For years now we have let the left frame the narrative that the rich in this country don’t pay their fair share. Even our President has joined in this effort to demonize the very folks who are the engine of our economy, the small business owners.
“The revenue we’re talking about isn’t coming out of the pockets of middle-class families that are struggling — it’s coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well and who are enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born. If you’re a — if you are a wealthy CEO or a … hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s.” – President Obama, June 29, 2011.
So a wealthy CEO or a hedge fund manager are making too much money and not paying enough.
Really?
For the honest answer to that question, let us turn to an organization that isn’t always very friendly to the United States, even though it was formed, in part by the US.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organization in which the 30 member countries discuss, develop and analyze economic and social policy. While all of the member countries are considered to be economically advanced and collectively produce two-thirds of the world’s goods and services, membership is limited only by a country’s commitment to a market economy and a pluralistic democracy.
The OECD was actually born to replace the OEEC, or the Organization for European Economic Cooperation which itself was created to administer the Marshall Plan. In 1961 the OECD was formed to takeover from the OEEC, with the emphasis being to develop strong economies in its member countries.
In a 2008 study released by the OECD, it found that America had the most progressive income tax system in the industrialized world. By looking at the richest 10% in each country, they found that America has the greatest share of personal and payroll taxes combined than in any other country in the world, for the richest 10%. In the US, the richest 10% pay a whopping 45.1% of their income in taxes; more than every other industrialized country in the world.
The next step is to see how much of the market income is earned by that top 10%. In America, they earn 33.5% of the market share of income. When you take those two figures and find the ratio of taxes to income, a surprising statistic pops out. Those evil rich people in America pay more in taxes in relation to their income than any other country, also.
No other country places that much of a burden on their top income earners, yet to hear the left – and our President – tell it, those evil rich people just need to turn over more of their income because it is only fair.
How dare we let the left frame the debate like this. We are not suffering from an income problem in this country; we are suffering from a SPENDING problem. But Obama still wants to increase taxes on small business owners, who are in many cases among the top 10% of income earners in America. This of course will only worsen the situation economically here in the US, for if the small business owners are afraid that more of their private property will be confiscated, then our economy will continue to drag along on the bottom.
Thomas Jefferson said it best –
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21128.pdf