Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Big Lie

With all this talk of class warfare I wonder about the logic of the people who advocate taxing the rich. In some ways I understand it economically things aren't going well right now and people don't know where to turn. So the simple solution is to find fault with the other, the evil rich for of course all rich people got that way trampling on the rights of the average guy. I won't pretend I can defend all rich people but percentage wise there probably aren't any more evil rich people than there evil middle class or poor people.

There other reasons for arguing against taxing the rich when the economy is struggling. The first has to do with incentives everything has an incentive we eat foods because of the way they taste, date a girl because she's pretty or smart, work hard to earn more pay. There are also disincentives don't touch the stove it's hot, how hard do you work after a pay cut. How hard is anyone going to work if the government is going to take a bigger share. The second argument against increasing taxes is selfish who do you think pays this tax on the rich. No I'm not rich but I'll be paying for any tax increase, much of any tax increase will be passed along through higher prices. Thirdly effectiveness of any tax increase is dubious most of the Bush tax cut's went to the poor and middle class raising taxes solely on the rich would have little impact on the deficit.Plus if G.E can pay n0 federal taxes now they could pay zero with an increase as well. We need only to close loopholes as a minimum but hopefully move away from an income tax all together.