Free Republic

In a response to my piece entitled, “Taxeaters”, a reader who favored progressive income taxation posed this question back to me: why shouldn’t the top 50% of income earners pay 96% of the taxes? My answer: for the same reason that they shouldn’t have to pick up 96% of the state’s collective bar tab. All knowledge builds upon what you know. That evening, I pondered his question some more and was inspired while enjoying a pub meal that Michelle Obama would ban if she could. And here is the problem with progressive income tax theory played out a fictional place...

This is serious stuff, the kind that serious people are trying to fix, while unserious people continue to lie, sloganeer, pitch a fit, or just run away. When you students were hauling signs around for the greybeards at Bitch Fair On The Square, your solidarity brothers and sisters probably didn’t tell you that you will have to work past 70 so they can keep on retiring in their 50’s, did they? I didn’t think so.

IT now looks like half of President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus package will take the form of "tax cuts" for 95 percent of all Americans. Yet this wouldn't so much boost the economy as trigger a massive, unhealthy shift in American politics. Under Obama's plan, the majority of American voters would pay no federal income taxes, but would get money from the government instead. That is, these "refundable tax credits" are basically welfare checks - and Obama's plan would leave the most of us collecting, not paying. A $200 billion giveaway won't do much to get a $14 trillion economy rolling...