Paying Your "Fair Share!"

Trump just dropped his long-awaited plans for how to get figurative blood out of our collective turnip.

Not happy with our current tax plan (but then again, who is?), Trump's brand-spanking New One, unveiled yesterday with mucho fanfare, will take the existing 7 brackets, extorting from us way, way, way too much, to three, which will still be way, way too much, however will serve to reduce the already too-high rates a little bit, but not, in my humble opinion, by nearly enough.  

Like that sentence?  Knew that you would.

So, fellow taxpayers and tax-avoiders, we're in for several months of knock-down, drag-out, bare-knuckle fights in the Halls of Congress over this proposal.  And in the TV studios, where carefully-coiffed talking heads will tell us, condescendingly, that Trump's proposal is nothing but a gift to the rich, especially him.  Apparently they have too-soon forgotten that he is working as POTUS for free, and thus I would suggest you might want to cut him some slack over just how greedy he might actually be.

The Republicans will hesitatingly accept it, with a sniff and a scowl, nose upturned, upset that it doesn't go far enough, and the Democrats will howl in pain!  They will flagellate themselves in an effort to prove to their constituents that they are the Party of the "little guy," and that Trump's new Tax Plan is nothing but a thinly-veiled attempt to wrest the food from their babies' mouths and platinum-spoon it directly into Warren Buffett's gaping maw.

They will waste no time in proclaiming, "Make the rich pay their fair share!"  And God knows, we all want everybody to pay their "fair share," right?  Sure we do.  And everybody knows that the rich are misers who pay not nearly enough, right?  And we're bigly pissed!  I mean, they have too much money, right?  How did they get all that money, anyway?  They probably stole it from some poor Black Arkansas farmer, who's on disability from pancreatic cancer due to Agent Orange, and who just wants to be left alone to scratch out his meager existence from his tiny hardscrabble dirt patch.  And so these rich dudes ought to be willing to "pay a little bit more" so that the rest of us can have a plate of rice and beans for dinner.  It's only "fair," right?  I mean, we all know that if Bill Gates gets richer, then some of us must be made poorer, right?  I mean, there's only so many slices in a pizza, right?  

Of course, none of that is true.  If it were, then Steve Jobs would have stolen all the money from all the cancer-ridden Black Arkansas farmers with the advent of his cute little I-Phone.  Or, perhaps his invention served to create new wealth.  Like Gates did with Microsoft and Elon Musk did with Tesla.  Considering that I am a graduate economist and entrepreneur, who actually knows, in this one rare instance at least, what I'm talking about, me thinks so...

In other words, the pizza has an infinite number of slices if you make it out of ever-expanding dough.

So, in the interest of learning the truth, let's explore together just "who" pays "what" in our society.  Let's take a moment and look at the most recent year the U. S. Treasury will make data available and compare just who paid what, and to whom. Okay?

-  In 2014 there were 139.6 Million income tax filers, "contributing" more than $1.37 Trillion in taxes to the Federal Treasury.  That's an all time record for Federal tax receipts.  Yet, apparently not nearly enough, as we routinely spend another $500 Billion or so as a country more than we take in each and every year.  Year after year.

-  The top 1% of income tax filers earned 20.6% of all income, but paid 39.5% of all taxes!  

-  The top 50% of all income tax filers paid 97.3% of all taxes!  The bottom 50% paid only 2.7%!

-  Put another way, the top 1% of all income earners paid more taxes as a share of their income than did the bottom 90%!

-  And let's take a look at the various lesser categories, shall we kiddies?  The top 5% paid 41.96% of all taxes!  The top 10% paid 47.21% of all taxes!  The top 25% paid 68.91% of every tax dollar we collected!  

And here's a question for you.  Why, exactly, are those who espouse a Leftist persuasion so dead-set on preventing the "rich" from getting even a modest reduction in their taxes, given that they pay nearly all of the taxes we're fighting over.  Class warfare?  Me thinks so...

So let's review, shall we?  The "rich" (that's Liberal-speak for anyone who makes more money than you do) pay virtually all the income taxes collected by the U. S. Treasury.  Yet, the raging Left-wing loons want to force them to pay more.  I'm wondering, what's enough?  90%?  100%?  110%?  Why don't we just confiscate every single penny they earn?  And their beach houses?  And their Manhattan penthouse apartments?  And their Ferraris?  

And, oh yeah, their lumber yards and 7-11's and used car lots and pharmacies and family farms and Italian restaurants where they serve ever-expanding pizzas? 

Or better yet, how about we just hunt them down and frog-march them right into the Gray Bar Hotel for daring, daring to become successful!  Class envy and jealousy and identity politics is what the Democrats deal in.  And the American People should learn to get their collective arms around that little factoid.

And lest we forget, poor people don't hire anyone.  Put another way, it might be a good idea to leave the wealth producers with a few dollars so they can create some more jobs to help get us out of the economic malaise we've been in for at least a decade.  

So, as the debate rages on, and Senate Minority Leader Chuckie Schumer and House Rep." San Fran Nan" Pelosi proceed to try and hipmotizzzzze you with their incessant bleatings about Republicans taking money from the Treasury that is so desperately needed by the "poor and downtrodden," just remember that:

-  The Federal Government has no money of its own.  Lemme' repeat that again:  The Federal Government has no money of its own!  Before the Gummint can give something to somebody, it has to first confiscate that something from somebody!  In essence, it has to stick its massive mitt into our collective pockets and extract what it wants under threat of criminal prosecution so it can redistribute that booty to others to curry favor and win votes.  And remember, this Great Country got along just fine for 150 years without a Federal Income Tax of any kind!

-  If we strangle the Treasury's income by reducing taxes, we're not taking its money.  That money was never the Gummint's in the first place.  It belongs to the people who earned it, and no doubt could do a much better job of spending it then can Uncle Sugar.  And any shortfall due to tax reductions does not have to be "paid for" prior to passage.  Just spend less, O' Government of ours!  Spend less!

-  Obama (mis)managed to take our Federal Debt from just over $9 Trillion Dollars at the time of his inauguration to $20 Trillion Dollars by the time he was dragged kicking and screaming from the White House.  That works out to about $100 Billion Dollars a Month for every month he was in office.  Remember when he called George W. Bush "unpatriotic" for running the FedDebt up by $2 Trillion to $9 Trillion during his presidency?  Did I miss his apology for having lied through his nicotine-stained teeth? 

-  Obama (mis)managed to be the only U. S. President in history to serve two full terms with not one of his eight years showing a growth in Gross Domestic Product as high as 3%.  In other words, eight stagnant, barely chugging-along years of an economy that could not grow itself into prosperity due to the imposition of Obama's socialist policies and procedures.  Oh yeah, Trump's economy is performing quite nicely, I'd say.  The stock market's up more than 5,000 points since his inauguration and we've enjoyed two consecutive quarters with GDP growth of more than 3%!  That's the first time that's happened in more than 8 years, doncha' know...

-  For comparison, all of Reagan's years after he got his tax reductions through with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1986 grew at 4% or more, with one of those years at an astounding 7.8%!  In other words, that's not an incidental factoid.  No, it's proof that lowering taxes creates an incentive to work harder and create more and invest for your future.  It's called "enlightened self-interest."  

-  Continuing, each increase of 1% in the Gross Domestic product corresponds to an increase of approximately $One and One-Half Trillion Dollars in tax receipts to the U. S. Treasury!  So, the $1.5 Trillion Dollars "lost" by the new tax plan over the next decade which the Democrats have been hollering about would be easily replaced by a single 1% increase in the Gross Domestic Product. And were the GDP to grow at 4% or 5%, just think of the flood of new tax dollars that would be flowing to The Swamp.  Got it?  Knew you would...  

And so, kiddies, here's the takeaway from this little essay.  Don't believe the Pablum that the Alphabet Media shovels your way.  When Obama was deficit spending more of our tax money than all previous U. S. Presidents combined, the Dinosaur Media said not a word.  Not a peep.  Not even a whisper.  They cared not a whit over our increased indebtedness.  Now?  They're breaking out in a rash over the mere thought of any increase in our Federal Debt.  Media bias?  Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, yes...

So every year that States like California jack up the taxes on their "rich," some of those self same "rich folks" are heading to the nearest airport to board a nice, shiny new Gulfstream 550 with their saddle bag full of cash, and head off to more friendly climes. Like Panama, say, or Belize, or Costa Rica, countries that appreciate those who create and spend and buy and build and hire and produce by not filleting them with onerous tax burdens.  And who could really blame these people for making their exit?  You work hard, you invest your money, you build companies, you hire and train and pay two-thirds of the workers in this Country, taking huge risks all along the way, and then get lambasted by the corrupt redistributionist politicians and weenie media-types for not "paying your fair share."  And remember, whatever you pay, it will never be enough.

Makes me want to puke.  How about you?