What people need and what they should have are questions the left believes they are better equipped to answer. It is central to their economic thinking and without exception solutions entail a loss of individual freedom.
Previously I stated here that wealth isn't made it's created and that the free market system is the vehicle in which people thrive when in the state of liberty. Progressive economic policies have little to no faith in the free market system and liken it to a human jungle. Some people make more than others and this is "unfair". In order to fix the system their proposals will start at launching a direct assault on free enterprise and thus freedom itself.
Here is one of the more prominent liberal economists Robert Reich writing in Solon. I'm picking on him here because his article best encapsulates all the wrong assumptions and paternal prescriptions of the left. On tax cuts he says:
"Taxpayers in the top 1 percent don’t need it (they are now getting almost a quarter of all national income, the highest percent since 1928)."
They don't need it, see. Mr. Reich knows what people need, he's smart. But he makes an error here too in that he assumes wealth is just out there and the rich are "getting" almost a quarter of it. They aren't getting anything they haven't created. In short it wouldn't exist without them. He continues:
"They don’t deserve it (they got the lion’s share of the benefits of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and have had no reason to expect a continuation of their windfall)."
Here he gives the impression that money is governments first and if a person gets to keep more what he or she makes it's a "windfall" given to them by Bush. Oh, and they don't deserve it either. Government should determine if a person deserves what they have worked for, who better to know this than the Robert Reich's in government.
"They won’t spend it to stimulate the economy (top earners save a much higher proportion of their income than the middle class)."
But what they do when they are accumulating that money is the economy. They don't just throw a butterfly net out the window and haul in paper dollars, they are creating something and getting wealthy in return. Higher taxes retards this process. Poor people don't build factories, offices, processing plants or hire the people to work in them "the rich" do. If they don't spend all the money they make it's because there are just so many houses and cars one can have. When they are accumulating more money it will make scores of people less poor by putting them to work. So what if they aren't big spenders at Bloomingdale's, it isn't the point. Is Reich trying to say thriftiness is bad for the economy? He continues:
"...And giving it to them blows a giant hole in the budget (the Joint Tax Committee estimates the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent to be $61 billion in 2011 alone.)"
Giving it to them?? Who is giving what to whom? It is THEIR money. As for the Joint Tax Committee date, sure, if you calculate what the top have "earned" then extrapolated from a higher rate you get the $61 billion figure. But that assumes that income group will be producing at the same pace at a higher tax rate than a lower . Higher taxes pushes more money into hiding (tax shelters, deductions, etc) and less into growing or starting a business and hiring more employees. The fact is lower taxes actually produce more revenue as I demonstrated here. Taxes affect behavior and the math Washington uses ignores this, or just assumes economic behavior is static regardless of the rate. In a month the tax cuts are to expire. Profits are up but business is not expanding or hiring. What does that tell you?
Reich then lays out the tired old false political dichotomy of Democrat/Republican being for or against the rich/poor:
"In political terms, a strong stand enables the President to clearly demonstrate who’s side he’s on (the working and middle class that’s still bearing the brunt of this lousy economy) and who’s side the Republicans are on (the powerful and privileged who brought much of this on, and who are now doing just fine)."
Democrats are for the poor. It stands to reason that their opposites, the Republicans, are for the rich. When you are for the poor you have a good heart and fighting for the underdog. When you're for the rich it's at the expense of the poor you're a bastard. And so everything stated above is just a facade meant to distract from the true agenda of making the rich richer. It's a fairy tale that's been repeated for so many decades that we've come to ignore the striking absurdity of it all. We can understand helping the poor, but helping the rich, why? And since when do we call a president to be "on the side" of one group of Americans against another as Reich does here? Is that what politics is all about, one class elects a leader to go after other Americans of different income levels?
Reich and the left in general attempt not to win a debate but to disqualify the other side on the grounds of immorality. This "for the rich" business is a philosophy that doesn't exist. Liberals are right because the other side has evil intent and you can't listen or believe what conservatives have to say. We should lower taxes because it creates more of the stuff we call economy...no no no, Reich says "Republicans are on the side of the powerful and privileged".
Comments
The title should be. "Please be fair to the rich."
The "critic" says "Progressive economic policies have little to no faith in the free market system and liken it to a human jungle. " That is a simple falsehood. All of those so called "progressives" are earning their living in a free market system. Everything the "critic" says after that is pure hogwash, unless you believe that "progressives" are earning their money in some other system.
Everyone, who earns money, in the US pays taxes. The taxes go to the government. Wasn't that simple.
The argument the "critic" makes is that it's the earners money, rich or poor. That's baloney. When I buy a quart of milk it's no longer my money. When I pay taxes it's no longer my money.
The question of fairness is legitimate and necessary. If Bill Gates me and are in the same room our average earnings are 5 million a year. So, in the "critic's" mind we should pay the same percentage in taxes. Well if we both want police service, army's, and thousands of other services I'll be close to broke after taxes and Gates would be just fine. Not to mention that Gates would not need many of the services that's needed for the well being of the rest of us.
Before any more of the useful fools complain about the deficit and how their children will pay for it, remember that the tax not payed by the wealthy will be the added amount to those very same children. All the previous hogwash, notwithstanding.
I don't know what it takes to get JofT to use reason. First a simple math lesson is due. If Bill Gates paid 10% of his income towards taxes he would pay 100 million in taxes for every Billion he creates, er, made. Joft would pay $1000 for every $10,000. Now taxes are higher than that for Gates and Joft but the point is for him to say that if he and Bill Gates paid the same rate in taxes, well, it's either time to brush up on simple math or stop trying to sell a bill of goods.
As for the "children" paying the deficit I am constantly making the point that the government collects more revenue with less taxes than they do when they are higher. I proved it in other articles as well as this one with links and reason. He won't take the arguments head on which, once again. leads me to conclude that liberalism for JofT resembles more of a cult following than anything intellectual.
The writer clearly gets this subject and the Libs across America just have the whole concept backwards. Hence the appropriate nickname for Libs: "The Enemy Within".
I can speak with my own experience as I've been in a position of making many hiring AND lay-off decisions simply because of our tax system (and/or changes made within it). I still believe we could cut out entire tax system in HALF and still be able to fund the necessary functions of big Go-Ment. Libs hate when I say that bc they believe THEY ARE ENTITLED to my earnings! Just listen to some of the socialist bloggers like Joy of Taxation.
bobblingwithhogwashandstillemployingmany
"Wealth isn't made, it's created"? Democrats are "for the poor"? This is the main thrust of your argument for or against allowing tax advantage expire? Do you have any vision for what this country could look like in 10 or 20 or 50 years? I want to talk about that... and what it will take to get there. And then let us ask: Will allowing a small percentage of people to continue to accumulate large amounts of "wealth" accomplish that?
There is more than those two quotes you cited that make up the "thrust" of my argument. For instance the implications of low taxation for all, including the rich, is that the government actually collects more taxable income. The reason for this is that more wealth is created because under lower taxes there is more activity in taxable enterprises then there is when taxes are higher. Deductions and tax shelters increase when taxes are raised, this means it goes into less productive, non-employment producing, use. Look no further than in the manifesto article. In it I provide links that show revenues increase as taxes on capital gains were cut in the Clinton administration and an article from the New York Times where it documents revenue increases under the Bush tax cuts.
This guy is on the same message. It's preposterous that he quotes one article in the New York Times saying that in one month out of several years there was an increase in tax receipts. This is is "proof". How ridiculous! Does this guy have any notion of the deficits that were accumulated during Bush's years? I'll say it again. It's like someone claiming shacks are good houses because 2 out of thousands survived a hurricane.
If he wants to prove his point there should be hundreds of non-political economic reports backing him up. Not to mention the crowing of the tax cutters. By the way where are those crowers. Does he want us to believe they're being modest. Preposterous nonsense!
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