Gotta love The New Republic and their article today which ask’s the question…”why is spreading the wealth a bad thing?”
But let’s get back to this apparently controverisal phrase–which, I gather, is going to remain prominent in McCain’s campaign rhetoric over the next few days. What, exactly, is so awful about “spreading the wealth”?
Government performs certain essential functions, from education to national defense. It must raise money to do that. Charging everybody the same tax rate might sound simple. But it would actually impose a much harsher burden on the poor, since they end up spending much–if not all–of their incomes on the basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter. As one famous 18th century philosopher argued,
“It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expen[s]e, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
Another rationale for progressive taxation is the fact that random chance has profound effects on everybody’s financial well-being. (A guy named John Rawls once wrote a thing or two about this.) Mandating economic equality–i.e., carrying out a truly socialist agenda–would obviously be wrong. But there are compelling moral and economic arguments for asking the fortunate to pay a little more in taxes, in order to blunt the influence of chance on people’s lives.
Uh, hello? Are you kidding me? Asking the fortunate to pay a little more in taxes when the top 5% of wage earners, those making more then $153,000, pay 60% of ALL federal income taxes. The top 1% of wage earners, those making over $388,000, pay 40% of ALL federal income taxes. Those top 1%er’s make up 17% of the fed’s revenue from ALL sources including excise taxes, retirement receipts, and corporate taxes.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $364,657) earned approximately 21.2 percent of the nation’s income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 39.4 percent of all federal income taxes. That means the top 1 percent of tax returns paid about the same amount of federal individual income taxes as the bottom 95 percent of tax returns.
They already pay their share. Actually more then their share. But according to the yahoo’s at The New Republic (and Obama of course) lets take more of their money.
The government has certain functions laid out by the Constitution. But I can find no section in that document, or any other document related to how our government should function that says the successful in this country should be mandated to play Robin Hood. Our government should never punish success, instead it should award those who work their butt off to succeed. That will make more people wanting to succeed. Instead, with Obama’s “spread the wealth” mantra, he wants those who sit on the sofa all day eating cheetos to be just as wealthy, just as successful, as those who work 14 hour days making their business a success.
See author page