Taxes
In this greatest land of opportunity, “wealthy” has become a dirty word with certain politicians. Given that many of these people are entrepreneurs and small business owners, attacking them into submission doesn’t just hurt them, but the dozens and hundreds of employees they may lay off.
I will not continue the congressional policies of creeping up the middle-class tax burden or punishing small business owners. Instead, I favor a tax code that lets ALL Americans keep more of their hard earned money.
We have a “progressive” tax system, not as a matter of policy, but of politics.
Keeping in mind that a politician must get 50.1% of the vote, its cynically pragmatic to inflict a burden on as few people as possible. Thus, over the past several decades more and more of the revenue-generating responsibility has been shifted to fewer and fewer people. Basically, it’s become a perverse form of Robin Hood, whereby politicians tell the 90% “Hey, elect me and we’ll get the other 10%”.
The flaw in this short-term vote-getting strategy is that those 10% are the ones who create jobs.
Too many politicians look at the most successful members of our society and target them through punitive taxes. Cynically, this is an easy approach, in that a short-sighted politician, whose only concern is the next election, tells his prospective constituents, “vote for me and I’ll sock it to the wealthy”.
The long-term problem with this approach is two-fold. First, those “wealthy” constituents are often professionals and small business owners who employ our neighbors. Attacking them into submission, to the point that they finally give in and close shop, doesn’t just hurt them, but the 5, 10, 100, or 1,000 people they employ.
Second, the top 1% wage-earners pay 25% of federal income taxes. The top 5% pay over half! What experience has shown in California and New Jersey is that more and more people are willing to say “enough”, and move. Fortunately, they moved across a state border and not our national border, for now. Imagine the fate of our country if more of the wealthy finally “opted out”. We would lose not just the bigger part of our tax base, but more jobs..
In an economy of 10% unemployment, we need political leadership that encourages job growth, not crushes it.
