Fair Tax Nation

Replace All Federal Taxes on Income with the Fair Tax Act , HR 25

100 of us go to a tavern; the richest guy buys 42 tap beers, the next 9 buy 48 tap beers, 43 buy 10 tap beers, and 47 of us drink tap beers for free. In Wisconsin, we say "thank you" when someone else buys our beer; apparently in Chicago, they go find a community organizer and demand martinis.

The top 1% of income earners in this country - nice people like Oprah and Aaron Rodgers - make 28% of the income, yet they pay 42% of the income tax. 47% of Americans pay no income tax. Is that fair? President Obama doesn’t think so; he thinks the rich should pay even more.

Why? Why should they pay more when almost half of us pay nothing? How is that fair? What do they get in exchange? Will they have their own Bentley lanes on the Interstate Highways? Do they get extra protection if the Canadians invade? Will their trademarks and copyrights last twice as long as ours? No, we will offer nothing; we will simply take their money because we want it.

Paul Krugman calls them "belligerent" for wanting to keep it. Is that what we have come to? When did we turn into a nation of looters? Why do we revile the strong and revere the weak? Why do we punish the champion and reward last place? It should be obvious to anyone that rich people consume less government services than poor people and pay most of the taxes. We should be grateful to have them; instead we demonize them.

It is stupid to hate rich people; all of us either work for rich people, or work for organizations funded by the taxes they pay or donations they make. We will not earn more when they keep less. Taxing them is a lose/lose proposition, which unfortunately has become this administration’s signature move.

Wealth is neither moral nor immoral; it is simply the difference between what is produced and what is consumed over a lifetime. People who spend more than they earn become poorer, people who earn more than they spend become richer. With the obvious exceptions of crooks and shnooks, rich people only get that way by providing us with the things we want. Only a fool – or a jealous socialist - would want to punish someone for that.

And besides, who really suffers when we "tax the rich"? Your dentist is undoubtedly rich under Mr. Obama’s fluid definition; so where will she get the money to pay the new taxes she will owe next year? You will give it to her one filling, crown, cleaning, and bridge at a time. Ditto your doctor, your car dealer, your landlord, your store keeper, your favorite artists, etc. Trickle-down economics works for taxes, too.

Every time the hucksters in Congress pretend to sock it to "big fill-in-the-blank", it is the little fill-in-the-blanks who get screwed. You are already feeling the love this year if you tan, smoke, drink, drive, buy health insurance, or register a gun. A recent study showed that the President’s proposed tax increases will cost $1,500 for a Wisconsin family of four making $60,000. That is not rich to me.

Another recent study revealed that White House appointees owe a combined $817,000 of back income taxes, and that government employees nationwide are over $2 billion in arrears. These tax cheats’ average income is $120,000 per year and their health care benefits cost us $21,000. Isn’t that just ducky?

We ask the parasites to recycle a few drops of blood to pay the unemployment benefits for the millions of people their bungling incompetence have made jobless, and they can’t be bothered. Too busy calling us greedy. Too busy calling us selfish, uncaring, imperialist, exploiters, racist. Too busy telling us we don’t pay our fair share; that we owe them more.

How about this for a tax policy: we don’t pay another dime until all of the government deadbeats are current. Let those 16,000 new IRS agents squeeze the blood out of their own turnips before they come after the rest of us.

Increasing taxes on the wealthy will not stimulate economic growth and it will not eliminate the deficit. The President’s tax increase on the richest 1% would only balance the budget for 9 days. In fact, we could take all of their earnings and it would still not pay for all of the spending in Washington. Reality check: we spend 50% more than we tax – 50%.

We have to spend less, not tax more, if we want our economy to recover.

They have figured this out in Germany, France, Greece, Britain, China, Venezuela, and even Cuba, where Castro will cut a million government jobs in the next year. He is down there channeling Chris Christie while our guys are high-fiving over the millions of cube jockeys they have added – the mind boggles.

My advice to candidates who want to get elected this year: name the programs, agencies, and departments you would eliminate and the amounts you would cut from the budgets of those which remain. The truth will not just set you free, it will send you to Washington and Madison.


"Moment Of Clarity" is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, "Tooth Fairy Government."

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Comment by John Gaver on October 17, 2010 at 2:21am
{CORRECTION]

You're on the right track. But the actual IRS numbers are somewhat different that yours. It still makes the same point. You just need to be accurate.

The top 1% of income earners (those earning over $380,354, in 2008) earned only 20% of the income in 2008, while paying 38.02% of the personal income tax that was actually collected.

That means that the top 1% of income earners paid almost double their share of taxes, based on income (1.9 times). That's money actually collected by the IRS - not a projection or an estimate. It's actual money in the US Treasury tied to the income group that paid the taxes that put it there.

It also means that the top 1% of income earners are now paying in excess of 50% more of the tax load than they did when Ronald Reagan left office (38.02 / 25.24 = 51% increase).

The IRS collections data for 2008 can be found at:

http://www.actionamerica.org/taxecon/irsdata.shtml

There is another issue that this disparity causes. The government is effectively punishing people who:

• are successful,
• likely have an entrepreneurial mind-set,
• are likely problem-solvers,
• likely don't get discouraged by adversity, but look for solutions and
• can afford to implement one of the few legal solutions left to them.

According to Zogby International, "by a modest estimate", more than 3 million Americans "relocate" offshore, every year. Anyone want to guess how many of those expats are poor?

Then think about this. If just the top 1% of income earners (1.4 million taxpayers) were to leave (remember that 3 million Americans relocate offshore every year), then those who remain would be faced with a more than 60% tax increase, just to make up for the loss of that 38.02% of taxes.

Every time our government increases their punishment of the rich, more of the rich leave. So what does the government do, in response? They bear down on the rich, even more. What's wrong with this picture?

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