"How much tax money goes to 'worthy causes'?"

That depends on what you deem worthy causes. If you view strength of miliatary as a worthy cause, then a lot of tax money, especially under the current Administration goes to worthy causes. If however, you view the arts, the environment, social welfare, public works and the like as worthy causes also, then taxes have not been going to them recently.

"First, money spent on luxury items still buys goods and services, and still employs people. Somebody's still got to make the yachts, hot tubs, and champaigne.

More importnatly, the people who earn the money have the right to spend it on luxury items, if they wish. They have the right to give every cent to charity, or invest every penny of it to try to make more money, or leave it all to their cat, or whatever they want to do with it--it's their money, not the government's."

That, in a nutshell is the argument against Reaganomics. If you give the richest of the rich more money through tax breaks, it all relies on them as the individual to reinvest it into the market. However, most follow the logic that you pointed out yourself, in that they spend the money on themselves and the trickle down effect runs dry before anyone on the lower levels actually gets saturated.

Take care all.