Why Not Pay Higher Taxes?

Pajamas Media ^ | 11/27/2011 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Mr. Jeeves]

So, the conservative asks, at what total rate would local, state, and federal governments be happy — 60%-70%-80% of annual income?

100%, and your dead body. Then they will turn on each other.

Envy cannot be satiated, and when codified into public policy it leads inevitably to mass murder by government. The United States withstood this disease longer than most nations, but now we are beginning to succumb.

[outpostinmass2]

Great article

[outpostinmass2]

John Kerry accomplished the feat of marrying two different multimillionaires.

That is not an easy task by any stretch.

[zeugma]

The biggest mistake of the 16th amendment, (besides the fact that it’s application destroys the 4th and 5th amendments), is that the rate was not set in the amendment itself. If they’d set it to 5% and had to go through the amendment process to raise it, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.

[OrioleFan]

Anne Coulter refers to him as the “kept” man. I just call him a gigolo.

[IbJensen]

Great comments!

[WOBBLY BOB]

Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit

History shows that when Congress gets more revenue, the pols spend it.  

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704648604575620502560925156.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.

snip

But no matter how we configured the data and no matter what variables we examined, higher tax collections never resulted in less spending.

snip

"Polls consistently find that a majority of Americans believe any new taxes will be spent by the politicians," pollster Scott Rasmussen told us recently in an interview.

snip

Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: "Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with."

[IbJensen]

Taxes are a higher form of theft and represent pages from the Marxist-Leninist handbook!

That means that the central socialist government, the Congress and the Bozo in White Hut are thieves!

Our lousy government is a criminal enterprise!

[IbJensen]

Those who suck at the government tit are bottom-feeding lowlife who, in a more perfect union, would be tarred, feathered and thrown into the dark with much gnashing of teeth!

[IbJensen]

Kerry is an amazing piece of work!

He’s married into millions twice and has the elongated face of a horse and the brain to match!

Did you know he has a chestful of Purple Hearts?

[Reeses]

So the technocratic class that soared to prosperity through government subsidies and employment is somewhat resented by the more conservative small business private sector that both supports it and so frequently finds itself on the receiving end of the latter’s disdain.

Producers resent government hirelings because they do not earn their generous pay. Government hirelings envy producers because they do earn their pay. Over time envy turns into hate, so government hirelings want to harm the producers. It's similar to how old wealth hates new: old inherited it, new creates it, and old envies new for doing what old cannot do.

[OrioleFan]

The Purple Hearts were easy for him to get as he authored the after action reports. He only needed 3 to get out of Vietnam.