The Drumbeat to Increase Taxes
Obama’s victory was, if nothing else, a class warfare victory. We see this personally here at the Boortz studios with the tenor of the email and letters we’re getting from those celebrating the Obama Junta’s victory. Oh, to be sure … we’ve always received the hate mail. Nothing new there. But for the last two weeks the hate mail has been focused on wealth and class envy. Now we’re hearing that “you rich people” are finally going to have to “pay your fair share” and that the “evil corporations” are going to have to answer for their abuse of workers and the “excess profits” they earn. The resentment of and hatred for high achievers just oozes out of these letters and emails.
If you’ve been listening you’ve heard the drumbeat for increased taxes on the evil rich growing louder by the day. This week, the unions launched their TV campaign pushing for tax increases on the rich. Then we get two different columns/op-eds in the New York Times, pushing for tax increases on the evil rich.
The first NYTimes op-ed is from an NYU professor calling for … a wealth tax! What a surprise! Oh … wait a minute. I’ve been telling you that the Democrats would be looking for a way to tax wealth instead of income for years now. Damn, I’m really sorry I was so right on this one. This NYU prof says that taxing wealth is the true way to get rid of economic inequality in America. There you go. Everybody should have an equal amount of stuff. It’s just not fair that some people work harder and longer and make better well-informed decisions that lead to the accumulation of wealth. Something has to be done! And that something is to seize the wealth these people accumulate through taxation to make things more equal. The problem here – a problem the proggies can’t see – is that Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you? The proggies are coming after your wealth next! What happens then? Well .. the people who acquire wealth through hard work and good decision making will soon stop working hard. That’s not going to work well for the rest of us. Hard work not only creates wealth, it also creates jobs. Don’t try to explain this to a proggie.
Then we had a much talked-about column by Paul Krugman, reveling in the good ole’ days of 91% tax rates on the rich. He wants to go back to that 91% rate. What Krugman fails to note --- in fact what most libs who reminisce about the old confiscatory tax rates fail to note --- is that there were massive tax deductions available to taxpayers when these high rates existed. You could deduct any and all interest, for instance. The result was that the effective tax rate – the actual percentage of your gross income you paid in taxes – was pretty much the same that it is now. Krugman wants those old tax rates but without the deductions.
The liberals can dream all they want, but the result of their calls to increase taxes on the evil rich results in less revenue to the government. Period. End of story. It’s a historical fact. We collected less tax revenue when our rates were at 91% or in the 70% range than we do in the 20% range.