VEAL!
Posted on 03/03/2008 6:07:50 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Provided that we are rich enough so that it doesn’t matter, the Democratic Party’s remaining Presidential Candidates have all promised to take things away from us for the common good. One of the first things these individuals both think should be taken away for “the common good” are the reductions that George W. Bush made in the Federal Income Tax Rates.
Senator Barack Obama has the following to say about The Bush tax cuts.
This year alone, the average person in the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans will receive more than $55,000 from the Bush tax cuts, while the average person in the bottom 20 percent of Americans will get about $70.
BarackObama.com.
So the leading Democratic candidates for President see the reductions the President Bush convinced Congress to make in the Federal rates of taxation as being either wasteful, or unfair, or both. Thus, each intends to modify the tax code in such a way as to restore the former rates of taxation to 1999 levels and to tinker with other aspects of the tax code, such as the AMT, for example, to provide what they consider “fair” and targeted tax relief to certain groups of individuals.
The Tax Foundation is an organization that studies historical trends in US tax policy. It tracks historical Federal Income Tax rates from 1913 – 2008 and displays them in tabular form.
Comparing the specific tables for Tax Year 1999 to Tax Year 2008 provides an income-level specific look at what each quartile of taxpayer has previously owed under each proposed schedule of income taxation rates. The table below distills this data for people in the 3rd through the 5th income quartile in modern America.
| In Then Year Dollars | ||
|---|---|---|
| Taxpayer Category | Taxes under Clinton 1999 | Taxes under Bush 2008 |
| Single making 30K | $8,400 | $4,500 |
| Single making 50K | $14,000 | $12,500 |
| Single making 75K | $23,250 | $18,750 |
| Married making 60K | $16,800 | $9,000 |
| Married making 75K | $21,000 | $18,750 |
| Married making 125K | $38,750 | $31,250 |
So there lies the data. It should provide a good place to start asking certain questions. Can either Hillary or Barack provide me enough economic benefits through governance so that I can forego an additional $3,900 in annual income if I am single and make $30,000 a year? Even if they could, would this be worth losing the additional benefit of me actually deciding what I do with that $3,900?
The latter question is loaded with more than just the fundamental microeconomic question of opportunity cost. I obviously lose some degree of economic utility if Barack Obama has a value function for what government should do for me with that $3,900 that radically differs from how I would use the money for myself. I also lose something far more important. I lose the freedom to have made that choice in the first place.
A government that takes things away from us for the common good has minimal concern for our actual individual happiness and welfare. A government that believes the old Spock Line from The Wrath of Khan and makes it the gravamen for policy and execution, they are directly appositional from what Thomas Jefferson wrote in The Declaration of Independence.
Spock told Captain Kirk "The Needs of the Many Must Outweigh the Needs of the Few or the One."
Thomas Jefferson lists “Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness” as one of mankind’s unalienable rights. This was set forth on 28 July 1776 in The Declaration of Independence. This individual liberty from centralized state coercion is one of the founding truths of the American Nation.
There is no such thing as a common good, if the welfare of selected individuals gets sacrificed to bring it into creation. There is ultimately no security in any of our own possessions or safety, once we make it philosophically tenable to use government as an agent of redistribution among the individuals comprising said common good.
We are blessed that we have a fiat currency in which we and our government symbolically conduct these transactions and transgressions. In taking this money from us for a common good, they are practicing the same morality as a tribe of cannibals that sacrifices a select individual to temporarily stave off the depredations of a coming winter. Should either of these two marauders, Senator Obama or Senator Clinton, be elected President, we should all say a prayer that they only come for our money. It would be tragic if they actually came and took anything that was of greater importance.
bttt
They are COMMUNISTS...first last and ALWAYS!
bttt
I understand that not everyone signed that famous document on July 4. But I think it odd to associate any other calendar date with the Declaration of Independence. Referring to "28 July 1776" is bizarre.
Terrible personal proofreading skills. Debate began on 28 June 1776. Copies were being distributed to State Legislatures for approval, beginning in Virginia, 7 July 1776.
The 28 July 1776 date could, in fact be an accurate portrayal of when some of the former colonies ratified, particularly Maine and Georgia, which were far from where it was agreed upon, but that was not the original intent of the passage.
Thanks.
Just look at US tax history. During the 1950s the marginal rate of taxation for incomes of $100,000+ was between 80-90%. Economic growth in the 1950s was pretty much flat. It was JFK’s tax cuts that started the economic boom of the 1960’s.
Probably true. I focused on the Micro stuff. It was all about me, me, me...
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