Eat The Rich

An old chestnut of economic idiocy is being revived by the liberal fascists now that they are in power again. From Joel Hirschorn:

"Here is the solution that the overwhelming majority of Americans should demand: A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax. Call it justice. Call it getting even for too many years of uncontrolled greed that has given the nation nothing but economic injustice and inequality, and given capitalism a very bad name. Call it a sensible way to raise federal revenues to help offset the cancerous national debt."

I've heard this proposal in various forms countless times over the years and it's always couched as means of "justice" and revenge as it is now. Never do proponents of this idea ever ask "Then what?

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) has also jumped on the bandwagon with a bill that would limit executive pay to $400,000 per year for companies receiving bailout money.

The fact that these proposals have almost zero chance of becoming law is beside the point. It is illustrative of the immaturity, short sightedness and simpleminded thinking of the left.

What will these geniuses do when these people decide to work and invest overseas and take their talents and money with them? High taxes and heavy handed regulation is already causing people and businesses to flee California, Michigan, New York and other socialist utopias. Billions of corporate profits are already in exile overseas to avoid one of the highest federal business tax structures in the world.

The left never thinks of these things because their ideas are so high minded that to them, pointing out reality is just divisive and proof of greedy counterrevolutionary thinking.

The Income Inequality Myth

IBD takes on Barack Obama's regurgitations of Socialist Dogma that animate his economic ignorance:

"Speaking to NBC's Tom Brokaw on Sunday, Obama laid out his views: "It turns out," he said, "that our economy grows best when the benefits of the economy are most widely spread. And that has been true historically."

He followed up by saying, in the last 15 years or so, "You've seen a huge shift in terms of resources to the wealthiest and the vast majority of Americans taking home less and less. Their incomes, their wages have flatlined at a time that costs of everything have gone up, and we've actually become a more productive society."

Our new president might want to talk to some of his sterling economic advisers about this, because he got virtually all of it wrong.

Start with the notion that our economy grows "best" when its benefits are most widely spread.

In fact, America's fast-growing economy has always bred differences in income. Some people are smarter, more talented, better educated and trained, or more entrepreneurial. In a free-market society — or relatively free, anyway — they'll do better. But they make the rest of us richer, too. We may envy them, but we're better off...MORE

Howard Fineman: Just Lie Barry!

Since when does Obama need to be told to blow smoke in our faces? Well just to make sure, Howard Fineman reminds The One of Democrat campaigning 101.

CHICAGO – Here’s my advice to Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters: Stop predicting that the Democrats will sweep into the White House and Congress come January with a mandate to expand Big Government.

That prospect, coupled with some of your candidate’s own tax and health-care plans, could scare swing voters you need next Tuesday...

...Obama needs to underscore — there's no risk of doing it too much — that he doesn’t like government for its own sake, but for the sake of individuals and families.

And now for the Big Lie:

"On these and other issues, he also needs to reassure voters that he will not necessarily march in lockstep with resurgent Democrats who will want to launch a top-to-bottom New New Deal and reverse the Reagan Revolution 28 years after it took place. "

That's right. Forget the fact that Obama has never voted against his party, for less government or lower taxes. Obama will do a complete about face on the statist philosophy he's held his entire adult life. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Socialism is Evil

In all the hub bub over Obama's Marxist redistributionist designs on the country, some say "what's so bad about that?" An old column by Walter Williams addresses that very question:

...Regardless of the purpose such behavior is immoral. It's a reduced form of slavery. After all what is the essence of slavery? It's the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, social security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another.

The moral question stands out in starker relief when we acknowledge that those spending programs coming out of Congress do not represent lawmakers reaching into their own pockets and sending out the money. Moreover, there's no Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus giving them the money. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces us to acknowledge that the only way government can give one American a dollar is to first through intimidation, threats and coercion take that dollar from some other American.

Some might rejoin that all of this is a result of a democratic process and it's legal. Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa's apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal but did that make them moral?

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That's why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there's a majority consensus.

An argument against legalized theft should not be construed as an argument against helping one's fellow man in need. Charity is a noble instinct; theft legal or illegal is despicable. Or, put another way: reaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal", I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there's a majority vote. And, I'm sure that if you asked God if it's okay just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well.

Part II

Barney Just Can't Shut His Mouth

It's not enough that Barney Frank is guilty of criminal neglect and malfeasance in the near economic meltdown of the country. Now this shameless bastard is rubbing his hands over the prospect of taxing some more "rich" people; the definition of which gets lower and lower since there aren't enough truly rich people in the world to satisfy the appetites of power mad jerk-offs like Frank.

And just because I think it's funny, here's Lil O'Reilly's interview with Barney.

BTW - What's with you dumbasses in Massachusetts anyway? This is who you send to congress?

How to Bribe a Country

Obama is telling us that sending checks to the 40% of tax filers who pay no taxes is a cut. In reality it's impossible to cut a bill below zero without calling it a gift of other's money. Obama knows this and it's part of a long Democrat tradition of buying votes through the Treasury.

Michael Medved explains in this column:

"...As Amity Shlaes shows in her necessary new book “The Forgotten Man,” FDR failed miserably at turning around the US economy (the Depression lingered until the beginning of World War II) but succeeded brilliantly in achieving long-term power for the Democratic Party. The innumerable government programs launched by the New Deal may have done nothing to advance the overall interests of the nation of the economic system, but they performed magnificently at creating dependent interest groups who voted reliably Democratic for decades. If the government hands out goodies to various constituencies, those segments of the population will continue to support the idea of enriching themselves with other people’s money..."

Corporations Avoid High U.S. Taxes

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Well that's what happens when you have the highest corporate tax rate (35%) in the industrialized world other than Japan. Tack on state taxes and it's remarkable that anyone incorporates here.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

No, what's shameful is that you two idiots are in any position of power. Does it ever occur to you that corporations wouldn't try so hard to avoid taxes if they were more reasonable? Since individuals end up paying all taxes at the end of the day and are ultimately the ones who own and work for corporations, they really mean that it's shameful that you aren't paying more.

An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.
"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.

That's the most popular tax avoidance strategy there is, especially for the small businesses that employ 70% of the workforce. No doubt Levin and Dorgan will try to kill some businesses and jobs by targeting them.

Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices - amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities. The GAO did not suggest which companies might be doing this.
"It's time for the big corporations to pay their fair share," Dorgan said.

There's that "fair share" nonsense again. Why doesn't the government pay back its fair share and stop wasting our money! It's no coincidence that the only entity with a monopoly on the use of force to get its way, is the only one that will never consider doing with less.

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington

Anti-Business States Awash In Red Ink

I've been writing for a while now (LINK, LINK) about the mass migration of economic refugees within the United States from oppressive states to more free ones. Now we have more evidence of the damage an out of control state (or country) can do to itself and its people. Those heavy handed governments still don't want to face their economic and moral failures. They are still doing their level best to chase away those who pull the cart; leaving behind those who just in it and whine.

"Shortly after he was confirmed as governor of New York earlier this year, David Paterson told a group of business executives that when he received congratulations from old friends he hadn’t heard from in years, he was surprised how many no longer lived in New York. "All of them basically said the same thing," Paterson told the group. "'Good luck in New York state, but we can't pay the taxes. The opportunities aren't there.'”

After that experience, Paterson presumably can understand the complaints of corporate executives recently surveyed by Development Counsellors International, which advises companies on where to locate their facilities. More than four in ten of them have ranked New York as the worst state to do business in--second only to California in unfavorable mentions. The most common gripes included high taxes and anti-business regulations. Joining New York and California on the list of most unpopular states were New Jersey, Michigan and Massachusetts...

Of the approximately $48 billion in accumulated budget shortfalls that the 29 states with projected deficits are facing, $33 billion, or two-thirds of the gap, is concentrated in those five states considered by corporate executives to be the least friendly to business. Meanwhile, among the five states ranked as having the best business environment, Texas and North Carolina have no projected budget gaps, and Georgia, Tennessee and Florida are facing shortfalls amounting to about $4.1 billion, or less than one-tenth of the states’ total."

What's the answer? Higher taxes that will chase even more businesses and individuals away. The stupidity and insanity of these socialist hacks never ceases to amaze me.

"Paterson’s former colleagues in the state legislature are lobbying for a new tax on millionaires, while across the country California’s legislators have called for boosting the state’s top tax rate from 9.3 percent to 11 percent. Since many firms, especially small ones, are organized corporately in such a way that they pay taxes on profits at their owners’ personal income tax rate, any increase in the top rate of income taxes will hit small firms hard, to say nothing of the impact on the personal taxes of executives at big firms."

But they also expect the rest of us to pay for their irresponsibility and corruption:

"...Paterson argued creatively that the rest of the country should come to his aid because the Empire State is home to the country’s financial markets and thereby contributes disproportionately to the America economy--although I can imagine that there are many states that would gladly take those financial institutions off of New York’s hands if the governor considers them such a burden."

Damn right we'll take them and we already are. Last one out, please turn off the lights.

How do Democrats Define "Fair Share"?

Washington is teeing up "the rich" for a big tax hike next year, as a
way to make them "pay their fair share." Well, the latest IRS data have arrived
on who paid what share of income taxes in 2006, and it's going to be hard for
the rich to pay any more than they already do. The data show that the 2003 Bush
tax cuts caused what may be the biggest increase in tax payments by the rich in
American history...The idea that this has been a giveaway to the rich is a
figment of the Lefts imagination. Taxes paid by millionaire households more
than doubled to $274 billion in 2006 from $136 billion in 2003. No President has
ever plied more money from the rich than George W. Bush did with his 2003 tax
cuts. These tax payments from the rich explain the very rapid reduction in the
budget deficit to 1.9% of GDP in 2006 from 3.5% in 2003.

Most of the "rich" are small business people who are the particular engine that drives the economy. Obama and his apostles in congress would like to throw a monkey wrench into that engine despite the fact that it will result in less money to the treasury. This will satisfy the mythical goal of fairness of outcome rather than opportunity which is really just a quest for power. The statist left doesn't care if the pie is smaller as long as they control more of it.

Remember this exchange from an April debate?

MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the (capital gains) rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year -- $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That's not fair.

Illinois Legislator Supports Mob Rule

State Rep. Mike Smith wants to double income taxes on 5% of the state's taxpayers by allowing the other 95% to vote it into law. Beyond the fact that this would drive even more of the productive from that state, Mr Smith obviously thinks democracy is about two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

Actually, this guy seems to think way too much about dinner and would probably eat all three of them. Maybe we should vote to tax him and his corpulent brethren for eating more than their fair share of food and endangering the planet with the massive amounts of paint-peeling greenhouse gasses they expel every day.

Speaking in support of his plan to take with threat of state force, the property of 107,000 residents for the crime of being successful and productive, Smith said: "I'm not sure who would campaign against this other than those 107,000," And that's why this country was set up as a representative republic and not a direct democracy. To prevent tyranny by the majority. Mr. Smith should ask for a refund on his poly-sci degree.

Or maybe he should just quit and get a real job for once in his life. Perhaps he'll realize how hard it is to make money when you can't put a gun to people's heads.