by Rick Lowe
It is so sad to hear the political rhetoric of US President Obama and now even former President Clinton, both multi millionaires harping on how the rich should pay more in television ads for the Democratic Party.
Estimates are the rich already pay about 50% of the federal taxes collected if I'm not mistaken. That seems like a pretty healthy "contribution".
I realise their goal is to win political power, but at what cost with this kind of rhetoric?
In 1997 then President Bill Clinton, no less, reduced Capital Gains tax from 28% to 20%. Maybe it was a compromise with the then Republican Congress, but why the about face today? Are these businesses/business people and their worth less important today? [More…]
Sometimes the words of other people can convey one's thoughts quite succinctly so I trust you will continue reading.
Even Bono (the U2 singer/songwriter and activist) recenlty said it has; "…been “a humbling thing for me” to realize the importance of capitalism and entrepreneurialism in philanthropy, particularly as someone who “got into this as a righteous anger activist with all the cliches.”…“Job creators and innovators are just the key, and aid is just a bridge,” he told an audience of 200 leading technology entrepreneurs and investors at the F.ounders tech conference in Dublin. “We see it as startup money, investment in new countries. A humbling thing was to learn the role of commerce.” [More…]
Yet, some politicians continue to rail against success. I don't get it.
Ayn Rand in her usual forthright manner suggested… "The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated, persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the bureaucrats."
Of course there are disgusting business people, but the main reason for government is to protect citizens from harm. Not to inflict harm. Verbal or through confiscatory taxation.
Finally, Frank Chodorov wrote the following excerpt in “The Rise and Fall of Society” (Laissez Faire Books, 1959. iBooks).
“Every budget is a compromise of interests. Every tax bill, even in the smaller cities, contains a promise to levy with a heavier hand on one group of citizens than another, with the implied intention of favoring some of the citizenry at the expense of others. In the rhetoric of politics there is no more compelling peroration than “ability to pay”; it is compelling because it touches to the quick the very common sin of covetousness, because it appeals to the envy and jealousy that few men are rid of. To be sure, the insinuation of “ability to pay” is that the “poor” will gain something by a “soak the rich” measure; but it is a moot question whether it is the hope of gain or the prospect of bringing the more capable or fortunate down to their own level that makes the “ability to pay” formula so acceptable to the “poor.” The class-struggle notion is a most convenient instrument of the State. In the end, of course, only the political establishment profits by the tax formula; its business prospers, while the business of Society, the production of goods and the rendering of services, slows down to the extent of the exactions” […]
Yes, stirring envy makes soaking the rich compelling and of course the rhetoric will be toned down after the US elections in just a few more days, but I wonder about the residual damage that will remain, continuing to wrench society apart rather than bring it together, far from the "hallowed halls" of the Oval Office and Congress.
Sickening seems the appropriate adjective.
