Tax the Rich… Classic Class Envy

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Birthplace of Independent Conservatism

And the class warfare goes on, and on, and on. The progressive Moonbattery {following} continues.

You can tell something’s happening in the economic policy debate when you start reading more things like AEI’s Arthur Brooks explaining that it would simply be unfair to raise taxes on the rich. Harvard economics professor and former Council of Economics Advisor chairman Greg Mankiw has said the same thing. And of course Representative Paul Ryan is both a fan of Brooks and a fan of the works of Ayn Rand. Which is just to say that we used to have a debate in which the left said redistributive taxation might be a good idea and then the right replied that it might sound good, but actually the consequences would be bad. Lower taxes on the rich would lead to more growth and faster increase in incomes.

Now that idea seems to be so unsupportable that the talking point is switched. It’s not that higher taxes on our Galtian Overlords would backfire and make us worse off. It’s just that it would be immoral of us to ask them to pay more taxes even if doing so would, in fact, improve overall human welfare.

If that sounds remotely plausible to you, you might have a lucrative career ahead of you working as an apologist for said Galtian Overlords. If not, then congratulations for possessing a modicum of common sense.

The idea that the wealthy ought to pay more in taxes, IE: a higher marginal rate, is simply morally wrong. The belief that those who are more successful economical should be taxed at a much higher rate {in other words punished for their success) defies objective logic. It is the product of class envy and is the rallying cry of the progressive socialists and neo Marxist in our society.

Each individual is entitled to reap the maximum benefit of their labor and industry. The fruits of that labor ought to be taxed at the same marginal rate regardless of income generated or received. Lets, for the sake of argument use the following example using a 15% rate to keep it simple.
  • Income earner #1 – $50,000 income @ 15% = $7,500 income tax
  • Income earner #2 – $250,000 income @ 15% = 37,500 income tax
  • Income earner #3 – $1,000,000 income @ 15% = $150,000 income tax
  • Income earner # 4 -$2,500,000 income @ 15% = $375,000 income tax 
What is needed is a reformed tax code where everyone is taxed at a reasonable {and same} marginal rate. Loopholes that benefit the wealthy and businesses should be closed. This would generate significant revenue that is now lost through loopholes and government subsidies. And yes, with respect to businesses, the idiotic argument of to big to fail needs to be removed from our lexicon.

The real issue, the one progressive conveniently chose to ignore is this, it is indeed immoral for the governemnt to extract a greater share of the labor and industry of the very successful at the point of a gun held to their head just because they have achieved greater financial success.

Simplify the tax code and close the loopholes. And by the way, cut unnecessary and duplicative spending, cut the defense budget, reduce foreign welfare, and restructure entitlements. It’s that simple, yet remains complicated for some.

More at Modeled Behavior.

Cross posted to Rational Nation USA

Via: Memeorandum

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3 comments:

  1. We need something like either the Fair Tax or the Flat Tax. I don't know which one would be better. Class envy is a sin. These Marxists need to stop it with the class envy.
    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder how many people nowadays know that…
    Brief History of IRS


    Origin
    The roots of IRS go back to the Civil War when President Lincoln and Congress, in 1862, created the position of commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacted an income tax to pay war expenses. The income tax was repealed 10 years later. Congress revived the income tax in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional the following year.

    16th Amendment
    In 1913, Wyoming ratified the 16th Amendment, providing the three-quarter majority of states necessary to amend the Constitution. The 16th Amendment gave Congress the authority to enact an income tax. That same year, the first Form 1040 appeared after Congress levied a 1 percent tax on net personal incomes above $3,000 with a 6 percent surtax on incomes of more than $500,000.
    ReplyDelete
  3. agree totally!

    when you fight the battle of 'marginal rates'…people's eyes glaze over like that second eyelids dogs have to close up before the main one does.

    BUT when the amounts are listed in absolute terms, the whole debate changes….they can 'see' exactly where a millionaire pays 10 times what the lower-income earner pays with the exact same rate.

    The left has gotten away with such '1984' wordsmithing since 1933 so it will take some undoing to get the debate back to where reasonable people can understand it.

    The GOP in Washington have got to stop fighting them on their turf….that is like Duke having to play 1000 games in a row over in the dean Dome at Chapel Hill..where even they lose 90% of the time.
    ReplyDelete

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