Tag: soak the rich

Categories
national politics & policies tax policy

Fair is Fair

President Barack Obama is not targeting the country’s 99 percent against the wealthiest 1 percent. In a news conference, yesterday, he instead singled out the top 2 percent.

Even though they account for 46 percent of all income taxes collected, Obama says members of this group don’t pay their “fair share.” Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay just 3 percent of income taxes. 

Though the president readily confesses to being in that top two-​percent, sadly I’m not. But hey, even if I’m not rich, this country is as much mine as any wealthy person’s. If tax hikes truly are necessary (and this is for the sake of argument — I do not believe they are), shouldn’t I be part of his tax-​hike solution to our national deficit and long-​term debt?

Even those making less could afford to hand over an extra percent or two of their income for essential government services, eh?

And why leave out the poor? A surcharge of $20 (or $10 or $2.50) a year — even if that’s only removed from their earned income credits or food stamps or welfare payments — would put their “skin in the game.”

We should all be in this together, so why didn’t Obama propose a solution that included sacrifices by everyone?

My guess: It has nothing to do with revenue, everything to do with November’s election.

Obama is asking Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less than $250,000 a year. But he seeks a mere one-​year extension.

Why?

My guess is that the over-$100,000 cohort is next on his list.

But he needs their votes, first.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy

At Risk of Drowning

To those who hold that government should be all things to all people at all times, the prospect of cutting back the ever-​escalating level of government spending is a non-​starter. Like their chief spokesman in the White House, they propose a different solution: Make “the rich” pay more. 

Never mind that while President Obama talks about socking “millionaires and billionaires” who “can afford it” with higher taxes, the hikes are actually designed to wallop folks making $200,000 a year. That’s actually a tad less than a million. In many areas, such a salary hardly qualifies one as rich. 

We’re supposed to ignore the fact that federal income taxes remain progressive. The richer you are, the more you pay. That’s why the top five percent of earners pay 59 percent of federal income taxes, while roughly the bottom half pay nothing at all. 

“Fair” becomes slippery.

Also slippery? The real-​world outcomes. Say tax rates were raised enough that deficits might be covered. What would happen?

Just recently I had dinner with a couple of millionaires. “You know, we don’t have to work,” they told me. “We already have enough money to live out the rest of our lives, so if we’re going to be punished tax-​wise, we’ll simply retire.” Comfortably, in fact.

But what about those they employ? What about the enterprises and jobs they won’t create?

Maybe punishing productive folks with even higher taxes isn’t such a great idea.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture tax policy

The Audacity of Sleep

During Wednesday’s big speech, just as President Obama laid into Rep. Ryan’s Medicare reform proposal, Vice President Joe Biden skirmished with the Sandman. Zzzzz.

Obama wasn’t boring, though. He had a theme.

As he saw it, the Republicans’ “pessimistic” vision is of an “America [that] can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made for our seniors” or “invest in education or clean energy” or fix “our roads” or afford to do all the cool things done by South Korea, Brazil, and China.

He didn’t explain how it might have come to pass that our government became disabled. He barely mentioned previous budgets’ waste — on goofy projects, overpayments, duplicated efforts, and undeclared, never-​ending wars. Or how government regulation and subsidy might be the reason many people cannot afford medical insurance.

Or that if the government doesn’t invest in something, it doesn’t mean that private investors aren’t investing.

But he did mention his opposition to “more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.”

And then came the corker: “In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each.  And that’s who needs to pay less taxes?”

Wow. America’s wealthiest merely “saw their incomes rise”? They didn’t actually do something for their gains?

Maybe Obama was napping while others were working.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.