Here's my thinking. The rich in the US get the best deal on the planet. During the Clinton years rich people didn't leave the country. We have the lowest taxes on the rich of any developed country. Rich people from around the world came here durning The Clinton years. No one left the US for a better deal elsewhere. How many rich people are moving to say, Tanzania, which might not tax the rich at all? None. Becuase they want to live in a country with health care, pollution standards, civil rights, strong defense, legal system based on laws and political stability. The Bush tax cut for the rich did not attract new rich people to America.
Now to the person who became rich in America due to hard work and brains. Say the guy who founded the no frills airline JetBlu( I am just using this as an example). He had an idea to cut costs dramatically and he would gain enough passengers to make money and he did. Could he have done it in England, France or Germany? Probably not. They have laws about competition, unions, etc that would have prevented it. In Ireland there is an airline called Ryannair which copied JetBlue. Bet that guy didn't make much in a small country like Ireland. So in America you can make far more money with the same innovation and ideas.
And if the rich don't like the taxes here they can leave.
As to the people who inherited fortunes many of them go back to the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. Fortunes made on the graves of workers and the formation of monopolies. But in America we don't take your money just cause you have it. So I don't see the old rich leaving America.
As to a doctor in the US who got rich thru hard work. I ask how much we he have made in England or Canada with the same hard work? Not much. Because he makes a ton more in the US. So he should shut up and pay his taxes.
At the 39 percent we taxed the wealthiest under Clinton our economy boomed. We had the lowest taxes on the rich in the developed world. Under the Bush tax plan I don't see any increase in wealthy people coming to America.
Lets repeal the tax cut for the top 2 percent. If they don't like it they can leave. I'm betting not one does.