Posted on 09/27/2004 2:38:41 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Leftists never tire of living in luxury all the while lambasting little guys who are trying to earn their right to the American Dream. Perhaps it is time for conservatives and other normal people to pick up the gauntlet the Left is constantly throwing about the income tax code being grossly unfair to the poor and overly fair to the rich by restructuring the argument.
The income tax is a tax on income. It is a tax, overwhelmingly, on productive work. A large income does not make one rich. Wealth makes one rich. Unearned wealth also makes one guilty of the wealth enjoined but unearned. Rather than surrender this wealth to noble causes, the rich support laws to keep the competition out - the progressive income tax.
Rather than enact progressive and punitive taxes on income, why not propose progressive and punitive taxes on wealth? What if Republicans "agreed" with Democrats that the current system favors the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, and what if Republicans said that the current system, created by Democrats, has proven incapable of correcting this unfairness - what would Democrats say?
What if Republicans then proposed their own plan, which provided that all income was taxed at a flat rate of five percent, but that all wealth was taxed based upon a very progressive wealth tax?
How progressive? Here would be my plan: (1) No tax on the first $250,000 of wealth, which would be a home, two cars and a modest retirement plan; (2) Tax five percent of all wealth between $250,000 and $10,000,000, which would allow people with that much wealth to preserve their wealth without work or increase their wealth with work; (3) Tax twenty-five percent of all wealth between $10,000,000 and $100,000,000, which would tend to move rich people into wealth of about $10,000,000; (4) Tax fifty-percent of all wealth between $100,000,000 and $1,000,000,000; (5) Tax ninety-percent of all wealth above $1,000,0000.
This would make the very wealthy suddenly quite interested in productive and remunerative work. Those very rich people indifferent to work would find themselves reduced - horrors! - to the lowly status of multimillionaires. Suddenly, the chic and isolated Leftists of the super-rich would be looking for ways to use their wealth in the market economy and would find the obstacles to the creation of wealth, rather than its lazy perpetuation, harmful and annoying.
By simultaneously people to work to keep much more of their income, we would all spend a great deal more time serving each other, which is the sort of society which the Founding Fathers envisioned, than in lounging around a Pacific side swimming pool, trying to figure out how to be perceived as good and noble.
Would the super-rich resent this? Maybe, but with almost no exceptions the super-rich are guilt-ridden Leftist pawns or worse. And some of the super-rich have understood the wisdom of not counting wealth as that important. Andrew Carnegie spent the last years of his life trying to give away as much as his wealth as he could. Warren Buffet has famously and gently told his children that they will not inherit a billionaire's estate - which seems motivated by love for them.
The super-rich contribute overwhelmingly to the Democrat Party and to Leftist causes: who cares what they think? Moreover, this proposal would put the Left in an impossible position of opposing reducing income taxes, which would allow the poor and middle class to become rich, but supporting people who have not earned a penny in their life keeping all their wealth intact, even punishing them if they use their wealth to produce goods and services.
The ideal, of course, is for everyone to have enough wealth to be independent of the need for government social programs, educational systems, and the like. As it becomes easier for people to reach this status, the need for the programs drops accordingly. Most of us do not work to become Bill Gates of Microsoft, but rather to become Steve Douglass of My Three Sons - hard working, comfortable and secure.
The "winners in life's lottery," as Dick Gephardt famously described them, are not the Bill Gates or Arnold Schwarzenegger types of this world but the John Kerry and Ted Kennedy types of this world. If the latter two are "winners in life's lottery" than the former two are the "workers in life market."
Many have noted the seemingly odd contradiction of rich leftists - that most of the richest Senators are (D)s, much of Hollywood, etc. There is something to be said for the idea that, in spite of their rhetoric, these rich lefties haven't had to feel the effects of truly "leftist" policies.
Many of them seem to have their money in foundations, "charitable blind trusts", and other mechanisms which essentially allow them to build little aristocratic empires to pass along to their children. Meanwhile they voice mock concern for "the poor", and the author has a point when he brings up the fact that income taxes they advocate so "generously", will not really be touching the wealth of your average Kennedy type.
Ideally of course I wouldn't want a 'wealth tax' any more than I want the current death tax (a wealth tax which accrues when you die). I'd just like to see income taxes made as flat as possible, income taxed only once as much as can be arranged, and tax-shelters such as "foundations" eliminated altogether. (Although this might be unpopular here I'd even eliminate stuff like the mortgage deduction.) As the author points out one big function of a progressive income tax is really to keep out the competition, the "new money". If this effect were eliminated along with "foundation" type nonsense, people born into rich families would be competing on slightly more even footing, there would be more "churn". Of course this is exactly what rich leftists don't want.
Of course they would. They support "higher taxes on the rich" because it doesn't affect them -- not because they have a guilty conscious.
My fav tax-reform idea is closing the various loopholes (deferred income & such) that entertainers cherish.
I want Babs & Alec testifying before Congress as to the social necessity of these advantages.
read later
Of course my "real" opinion is that taxes are to support the government. The government shouldn't need more than 5% to do what's Constitutionally mandated. Stop all those other activities and the wealth thing becomes moot. Americans should be allowed to make as much as they can and creat wealth as they are able. Capitolism, it's not just for conservatives any more.
You must be a liberal in disguise.
Exactly who would provide the investment for the jobs that you expect to lead to the "American Dream"?
After you get out of high school be sure to take a course in economics.
Is that directed at me?
Is this you?
1 posted on 09/27/2004 2:38:41 PM PDT by LibWhacker
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8 posted on 09/06/2004 2:45:51 PM PDT by Polybius
Well, the problem is that with a tax system that get it's lion's share of revenue by taxing earnings, it is very difficult to actually accumulate "riches". That's my point.
The truly "Rich" such as Ted Kennedy, Teresa Heinz and John Kerry go through life living off of huge sums money they never earned.
However, when the U.S. Government needs money, what does the Government tax, any percentage of Teresa Heinz's wealth or a hefty percentage of my earnings?
The current tax system allows the idle super-rich to preserve their capital, tax-free, but makes it extremely difficult for earners to accumulate true wealth.
Instead of financing the U.S. Government solely on the backs of earners, consideration should be given to allowing the truly "Rich" to pay their fair share in taxes with a Wealth Tax.
For example, a 5% tax per year on any wealth over $10 million owned by an individual. Such a system would do the calculation each year so the effect would be that the super-rich would still get to keep 95% of their wealth each year.
If the United States of America expects me to give up over 30% of my earnings each year to finance the U.S. Government, why shouldn't Teresa Heinz be expected to give up only 5% of her $550 million wealth each year to finance the U.S. Government?
Demagogues such as Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Teresa Heinz who demagogue about the "Rich" (that's me, according to their definition) paying "their fair share" should put their money where their mouth is and advocate a Wealth Tax to help relieve the tax burden on earners.
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Listen you stupid mfer, I didn't write the article. Bruce Walker wrote it. Ignorant a**hole.
I think you protest too much. You quoted it so you must agree with it's premise.
No, you ignoramus! Dumb c*******er! People post things here all the time which they either do not agree with or only partially agree with. And only an illiterate highschool DUmmy dropout POS wouldn't know that. And you think you're smart? What a turd.
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