Many people these days are calling for higher taxes on the upper income earners to help offset the growing social needs of the citizenry. They feel that “the rich” need to pay their “fair share”, and it’s up to Congress to soak them for all they’re worth. Nevermind that the upper 5% of income earners shoulder 39% of the total tax revenue, as long as they still have a penny left over at the end of the year, someone needs to take it away from them. But let’s think about what this REALLY does.

Bill Gates earns, approximately, $2 billion annually. Let’s say we jack up his tax rate by an extra 10%. A $200M tax increase on Bill Gates means an extra $0.61 to each American, ASSUMING zero administrative cost of redistributing the wealth. With and extra 61 cents, most people will super-size a happy meal or buy a lottery ticket, or do something frivolous. With that extra $200M, Bill Gates could start a new hospital, employing 1,000 people, and adding billions of dollars to the economy in the form of created wealth - wealth from which he, too, could profit, if he runs his investment well.

Instead of working to increase the taxes on the rich, if we’re so concerned that they’re not paying their shares, why not mandate that they invest that money in startup firms that create jobs and help the community. (Like hospitals, private schools, and so forth.) The competition from all these forced-investment properties will drive the prices of the services that they offer down, which will be good for consumers. They’ll create new jobs. The money won’t disappear into some government tar pit. And they might even end up turning a profit for the erstwhile taxpayer - something his taxes would never have done. We mandate that they invest, say, 5% of their net income each year to funding startups, and we’ll start to see an explosion of wealth and new business like we’ve never seen. Observing Europe, we can see that increased government intervention leads to economic stagnation and double-digit unemployment. Let’s see what happens when we empower millions of Americans to start their own businesses each year.

If the people trying to take the money from the rich were really, honestly, trying to do something abuot poverty and equality, this is what they’d be proposing. However, it’s all about stealing from the productive to increase the size and bloat of the government.

[editor's note:  Thanks Mike.  We love hearing from you and thank you for you contributions and support]

About Vegas Mike:  Mike is a fantastic American with a great love of liberty and freedom.  While we often cringe at his radical ideas for proposed implementation, we completely agree with his ideals of limited government, personal liberty, and free trade.

DMobile Economic, Values Capitalism, Libertarian, Taxes