A friend of mine posted the above from E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post on Facebook. While the post quickly garnered a number of “Likes” I was incredulous. My response was thus:
What a ridiculous statement. Tax cuts allow the rich and poor alike to keep more of the money they earned rather than give it to nameless, faceless and largely unaccountable bureaucrats to distribute.
Conservatives don’t want to give the rich anything. They simply don’t want the government taking from those who work or invest to give to others. That’s pretty simple. If Dionne has such a good idea, maybe we should forgo paychecks altogether and simply let the government take the fruits of our efforts and then divvy out what they think we need for food, housing, clothes, cars and entertainment.
And that’s the problem with liberals – or at least one of them. They have these wonderful bumper stickers that are intended to make them feel warm and fuzzy about being good people and wanting to help the poor while conservatives want to take food out of their mouths to give to the rich for whatever they might want.
It’s a patently absurd statement. Liberals perceive tax cuts as giving something to the rich. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Tax cuts allow the rich and poor alike to keep more of the money they earned rather than give it to nameless, faceless and largely unaccountable bureaucrats to distribute.
To see how this works, lets imagine that you, despite the demagoguery, still think you’d like to be rich and create a great life for your family. As such, you and your wife decide to start a business. Since you’re a great cook you decide to open a restaurant. Here are just some of the things you’re going to have to do from a business perspective:
You’ll probably have to take out a loan for buying equipment, remodeling your space, signage, recruiting, hiring, training, inventory and of course licenses and permits from a phalanx of government agencies. (Note: Even if you incorporate, as most small businesses loans require personal guarantees even if the business flops, you’ll probably still be on the hook for that loan.)
Then there’s the lease, many of which require a minimum of five year contracts, even before you have a clue how successful your business will be.
Now that you’re prepared to open your restaurant there are just a few other areas you need to focus on: Marketing. Security. Cash handling or electronic security. OSHA inspections. Health inspections. Unemployment insurance. Business insurance.
As entrepreneurs you have to concern yourselves with those and more. Basically you’re risking tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on a business venture with no guarantee that you’ll even get your money back, never mind make a profit off of it. Then there is the actual work itself. Once you start your business you can look forward to 12 to 16 hour days, probably 6 and maybe 7 days a week for months if not years on end.
Once you’ve made this commitment and to put your money and sweat into your business you hope that things far beyond your control don’t get in your way, from the economy to the local roadwork that could close access to your restaurant to a mad cow or salmonella scare three states away that could upend your menu.
Despite every entrepreneur’s best efforts, half of all small businesses are gone within 3 years. In your case you’re still standing after those three years. You’ve worked more than you’ve ever worked in your life. You’ve had to risk every cent you’re worth as well as whatever you could borrow from friends, family and the bank. It’s all been worth it however because you have a flourishing business doing $3 million a year, employing dozens of people.
Finally, when you sit down to do your taxes, when all is said and done you find that between the salary you and your wife draw you’ve earned $250,000, which is a far cry from virtually nothing during the first two years. Then it comes time to pay Uncle Sam. Of that $250,000 you now have to write the IRS a check for $82,500, fully one third of your income. That leaves you with $167,500 after (federal) taxes. Depending on where you live you might have to write another check for as much as $25,000 to the state.
Then the two of you compare your situation to that of your brother and his wife, both of whom work for the federal government. Together they earn $246,000 in pay and benefits, pay $45,000 in federal taxes and have after tax income (including benefits) of $201,000.
You look at each other and really think about that. You’ve sacrificed so much, you’ve worked so hard, you’ve put so much into your business and at the end of the day you’re earned less than a couple of bureaucrats. You wonder whether it would be better to give up the uncertainty, the risk, the long hours for the comfortable and virtually guaranteed-for-life job of a government apparatchik.
Thankfully, more Americans are still choosing to start businesses and create prosperity for themselves and their communities than become government functionaries. But the tide is turning and with people like E.J. Dionne and President Obama pushing the wealth envy agenda and vilifying the people who build successful businesses, how much longer until that is no longer the case and America becomes just another collapsing victim of the cult of liberalism?
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The real problem is a tax of staggering proportions, that hits each and every American, and is imposed by an unelected group of bankers. The real inflation and devaluation of the dollar in real terms resulting from the actions of the Federal Reserve is effectively the biggest tax in history. It is made possible by the crooked politicians of the first Carter administration who arbitrarily re-wrote the definition of “inflation”.
The stock market “rose” as an adjustment to the weakened dollar and many hail it as “great news” meanwhile, it’s likely the US bond market simply will not survive.
Twice in the last few days I have seen a poster that had an interesting message.
I just looked it up on line to share it here, as it is appropriate.
It reads:
I don’t know how accurate the numbers are, but the idea is that we are well blessed in the USA.
The most impoverished group appears to be single black women.
A 2010 study found they had the lowest net worth* of all groupings of Americans.
Just $5.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pdf/201003/20100309_womenincome.pdf
As to WHY that group is so impoverished has a lot to do with personal decisions.
70 percent of African-American families are headed by single women.
Why become a mom without a mate?
Married or cohabitating black women have a median net worth of $31,500.
Obviously raising a family without a mate doesn’t work for them.
Yet they continue to do it.
Weird.
*Even at only $5 in net worth these black single women are in that top 24% of the world in terms of food, clothing and shelter.
They are also in that top 8% of the world in that even $5 net worth is over and above one’s basic necessities!
I think the biggest problem with your argument is that “the rich people” are not small business people taking out loans to make bakeries like you’re suggesting. They’re the 1% who ask dad for a handout to spend, or the Apples that troll patents and use armies of lawyers to crush small businesses via legal fees, regardless of their legal-correctness. The 1% us liberals want to tax more are not small businessmen. The 1% won’t ever be small businessmen; if they have that kind of money, they’re only going to be running a small business as a hobby.
As to us being “lucky” to live in the US, to make such a suggestion begets outright ignorance. You can choose most any meaningful measure, and the median american will be one of the worst off of any western, industrialized country. Yes, we’re better than Sudan. But we work more hours, get less pay, take fewer vacations, have higher infant mortality, shorter life expectancy, higher prison rates, and smaller safety nets than almost the entire civilized world. If you insist on comparing us to rural parts of India, I guess I can’t stop you, but if I was trying to boast about my physical looks, it wouldn’t really be saying much to say I’m taller than Danny DiVito.
@justin: Justin, that’s a nice story but it is a false narrative.
Obama SAYS ”the rich,” when he MEANS WORKING people’s taxable income.
See, the ”rich,” don’t have salaries like you and me.
They live off of dividends, interest, stock options and so forth.
Not salaries.
When Obama talks remember to also look at his written policies.*
Obama certainly does intend to TAX the incomes of people like firemen, nurses, small business owners and so on.
That’s where the taxable money is.
*Remember Steven Rattner, a former adviser to President Barack Obama?
Remember how Sarah Palin was REAMED for talking about ”death panels?
Recently Steven Rattner said WE NEED DEATH PANELS!!!!
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/02/Former-Obama-Adviser-We-Need-Death-Panels
Poor Sarah was crucified for telling the truth…albeit an inconvenient truth.
So, too, with Obama and his ”tax the rich” rhetoric.
@justin:
Do we work more hours than our European counterparts? Yes, but you are wrong that we make less. In 2008, the NYSlimes reported that the average middle class income in France was around $35,000/yr/per couple. Take fewer vacations? Yep, but that contributes to the fact that we earn more than our European cousins. Higher infant mortality rate? Only because we, as a nation, include those babies who were born, unlike some countries that only include children who have lived beyond six months of age. Shorter life expectancy? Not that our extremely high obesity rates would have anything to do with that in your liberal mind. Odd that we have so many poor who suffer from obesity, isn’t it? Or did that thought never enter your head about the reason for that?
Higher prison rates? Perhaps that is because we have created an entire segment of our society that thinks that whatever they want, they deserve, no matter how they get it. Thank you, DNC. Now to your “safety net” claim; if you want safety nets, go to Europe. Those nations are going broke, and their people are going to suffer much worse than we ever will, but hey, you will have a safety net. Otherwise, work for what you want, including establishing your own personal safety net.
And to the rest of the readers on FA, I present you Justin, part of the problem, not the solution.
@Nan G, #4:
No, when Obama talks about tax increases he’s referring to those having taxable income in excess of $250,000 per year. He’s always been very clear about that. The majority of small business owners–with the term “small business” meaning what most Americans think of it as meaning–do not have taxable income in excess of $250,000 per year. The vast majority of true small business owners are part of the American middle class.
The verbal shell game is part of the republican pitch. How they define a small business is not how most Americans define it. How they define rich is not how middle class America defines rich.
Do you really believe Romney is actually pitching a round-about way of raising taxes for the wealthy? Or that he has collected a host of million-dollar donors because they’re convinced he’s going to make them pay more taxes? He suggests that total taxes paid by the rich will actually increase despite a significant reduction in top end tax rates, owing to “the closing of loopholes” (the specifics as yet undisclosed) and the simplification of the tax code (ditto). If you believe any of the foregoing, you can take your pick of the amazing deal I’m offering on a bridge in Brooklyn, or the lot I’ve got up for sale in a Florida swamp.
The revenue to pay for those whopping big high end tax rate cuts will have to come from somewhere. If you’re in the middle or working class, I suggest you look for your own meager assortment of “loopholes” to be closed. If you’re poor, you’d better get ready for the social safety net to consist mostly of gaping holes. Or, alternately, we can prepare for the rise of the national debt to accelerate skyward, with afterburners blazing. There are no other credible outcomes.
@Greg:
Once again, you are spinning. Obama’s plan is to raise taxes on those who are married earning $250,000/yr. If you are single, it is $200,000, and what you didn’t mention, is a plan who screws marrieds. So, if you earn $150K/yr and your spouse earns $100K/yr, your screwed. Best plan on paying the divorce attorney what you will save in taxes in just one year. People who are on Social Security are already getting a divorce because their spouse still works and the SS benefits shove them into a higher tax bracket eating up their benefits. Thank you, LBJ.
Yes, many small businesses earn $250K/yr. especially on the Beast and Least Coasts where a $250K income is not really “rich.” So the very states that support Oblama are the ones that are going to get smacked by Oblama’s tax hike. The small business owner in Los Angeles who earns $250K/yr has no more buying power than the small business owner in Houston who earns $152K/yr., yet the LA guy will get smacked while the Houston guy will not. Good move, Obama.
It is rather clear that the only people who are FOR increases in income taxes, are those who don’t pay them. Everyone else is skating like hell to keep ahead of increasing costs of living, increasing tax hikes, fees, fines,inflation, etc.
@ Vince,
Unfortunately, it seems that the balance point has been reached. This Presidential election will tell the tale on the future of the Nation. If it tips toward socialism, you can’t bring the pendulum back.
@James Raider, #8:
Right. My recent income tax rates seem to be higher than Mitt Romney’s. I imagine the bite my rate takes out of my own income affects my daily life a lot more than the bite Mr. Romney’s rate takes out of his. No dodges or loopholes are available, here.
I don’t know if anyone pays no taxes, short of people currently in nursing homes or on life support. A minimum wage earner pays a fixed rate in Social Security and Medicare taxes, state sales taxes, and a variety of state and federal taxes on everything from gasoline to the telephone bill. Even a person subsisting on public assistance doesn’t escape state sales taxes.
@James Raider:
True, but, like in other socialist societies, there will be a drop in incentive.
Call it a “Going Galt.”
If Dems think the Right has tried to destroy this recovery by going Galt NOW, just wait until they see what happens when everyone realizes they can sit back under their tree and think deep thoughts while all their needs are supplied to them.
And they realize that working their tails off is a really stupid thing to do when the Gov’t takes almost all of it and gives it to folks who sit under trees and think deep thoughts!
@Greg: 310,
What a perfect example of why your perspective is as it is, . . . rooted in a lack of ability to learn.
You either don’t read, or can’t. Result? . . . . . Sad, really.
@Greg:
When you say your RATE is higher than Mitt’s what you mean is his EFFECTIVE rate AFTER all deductions.
Because his RATE was HIGHER than yours.
But he had many contributions that he declared (as well as some he didn’t) and they lowered his EFFECTIVE rate.
I’m sure that, if you tithed and also gave contributions to more charities you could use the long form and save money rather than a short form and a ”standard deduction.”
@Nan G: #11,
An old truism says that governments never shrink. Bureaucracies by their nature are engineered to balloon. It take a force of nature to reverse that process. We already know Obama isn’t it.
If he wins, I suspect you’re right, everyone with two nickels to rub together will become an introvert and hide, and hoard.
@James Raider:
We have already made plans to live in Utah after early next year.
Not off the grid, but in a place where having a years’ worth of food in the larder is not unusual.
Around here, just having a larder makes you a potential target during unrest, if you know what I mean.
@Greg:
Once again, being the dishonest liberal you are, you try to conflate income taxes with payroll taxes. With your payments to the Social Security/Medicare funds, you are guaranteed a return on that money.
There are millions of people who pay no federal income tax but you are too dishonest to admit that. Yet those people enjoy the very same benefits from the federal government that I do; postal service, military, federally funded highways, and in fact, those who pay NO federal income tax gets more in return from the federal goverment than I do from HUD, HHS, etc.
Now the fact that you concern yourself with how the bite from your income taxes affect you compared to how it affects Mitt Romney shows you are knee deep in wealth envy. You have the same opportunity to become a rich man as anyone else in this nation. Obviously you are not bright enough to create a better mouse trap to become wealthy. Your problem, not Mitt Romney’s.
Some things just seem too obvious. If the trolls think they’d be better off somewhere else why don’t they just go there? France comes to mind, after all they are held up as the ultimate in socialist healthcare; http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/10/french-economy-implodes.html
Vince
good post thank you,
your timing is right on the dot with ROMNEY’S DEBATE RESULTS
BYE
Just to get back to the topic of the article for a second, starting and growing your own business is a little like raising a baby—there are certain satisfactions that can’t be measured by mere dollars and cents. The entrepreneur is a strange breed, in that he or she works best in that setting that does not require a boss nor superiors. I would say that most of these free spirits would feel that if they had to pay double the taxes of an employee, it would still be worth it—but I would also say that the business owner in example should also find a new accountant.