Taxes and Ayn Rand: Placing Burden on the Few

Read the previous entry Then consider an item of news at the end of last week.


The top 1% (that is 1out of every hundred wage earners) now has an outrageous portion of the total tax burden thrust upon them. That top 1% is now (as of the end of 2007, I think, which means it may be worse now) 40.4% of the total personal income taxes in the United States. That is more than the lower 95% (which pay 39% or so, COMBINED). That means that the top 5% is now paying 60% of the total tax burden--a substatntial MAJORITY of total income taxes. Of course, some 40 plus percent of all wage earners pay NO income taxes at all.


Is this fair? Obviously not. It is wildly unfair. Okay. Life is not "fair", even though the hypocrites on the left keep blathering on about "fair" prices and "fair" wages. What am I talking about. That POMPOUS ASS, Bill O'Reily (see upcoming entry: "Bill O'Reilly, Pinhead") keeps talking about REQUIRING "fair" prices for health care, health insurance, drugs, oil gasoline, and who knows what else. The number of people in this country, including our President, who do not believe in the free enterprise system is astounding. I digress (not really). "Fairness" is not the total satandard, but this magnitude of unfairness, CREATED by government action, is astounding. Let us look at it another way--bringing in Ayn Rand's prescient works now at least FIFTY YEARS old.


What did Ayn Rand say, more than 50 years ago? Well, she pretty much prfedicted the present tax situation, where the many are trying to ride on the backs of the few. Her primary point is that there are only a few turly exceptional people, and that the many are constantly trying to bring those people down--trying to make those people "compromise", conform, AND use their talents for the "good" of the many. Of course, Any Rand's philosopphy is more complex than I can describe in a sentence or two. The movie, "The Fountainhead" (rating 85--starring Gary Cooper) is a good, easy introduction to Ayn Rand. Her major works--philosophy in the form of fiction--are "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Any Rand was accused of raising selfishness to almost a fetish. But look at how right she was about how the many will try to bring down the few!!!!!!!--wll try to make th efew do everything for them. One of Ayn Rand's positions was that an exceptional person makes a bad mistake if he lets himself be conned into taking responsibility for the many not so exceptional people trying to drag him down.


You may find this hard to believe, but Any Rand is/was somewhat too extreme for me, although she is so effective in arguing her case that few of her opponents/critics were in her league. Did Ayn Rand really oppose charity? Well, she certainly opposed FORCED charity, and that is what we now have.


It is ridiculous for higher income people to be parying FORTY TIMES their "fair" share of the tax buden. Yes, it is milsleading to say that the "richest" 1% should only pay 1% of the total tax burden, because they earn more than 1% of the total income of the country (although not nearly 40% of the total income). Yes, hypocritical leftists cite the converse statistic, WITHOUT MENTIONING THIS UNFAIR TAX BURDEN, about how the "rich" earn more than their "fair" share of the icome in this country. What this ignores is that this country was founded upon OPPORUNTIY (Ayn Rand type opportunity), and NOT upon the false idea that everyone was "entitled" to equal income, or to ANY certain percentage of the income of the "rich". As this blog has previously said, Alex Rodriguez had better watch out!!!! He is earning more than a "fair" income!!!! This country was founded much more on the idea that the "rich" should NOT have what they earn taken away from them involuntarily, to be distributed among the many.


Problem: This situation is intolerable, for the long term. Leftist Democrats, in the Age of Obama, now push the idea that the "rich" can pay for EVERYTHING (Ayn Rand is turning over in her grave). The idea is that the few can pay for the many. Worse, leftists may not really CARE if this means that the few revolt (as it will). For leftiists, it is NOT about the best way to raise more government revenue, or really about "fairness", but about EQUALIZING people (even if it means equlalizing them in misery).


There was that story a month or so ago that high wage earners in New York City were about to pay 60% of their total income in taxes. Over the long term, that will simply not happen. People will NOT work 80 hours a week, or more (as my lawyer daughter has been doing in New York city, to the detriment of her personal life)--only to see what they earn taken away from them to give to someone else to buy a CAR, or illusory "health care", or a HOUSE, or whatever else. People like my daughter will look at the situation and realize that they are getting the short end of the stick.


In short, we have reached the point where increases in taxes on the "rich" will definitely NOT increase government revenue (beyond the VERY short term). That is beyond the economic consequences of continued higher and higher taxes on success.


That is the problem here. If society adopts the idea that the few exceptional and "rich" can pay for EVERYBODY else, then too few people have a stake in the tax system. The "rich" suddently become a supposedly inexhaustible supply of money to take care of the rest of us. Most of the American people instinctively realize that this goes beyond being "unfair". It is simply impossible. In the long term that attitude is a rcipe for absolute disaster. It leads to an Any Rand HELL, where NO ONE has opportunity for excellence, but everyone is condemned to Commmunistic misery (except the likes of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, who become the "more equal" of this forced "equalization".


The few do not have enough money to take care of the many. Even if they did, it is insane to believe they will sweat blood and tears to take care of YOU and ME. I am not sure my own daughters will take care of me, but that is another subject. I did, after all, survive my trip to NYC and Boston, and they HAVE promised to put me in a cheap nursing home!!!!!!


Nope. That is why I question the sanity of lefitsts. I have long ago given up on their "intelligence". You cannnot, in the end, oraginize a society around the idea that the "rich" will pay for EVERyTHING for EVERYONE else. What I think of Repubicans and conservatives who have bought into this idea of BRIBING the "middle class" is unprintable. What I think of Bill O'Reilly is beyond unprintable. I have not watched him in three months until a few days ago, and I could stand only 10 miniutes.


Yes, I am ashamed to say I thought Ayn Rand too extreme, and I still find her a little 'harsh" in her apparnent views on absolutely no compromise, and absolutely no sense of "responsibility" to other people. I amy h ave to undertake a pilgrimage to her gravesite to apologize. She is looking better and better to me. She was definitely prescient about the trends of our present society--trends that WILL destory us.


What should we do? Easy. Go back to the simple Reagan tax system--which INCREASED government revenues as the "rich" no longer had the same incentive to avoid taxes. Top personal and corporate rate: 28%. Second tier of 15% for "middle class" incomes and for long term capital gains. Third tier of 0%, but without continually expanding second and third tiers except in terms of keeping up with inflation. In 1987, the "rich" (under Reagan rates) paid 29% (top 1% paind that) of total personal income taxes. From an Ayn Rand perspective, that may still be excessive, but I think it was close to right. The idea here is to have a SIMPLE tax system (no Christmas tree of REPUBLICAN TAX CREIDTS, and no Christmas tree of DEMOCRAT TAX BREAKS and spending) with low enough rates to encourage both economic growth AND growth of Federal revenues (but NOT enough to finance an explosively expanding Federal Government, wheere the dirty little secret is that NO set of tax rates will ever do that in the real world).


Oh, by the way, that Reagan tax system pulled us out of the Carter recession of 1981-1982, which was about as bad as the current recession, and did so without mortgaging our future.