Are the rich really not paying their fair share?

    In his recent YourHub article, “The economics of Christmas trees,” Jack Van Ens calls for higher tax rates on the top 1% so that the added revenue will provide tax relief for the poor and middle class.   Van Ens also plays the class warfare game by accusing the wealthy of greed and graft and comparing them to pine beetles boring into Christmas trees.   Such comments not only call for a closer look at the facts, but they also call for a comment of “Good Grief!”

   Isn’t it amazing how Liberal Democrat politicians have completely convinced huge numbers of their followers that our economic/fiscal mess is the fault of "the rich?"   Liberals insist that the reasons for our deficits/debt problem is not over-spending by the federal government, but greed by wealthy people who don't pay "their fair share" of income taxes.  It is astonishing to see, but  when liberals mouth charges like this, they are immediately accepted and repeated by so many.  So, let’s look at the charge that the rich are not paying "their fair share."  

     The House Budget Committee has reported that the top 1% of income earners pay 38% of all federal tax revenue.  The top 5% pay 59%.  The top 10% pay 70%.  The top 25% pay 86%.  The top 50% pay 97.3%.  Conversely, the bottom 50% pays merely 2.7% of all federal tax revenue.  As the data shows, the rich are certainly paying their fair share.  In fact, they pay the vast share.  The poorest Americans, conversely, pay literally nothing in income taxes.  If anything, the system is disproportionately titled against the wealthy.  Our "rich" are paying for the reckless behavior of politicians addicted to spending; they are subsidizing spending addicts.  And to watch those addicts blame the mess on the rich for not paying enough?  It's ludicrous.   We should be thanking the top 1% who is paying more than their fair share, particularly when the bottom 50% isn’t paying practically anything.

    But too many folks such as Van Ens have the complete opposite opinion.  And lately, it has been aided and abetted not merely by the usual class-warfare demagogues, but by the likes of Warren Buffet and even some Republican writers, who are dupes for this line of propaganda.  Warren Buffet is the Democrats' dupe.  In a speech to the Heritage Foundation, Representative Paul Ryan put it this way: “The president likes to use Warren Buffett and his secretary as an example of why we should raise taxes on the rich.  Well, Warren Buffett gets the same health and retirement benefits from the government as his secretary. But our proposals to modestly income-adjust Social Security and Medicare benefits have been met with sheer demagoguery by leading members of the president’s party.”

    I would love it if all those Occupy Wall Street types would repeat after me: America's deficit/debt problem is a spending problem.  It is not the fault of rich people who pay too little income tax or Tea Party members guilty of "terrorism."   But, Don't take my word for it.  Look at the data.  However, the data just doesn't matter to a huge number of blind followers.  And that's a serious problem for this country.  It’s leftist propaganda, but there’s hope that it may not be fooling the majority of the public.  Despite the best efforts of President Obama and the Occupy Wall Street movement to pit the so-called “99 percent” against the “1 percent,” Americans are increasingly rejecting the idea that the country is divided into “haves” and “have notes.”  A recent Gallup poll reports the percentage of Americans who believe this has dropped significantly since 2008, especially among independents and moderates.  Americans are now less likely to see U.S. society as divided into the “haves” and “have notes” than they were in 2008, returning to their views prior to that point. A clear majority, 58 percent, say they do not think of America in this way, after Americans were divided 49 percent to 49 percent in the summer of 2008.

    But, the real function of the "tax the rich" mantra is not to tax the rich and create jobs, but to break the resistance working voters have against tax increases.  By enabling the federal government to appear to "tax the rich," voters are fooled into thinking that Democrats will tax only the rich, whereas in reality they are raising taxes on everyone, particularly those who accept the "tax the rich" rhetoric.   The remarkable thing is not that progressives continue this rhetoric, but that some of the electorate continue to buy it.  After all, that's why progressives continue this rhetoric.

    History shows that if the tax rate placed upon the wealthiest 1% of income earners were increased, the wealthy would act to shelter their incomes and send the money offshore.  Again, though, trying to explain this point to a progressive is akin to trying to explain things to the paranoid.  Do we really want to keep increasing taxes on the rich?   We should hope not because that is how we turn rich people into poor people.   I want all of us to become rich, and raising taxes is not a way to achieve that.

     Central redistribution of wealth was tried in the former Soviet Union and is still in use in EU countries. The former went bankrupt while trying to even out the wealth. The EU is now experiencing the consequences of redistribution: forcing Great Britain to cut back on their national health service and driving Greece into bankruptcy.   When liberals scream that we have a big gulf between the haves and the have-nots in our country, we should respond with the following:  “Yes, we do, just like every other country that has ever existed.  The difference is that we have more “haves” than other countries, and God Bless America!”

    If we want our beloved country to have the highest number of rich people possible, then let’s maximize the chances for everyone to become rich.   Financial success is not a zero-sum game.  We should minimize taxes not selectively increase them.  We should maximize education and thereby opportunities.  And, we must always avoid inciting class warfare.   Europeans have a tradition of despising the wealthy.   We Americans have a tradition of admiring our successful citizens, and we believe that we can achieve a high level of wealth as well.  Let’s not envy the Steve Jobs among us.

    So, we currently have an extraordinarily progressive income tax, which requires the wealthy (and the relatively wealthy) to bear virtually the entire burden of the income tax.  President Obama wants to “spread the wealth’ not because the wealthy do not currently bear their fair share of supporting the government.  He wants to spread the wealth because he views the wealth itself as unfair.  If we follow this policy, we will be one of those countries that sought "fairness" by taking massive amounts of money from one part of society to give to another.   The USA has never been about “redistributive change" in order to create "fairness."   As we can now clearly see in the EU, that policy has always made matters significantly worse for everyone.  We don’t need to all be equally miserabl

    Liberals firmly believe that tax increases are an important step towards the “economic justice” of a society.  If income inequality is really what troubles liberals, they should be leading the effort to reform entitlements along the lines outlined by Congressman Ryan. Instead, they are fierce critics of his plan. 

    The problem isn't the wealthy; it is the people clamoring for money that isn't theirs.  All those Occupy Wall Street types whine and moan because wealthy people who earn their living won't hand over money to people that have not worked for it.    Wouldn’t you love to tell them to quit relying on others to provide for them?

    Everyone except liberals knows that increasing taxes on the job creators during these harsh economic times will only cause further harm and increase unemployment.  We saw a preview of President Obama’s campaign strategy in his recent speech in Kansas.  He intends to make the case for big government and wealth redistribution. The campaign will be about the federal government picking winners and losers and will be presupposed by his belief that our free market has failed and that the 1% are boring into our Christmas trees.  Good grief!