Posted on 09/20/2011 7:46:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Obama and the Democrats are finally happy. Liberated from thoughts of compromise with Republicans, they can fully indulge their most lascivious pleasure — trashing rich people. “We simply cannot afford these special lower rates for the wealthy,” President Obama declared in his Rose Garden message Monday.
“Give ’Em Hell, Barry” cheered Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker. Hertzberg was chipper. Not so Paul Krugman of the New York Times, the Democratic party’s choleric scold: “The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office,” he glowered. “And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.” Imagine.
The president, brimming with indignation, asserts that “hedge-fund managers” are paying taxes at a lower rate than “teachers and firefighters.” “How can you defend that?” he demands.
You don’t have to defend that, because it isn’t true. This synthetic outrage about the taxes paid by the super-rich — the so-called Buffett Rule — is the greatest waste of political time and energy in recent memory.
As Stephen Moore, an economics writer for the Wall Street Journal, has observed, we cannot know with certainty what Warren Buffett paid in taxes (and he is certainly free to write a larger check to the IRS). But “according to the Congressional Budget Office, middle-class families in 2007 (earning between $34,000 and $50,000) paid an effective 14.3% of their income in all federal taxes. The top 5% of income earners paid 27.9% and the top 1% paid 29.5%. And what about the highest earners? Americans with annual incomes above $2 million paid an average 32% of their income in federal taxes in 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available).”
In 2008, Charlie Gibson questioned Barack Obama about his desire to raise the capital-gains tax. Gibson reminded candidate Obama that presidents Clinton and Bush had reduced the capital-gains tax rate. “And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”
“Well, Charlie,” Mr. Obama replied, “What I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital-gains tax for purposes of fairness.”
So it isn’t a matter of raising revenue — and by most estimates, the amount raised by a millionaires surtax would be trifling compared with the size of the national debt — it’s a matter of sticking it to those guys with the “belligerent sense of entitlement” to their own property.
Well, I’m for the rich, and not just because the top 1 percent of earners in America paid 38 percent of income taxes in 2008. And not just because I suspect that attempting to tax the rich more will only lead to more tax avoidance, not more tax revenues for the federal government. I’m for the rich because, with some exceptions, they’ve earned their money. A Prince and Associates study found that only 10 percent of multi-millionaires had inherited their wealth.
In the process of earning their wealth, the rich have created products, services, and whole industries that have dramatically improved my work life, my family life, and my health. I’m so grateful to them for the GPS, iPads, non-drowsy antihistamines, smartphones, XM radio, and The Teaching Company courses — to name only a few advances of the past decade or two.
I’m for the rich because nearly all of the rich people I’ve met are extremely public-spirited. They volunteer. They form committees to improve things in their communities. And they are incredibly generous with their money. As Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute notes, “The top 10 percent of households in income are responsible for at least a quarter of all the money contributed to charity, and households with total wealth exceeding $1 million give about half of all charitable donations.” In general, I think they probably make wiser choices in their charitable giving than the federal government would make if it took their money and spent it.
I’m for the rich because they create the dynamism and energy of a growing economy. The rich create businesses and hire people.
A wealthy person gave me my first job. And I’ll bet the same is true of you.
I’m for the rich and for all the people who simply want an opportunity to become rich — opportunities that are becoming scarcer with every passing day of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist
My first job was waitressing at a small cafe that held less than 40 customers so it was just me, the cook and the occasional dishwasher. The owner was definitely not rich though should have been since he never turned in our social security withholdings.
And many many years ago a man we all should know had this to say:
Matthew 25:14-30
14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag,[a] each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
I’m all for rich people, too...but billionaires no longer. Tax ‘em all 100% to help them remember that communism is not all it’s cracked up to be.
This article contains good, in-your-face rhetoric that is needed to counter the socialist pseudo-fairness argument.
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