Tax the Rich

During the presidential campaign of 2008 between Obama and McCain we heard Obama saying those making over $200,000 or $250,000 per year are the rich and the rich should be paying more taxes. The debate was controlled by the Democrats, by their media and by Obama; to them the rich were those making in excess of these numbers. The Republicans, conservatives, Fox news pundits and McCain himself seemed to always respond in a feeble way that did not resonate with voters as much as the talking points of the Democrats.

Conservative Republicans came up with the response that those who earned in excess of $200,000 or $250,000 yearly income paid more then 90% of all tax revenues, while only 50% of all Americans paid any taxes at all. Assuming these statements to be true, it seemed as though the point was being missed. The election went to Obama and the Democrats for lack of a better grasp of articulating a more vivid response to the economic nightmare that was being formulated and put into practice by an overwhelming majority of the Democrat party.

Not that such a more eloquent response entered my mind at that time, but only of late has it occurred to me that the response ought to have been and should now be: taxing those whose income exceeds $250,000 is not taxing the rich; it is taxing those who are productive.

The question really is, who are the rich? If one really considers it, the rich are those who have assets worth, not just hundreds of thousands of dollars, but millions of dollars; and some having billions of dollars. If the Democrats really intended to tax the rich, then the assets of people exceeding perhaps  millions of dollars should be taxed. This would be actually taxing the rich. Of course, this would never happen since the very Democrats who, along with Obama, want to tax those making in excess of $250,000, according to their definition of rich, are the very ones who have accumulated tens of millions and hundreds of billions of dollars in assets during their tenure as politicians in Congress.

The trouble is, those who have incomes of $250,000
or more may, or may not be, rich in assets; and if they are not rich in assets, then the rich are not being taxed, but those who are productive and through their own effort and labor, are able to make this amount of money.  In fact, it is these very individuals who form a company, hire employees, and thus create jobs; in addition they will take some of their profits to expand their businesses, hire more employees and provide more and higher paying jobs.  Is it fair to tax them as if they were rich?

Reforming the tax code, then, must mean proper definitions of those who are rich and those who are not. It is not that an asset tax should even be considered; it is simply making clear who's rich, who's poor, who's productive and should not everyone pay a reasonable share of taxes? But here we run into the problem of the welfare state where helping the so-called poor is not so much based on a state of poverty but on emotions and feelings of who is poor.

In the United States, in spite of what the Census claims, there are not 30 million people poor.  Most of the people put in this classification have cars, homes, televisions, all kinds of modern conveniences, but are considered poor. There are poor people in this country for certain, but they are the ones who have very little in terms of possessions and are often without enough food to feed themselves and their families. These are the genuine poor and in many cases are taken care of more by private charities and the churches, rather than the government.

There are others who deem themselves poor because they are classified as such by government which gives them food stamps and welfare payments not out of genuine charity on the part of the government but as a way of keeping them happy with the government that feeds them and provides for them instead of efforts being made to help them and encourage them to better themselves and their families by working at a job that produces the wherewithal to keep their families alive and well.

But unless people are educated to see the worthiness of earning their own income and not depending on the handouts from the welfare state we are going to have a difficult time in reproducing that America that was prevalent many decades ago. It is going to take a Wilberforce or two to bring us back to the realization that government is not the answer to our problems but faith in God will bring us through those problems.