As a couple of senators were discussing the tax bill before Congress, the Democrat said that he would not support any bill that allowed the rich to get richer. Tax the rich and do not give any tax break to them is the cry from the left. This is not a new form of bias and has been used to get votes for a long time. What is amazing is that we live in a time of extreme vigilance of anyone who shows any bias against a specific group. Why not tax white men or tax illegal aliens or just put a cap on how much wealth you can amass.
This country was founded with the Declaration of Independence stating that God gives us the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” with the expectation that everyone is treated equally. We are equal unless we work harder or have a higher salary. The tax code then penalizes us with increased tax rates in addition to the already higher tax we pay because of the higher salary. The more you earn, the more you pay in income taxes. The increases are not arithmetic but geometric. There were many years that I was receiving raises but not having any higher buying power. The tax rate kept increasing and then inflation took over. I found that my original salary of $3,600 per year in 1960 bought as much as $25,000 per year in 1975. I had a much better position and was at the upper end of the company’s pay scale, but the tax rate and inflation had eaten up all of my progress.
What is rich? How do you define it? Recently a Northwestern city defined it as $250,000 per year and attempted to levy a “rich tax” on people who made that much or more. They were shot down by the courts. Part of the proposed tax plan has put the top rate on people making $500,000 or more. Pres. Obama stopped the Wall Street bonuses a few years ago and almost bankrupted the State and City of New York. Apparently he did not realize that over half of those bonuses were tax dollars. The top 1% of earners ($480,930 or more) pay 39% of the total personal income tax while the next group or 5% (195,000 to 480,930) pay 20.5%. 79.5% of the total personal income taxes are paid by the top 6% of earners. I guess you could call these people “the rich.” But what have they done to be singled out as the people who have to pay for the rest of us that make less. They have worked hard, they have become educated, they have been entrepreneurs or they have been good investors. Their reward has been a higher salary, but they have had to share much more of it with the rest of us.
A new tax bill that cuts taxes for many is not to include the people who pay the largest portion. Instead they will pay a greater portion percentage than they do now. So the most successful will share more of their wealth so the rest of us can pay less. I am a little confused as to why any congressman or senator could accept this if he is living up to his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. All men are equal under the law. What is even more disturbing is the fact that the less you earn the more government subsidizing you get. In fact if you choose not to work and take responsibility for yourself, you can get food stamps, HUD housing, Medicaid and welfare for the rest of your needs. Who pays for this idea that a government should pay its citizens not to work? In fact if you go to work you will lose all of your benefits and you will have to make about 5 times the minimum wage to achieve the same standard of living so why even try. Let the rich pay for it.
It is hard to believe that our country has drifted into this communistic thought and become a Robin Hood society. Even Robin Hood expected the poor to help him in his quest. The egregious behavior of our legislators and the temerity of their actions have put our country in a bind that promotes the refusal of many to pursue the American dream. Their dream is to live without working, which eventually destroys their spirit to live. Washington’s only answer is to take more of the rewards of the most successful and redistribute them to the unsuccessful. The rich deserve the largest tax break if anyone is to get one. We need to keep them rich so they can continue to finance the rest of us.
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