The Rich Aren’t Getting Richer

Kevin D. Williamson gives a lesson on income mobility:

When somebody says that that top 1 percent saw its income go up by X in the last decade, they are not really talking about what happened to actual households in the top 1 percent. Rather, they are talking about how much money one has to make to qualify for the top 1 percent. All that really means is that the 3 million highest-paid Americans in 2010 made more money than did the 3 million highest-paid Americans in 2000, the 100,000 highest-paid Americans this year made more money than did the 100,000 highest-paid Americans made in 2000, that the 50,000 highest-paid Americans made more money this year than did the 50,000 highest-paid Americans made in 2000, that the 1,000 highest-paid Americans this year made more money than did the 1,000 highest-paid Americans made in 2000, etc., which is not shocking. But, as the Treasury data show: They are not the same people.

Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hikes

From ABC


President Barack Obama's tax proposal – which promises to increase taxes for those families with incomes of $250,000 or more -- has some Americans brainstorming ways to decrease their pay, even if it's just by a dollar. "



This isn't really news. What is interesting is the poll ABC attaches to this article, which asks: VOTE: IS IT FAIR TO REDUCE YOUR SALARY TO AVOID TAXES?



Fortunately, most answered yes. But I want to know why they even asked the question. Is the phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" now an American ideal? Is it now considered "unfair" not to produce just as much so more of it can be taken by force and given to others? Collectivism doesn't just want your money, but your life. It's slavery, period. Atlas Shrugged is becoming more relevant by the day.



"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." - John Galt



"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low aspossible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays thetreasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinisterin so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands." - Judge Learned Hand

The Fantasies of Steven Pearlstein

The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein has proved once again why he is the personification of the Peter Principle. As that paper's business reporter, he consistently shows his hostility toward the very subject he covers with calls for the failure of capitalism and increased government interference in private enterprise.
Now he does himself one better with the moronic claim that increasing taxes during a recession is a good thing:

“That there’s something wrong with raising taxes in the middle of a
recession – that it’s always a bad idea – not true,” Pearlstein said. “It
depends on what the government does with that money and what people would have done with the money if they already – if they had it and it wasn’t taxed.”

In other words, individuals are poor judges of the proper way to invest and spend their own money. Therefore the high priests of government, who are of course endowed with supernatural powers, should confiscate those funds by force in order to ensure it is used in the most beneficial (politically motivated) way. After taking a cut of 30% or so for the Church of Secular Government of course.

This glittering jewel of economic ignorance goes on:

“And it’s quite possible that if you raised taxes on people who
otherwise would have saved the money and you, and you invest it wisely – the economy can be better off,” Pearlstein said. “So it’s not always the case raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea. It matters on whom and how you use the money.”

I find it quite amazing that Pearlstein doesn't understand that savings is investment. Where does he think interest comes from? I guess he really means that the anointed in government are the only ones who know how to invest "wisely". They've done such a good job with Social Security and Medicare contributions, so why wouldn't this dope think that?

Of course Pearlstein has history on his side, right? After all, Jimmy Carter raised taxes during recession in the 70's and that worked out well didn't it?
Herbert Hoover did the same thing 1929 and that...never mind.

Pearlstein says it's "quite possible" is dumb idea would work, which is like saying it's quite possible that the umpteenth email I got from Nigeria today really will be a way for me to make millions.

Pearlstein isn't going to find a lot of takers for his incoherent ramblings:

Even Democratic President-elect Barack Obama said tax increases could be detrimental to the overall economy. And as Murray Rothbard pointed out for the Ludwig von Mises Institute – raising taxes in this environment is a bad idea – under any school of economics.

“Every school: Austrian, Keynesian, monetarist, or classical, would react in horror to such a plan, which obviously worsens a recession by lowering saving and investment, and productive (as opposed to parasitic and wasteful government) consumption. Raising taxes does nothing to help the inflation, and does a lot to make the recession more severe; and it aggravates the deadweight burden of government on the economy.”

Related Posts:
WAPO's Anti-Business Reporter Wants Less Business
WAPO's Anti-Business Reporter, Steven Pearlstein

Tax Takers Aren't Doing Their Fair Share

Have you ever heard a Democrat seriously talk about the government doing with less? Of course not since the state is the secular church and that would be blasphemy. IBD gives us some facts:

..."Sacrifice" is evidently not lacking on the tax side of the federal
fiscal equation. The spending side is a different story, however.
If there is a lack of "sacrifice," it lies not with the taxpayers but with the "tax takers."...

...Washington's talk of "sacrifice" is no more than a stalking horse in the left's hunt for higher taxes. This call for higher taxes is not so much about funding the war against terrorism as it is about the left's desire to use the tax code to redistribute income.

The contrast between taxes and spending during the current and past three conflicts could not be starker. And it could not demonstrate more clearly the left's divergent view of taxes. It differs fundamentally from the rest of America's. For most, taxes are a necessary evil as disagreeable and inevitable as death.

For the left, they are a good to be pursued, a means to an end. Not simply needed to expand government, they are sought to smooth the perceived inequities arising from a market economy's distribution of wealth.

Washington's call for "sacrifice" therefore rings hollow on every front.

Here Comes the Tyrants

Obama wins and now we will have a President who is at best ambivalent about his own country, its history and its very constitution. He will have the cooperation of a like minded congress that will move swiftly towards as much more government control of the individual in every aspect of life.

** The best example so far of Democrat congressional arrogance and contempt for dissent is Jim Moran who decries "the simplistic notion that those who have wealth are entitled to keep it." He then goes on to berate those who would even suggest that Democrats had any responsibility for the mortgage crisis. Expect a lot more of this intolerance and heavy handedness. This is what you get when ask government to improve your life by force.






Chuck Schumer has already started to justify coming attempts at censorship by setting up an incoherent and illogical comparison of talk radio to pornography.




These are just two examples of the type of dictatorial high-handed attitude we will see constantly from an imperious Democrat controlled federal government. Remember, to them the state is the church and to question the hierarchy is blasphemy

Obama Plans to Lower Expectations

From the London Times:

"Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve. The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy."

Sudden financial crisis my arse. Obama's promises have never passed the smell test and there never was a way to raise the $450 billion or so needed annually f0r his $4.2 trillion worth of a harebrained schemes, no matter what the economy does.

His tax hikes on the "rich", the definition of which gets lower by the day, don't even begin to make a dent in the current debt much less the socialist nonsense The One has been peddling. It's the spending, stupid.

I guess Obama has concluded that he's wrapped up as much of the Bubblehead vote as he's going to get with his snake oil economics. Now he's trying to figure out the least damaging way of putting the shiv in their backs.

Weee! Free Lunch for ME!!

"I never thought this day would happen. I won’t have to work on puttin’ gas in my car. I won’t have to work at payin’ my mortgage.

You know. If I help him [Obama], he’s gonna help me."

So says another over entitled Obamoron who thinks her Sugar Daddy will rain money on her in exchange for her vote. Where will it come from? She doesn't know or care that it will come from her fellow citizens through legalized robbery. Obviously she also (unsurprisingly) doesn't know that The One's numbers don't even come close to adding up and that he would have to impose massive tax increases on everyone in order to pay for even half of his promises.

If Obama is elected how will her life change? Well it wont. She might get a pittance more in handouts designed to be just enough to keep her poor. Just enough to sap her and her child of ambition and opportunity. And there will be plenty enough new taxes to drive capital, investments and jobs elsewhere.

We've seen this movie and the remakes many times in many places. The ending is always the same.

"An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head." Eric Hoffer

Killing the Goose

Today's WSJ lays out the what will be the job killing result of the Obama (Democrat) tax hikes:

"Barack Obama declared last week that his economic plan begins with "one word that's on everyone's mind and it's spelled J-O-B-S." This raises the stubborn question that Senator Obama has never satisfactorily answered: How do you create more jobs when you want to levy higher tax rates on the small business owners who are the nation's primary employers?" - More...

My only problem with this editorial is that it assumes Obama doesn't know that his policies will reduce job formation and chase capital overseas. They do know that and their economic plans are part of a larger plan to discredit free markets and consolidate the power of the state.

When the economy grinds to a halt the villains will be the "traitorous and greedy" capitalists who wont sacrifice their own well being for the collective whole. That will be the excuse for more government punishment of "the rich" and more government power over the economy in order to counteract the "flaws" of the free enterprise system.

In other words, Obama will distort the free market with government meddling, then blame the free market's natural reaction when it fails and offer more government meddling to fix the problems government caused in the first place. In the end equality is achieved. Equality of poverty, misery and slavery.

This is what created the sclerotic European economy. On the extreme this blame the victim strategy of the left has given us Cuba and North Korea, with Venezuela trying to catch up to those socialist utopias. The only differences are a matter of degree.

**On a related note. Thomas Sowell asks what exactly is the change we are talking about?

"Yet many today seem to assume that if things are bad, "change" will make them better. Specifics don't interest them nearly as much as inspiring rhetoric and a confident style. But many 20th century leaders with inspiring rhetoric and great self-confidence led their followers or their countries into utter disasters. These ranged from Jim Jones who led hundreds to their deaths in Jonestown to Hitler and Mao who led millions to their deaths."

The Plumber and The Nurse

Joe the Plumber has become a reluctant symbol of Obama's dedication to the leftist goal of government forced "fairness". If Joe works too hard and takes too many successful risks, then it's only right that Joe "give back" some of his money for The One to spread around to his grateful subjects, less the government's cut of the loot of course.

One person Obama would give Joe's money to is the less known symbol of political charity: Hannah, The Nursing Student.

At another campaign stop, Obama had this encounter:

" ...Obama met a 19-year-old nursing student named Hannah, already deep in debt with student loans.
HANNAH: I'm paying for school myself, so-
BARACK OBAMA: How much, how much you in debt?
HANNAH: Right now about $24,000 and I'm only 19.
OBAMA: Alright well we're gonna try to see if we can provide you some relief, alright?
HANNAH: Yeah I need it because the grants aren't enough.
OBAMA HUGGING STUDENT: I know, I know! I appreciate it, c'mon. Nice to meet you.
HANNAH: Thank you.

Did Obama wonder if she had any responsibility for her plight or what she might be able to do for herself in order to further her career? No, of course not. That would mean one less victim, one less malleable dependent, one less vote. The grants (gifts) taken from her fellow citizens "isn't enough".

It's also much easier for her to hire Obama to put a gun to Joe's head and take his money by force of law than do it herself and risk jail. Besides, she needs it more than Joe even if it is his property. He can "afford' it because the anointed tell us so.

It doesn't matter if Joe will have less for his family, employees or business because he not only made "too much" money, he did it without pledging loyalty to The Party, as Hannah most assuredly will. The fact that Hannah has done nothing to earn the right to Joe's money is irrelevant since Obama has determined that she needs it more than he does.

Obama also doesn't wonder why Hannah's tuition is so high and has been rising much faster than the rate of inflation longer than anyone can remember. The education system is also protected by The Democrat Party and will never be called on the congressional carpet to explain themselves. That kangaroo court is reserved for capitalists. It would be counterproductive anyway since a lot of Joe's money already goes to these leftist incubators in order to create more Hannahs.

Obama's leftist philosophy is not about compassion or concern for the downtrodden. If it were, he and his running mate would have given more of their money to private charity than the miserly amounts they've given.

But charitable giving doesn't return the benefit of control over the recipient's lives. And it competes for funds with the politically motivated charity of the state. In short, it's about power. The forceful sacrifice of the individual to tyrants that use stolen property and force to mold the populace to their liking.

Obama and the Democrats don't believe they are taking Joe's money since they never considered it his to begin with. The only money he has is that which the government allows him to keep. Question: What do we call it when someone is forced to work for another's benefit? You know the answer.

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison

"We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money." - Congressman Davy Crockett

"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." - Ayn Rand

How Not to Balance a Budget

From the Wall Street Journal. No further comment necessary:

"Anyone who thinks the path to "fiscal discipline" is through higher taxes ought to look at the current budget spectacles in New York and California. The two liberal states have among the highest tax burdens in the country, yet both now find themselves with huge budget deficits and are debating still higher taxes to close the gap. . .

...Every time the politicians raise taxes, they merely lift their spending by as much or more, and then plead poverty and demand another tax hike during the next economic slowdown.

The "progressives" who dominate politics in these states target the rich on grounds that they have the ability to pay. They also have the ability to leave. From 1997-2006, New York State lost 409,000 people (not counting foreign immigrants). For every two people who move into the state, three flee. Maybe the problem for New York is merely bad weather, not high taxes.

Except that sunny California is experiencing a similar exodus. Over the past decade 1.32 million more native-born Americans left the Golden State than moved in -- despite beaches, mountains and 70-degree weather. Mostly the people who have fled are the successful, the talented and the rich.

If taxes don't matter, then maybe someone can explain the divergent economic paths of California and New York and America's two other most populous states, Florida and Texas. The latter two states have no personal income tax. Personal income has been growing about 50% faster in Florida and Texas than in California and New York. (See chart.) This year Texas became the No. 1 state for Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. About a dozen of those 58 corporations once called New York or California home, and taxes are one reason they departed.

Charlie Rangel: More Equal Than You

No one should be surprised that House Ways and Means Commitee chairman Charlie Rangel doesn't abide by the rules he writes for everyone else. His tax fraud and gaming of New York's socialist and morally bankrupt rent control system is par for the course for parasites like him. He's a typical member of a ruling class that feels divinely entitled to be what us mere mortals would consider hypocritical. Rangel has accumulated his assets through demagoguery and the force of his position, not through ingenuity and voluntary trade. He's done this mostly through racial extortion and giving his Harlem constituents just enough stolen taxpayer money to keep them poor and beholding to him.

That's why it's also not surprising that he's a long time friend and admirer of Fidel Castro, the longest ruling warden of the largest prison in the Western Hemisphere. As a matter of fact, Rangel supports just about anyone who opposes liberty in favor of the anointed dictatorship he would have America aspire to. Some reminders of who Rangel really is:

**Rangel joined six New York Democrats in opposing a House resolution of support for pro-democracy advocates and dissidents in Cuba. Rangel angrily dismissed the activists as "insurgents," condemned a policy of "dealing with dissidents," and complained that American legislators "refuse to give the [Cuban] government the respect that it deserves."

**In February of 2005, Rangel proclaimed that it was discriminatory to label groups like Hezbollah "Islamic terrorists." "To call it Islamic terror is discriminating, it's bigoted, it is not the right thing to say," Rangel said.

**When Castro toured Harlem in October of 1995, Rangel greeted him with a bear hug and joined in a prolonged standing ovation for the visiting dictator.

**When the Republican-led Congress pushed for tax relief in 1994, Rangel denounced the plan as a form of modern-day racism. "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore," Rangel raged. "They say, 'Let's cut taxes.'" Similarly, when Republicans sought to reform a bloated and abused welfare system through budget cuts, Rangel remonstrated that the planned reforms were beneath even Nazi Germany. "Hitler wasn't even talking about doing these things," he insisted.

**In 1995, Castro made a smash return to Harlem, basking in the adulation of black New Yorkers, and receiving that embrace from Charlie Rangel. He spoke at a Baptist church, where the throng screamed “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” and “Viva Cuba!” Said Castro to his flock, “As a revolutionary, I knew I would be welcome in this neighborhood.” He used the occasion to denounce conservative attempts to scale back affirmative action — not that he himself would ever practice any.

Obama: Raise Taxes Because Warren Says So.

When Warren Buffet writes a check to the treasury for a billion or so from his mostly tax sheltered assets, let me know. Until then, spare me the phony appeals to authority.

And when Obama says he wants to raise taxes on the "wealthiest Americans", he's lying. There is no wealth tax in this country that hits the accumulated fortunes of Buffet, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy et al. His definition of rich is $250,000 or more of one year of annual income, which is indicative of nothing in defining wealth.