs overseas in order to do that.

That's probably the main thing I actually agree with from a conservative standpoint. Obviously, there are a lot more details in all this, but as a general position, that's where the right is coming from as far as the effects of increasing taxes on the wealthy is concerned.
We have to remember that the rich aren't simply always fat guys eating grapes and spending an inheritance while scoffing at the lower classes. A lot of the wealthy are job creators, so we have to take into account the effect of raising their taxes would make.

Now, of course, we could simply give the government the power to reign supreme over the private sector and dictate all the terms, but I don't know many people, businesses especially, that would accept that. That said, I don't think a government-run economy would be a very prosperous one, nor do I think it would offer the opportunities for success and growth that private enterprise does. I think we really have to evaluate the effect certain decisions have on things like that instead of seeing things in terms of monetary availability and going no further.

/2 cents.