Tax The Rich!

The mantra of "Tax the Rich" is being shouted frequently now by liberals wanting to deflect attention from our debt & deficit problems caused by decades of over spending. Our president won't come out and say it in those words. Instead being too cute by half, President Obama will say something like "I don't need another tax cut, Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut." Well, Victor Davis Hanson wrote a great column addressing the very notion of taxing the rich and in it he responded to Obama's misleading comments.

But Warren Buffett, unlike the building contractor or family dentist, is the world's third-richest man, worth nearly $50 billion. And Obama is probably the most privileged person on the planet, with all of his expenses covered -- from a nice free mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to a huge private jet.

The rich and the poor are not separated across an impenetrable barrier. The president's $250,000 line in the sand is actually quite fluid. Most of those who make incomes above it did not do so 10 years ago -- and they won't, on average, 10 years hence. The income of well-off professionals and small-business people fluctuates widely as they ascend, peak and descend in earnings -- given factors like health, age, and uncertainty in employment and business. It would be more accurate to say that raising taxes on the better-off is a sort of punishment for those who break into the top brackets for a few short years and try to be careful to save what they make and not spend what they don't.

That is the thing. When demagogues like Obama dishonestly rail against the "rich" and talk about fairness in taxation they are merely attempting to fool the uninformed people who get their political information from 30 second soundbites from useful idiots like Katie Couric or Bob Schieffer. If Obama was concerned about taxing the rich or in ensuring fairness in the tax system he would actually propose simplifying the system that Obama's friends like Buffett and GE's Jeff Immelt manipulate to minimize their tax obligations.

I'd cut and paste more of Hanson's column (it is all worth stealing), but I'd rather refer people to read the entire piece. Read it. Bookmark it. Print it out. And next time someone who is half smart but mostly uninformed says we can solve our fiscal problems by "taxing the rich" ask them to slowly read this article.

Bottom line to the whole situation is you could tax the rich at 100% and it wouldn't solve our fiscal problem. We as a nation owe more than FOURTEEN TRILLION dollars and it is increasing every day! A trillion is a thousand billions! A billion is a thousand millions! A trillion is a million millions. We are all going to have to pay more taxes at some point. However, until we convince the stink'n politicians to stop spending (which is just bribing us for votes with spending funded by borrowing against our future) it makes no sense to give them any more ammunition.