By Brian Yates
The stigma of wealth
What is it about the stigma of being wealthy? Apparently, if you have made considerable amounts of money in your lifetime, you are evil, greedy, and most likely a cheater too. Why is that? It would seem to me that those of us who have made large sums of money during their careers should be congratulated and raised as an example to the rest of us. Folks, there is nothing wrong with being rich. This is petty jealousy, pure and simple. If you are a businessman, who would you rather model your career after: Jack Welch or some Homer Simpson who is working shifts in the factory? You’re obviously going to look up to Welch. Not everyone is going to be as successful as a Jack Welch, but simply because you didn’t make a million dollars, should you hold it against him? Liberals have this idea that if you are wealthy, you must have stolen your money or inherited it. Very few of America’s upper class have inherited their wealth. Most have acquired it, and they’ve had to work very hard for it. Why vilify them for their success?
Liberals are constantly ripping the tax cuts as “gifts to the rich.” Well, here’s a question for you: which class of people pays 37.42% of all federal income taxes? Now, allow me to go ahead and answer that for you: the top one percent. The top 5 percent pays 56.47% of all income taxes, and over two-thirds of federal income taxes are paid by the top 10 percent. More than one-third of all income taxes are paid by this top one percent. To put this number in perspective, look at it like this: In 2000, 128,227,143 tax returns were filed. Of this number, 1,282,271 returns comprised the top one percent. 0.00999% of people in America pay more than one-third of all your taxes. (These numbers, by the way, were provided by the IRS, not some liberal think tank such as the Citizens for Tax Justice.)
The income floor to qualify for the top one percent is $313,469. The top 10 percent: $92,144. So two-thirds of all income taxes are being paid by people making at least $92,144. Now while $92,000 is a nice sum, it is by no means “rich,” yet liberals seem to feel that these people do not deserve tax breaks.
Liberals love the idea of Robin Hood: take from the rich and give to the poor. It sounds good, sure, but what business is it of the government to decide what you can do with your money? If I want to donate to charity, fine, and if I want to buy a yacht, fine too. The point is, it’s my business to decide, not some bureaucratic puke’s. Let’s say that you have $100 in your wallet. Then I walk up and demand $36 from you so I can give it to the homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk. Would you consider that fair? Would you let me get away with it? Of course you wouldn’t, so what gives our government the right to play Robin Hood if I can’t?
We currently have a government that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork. Liberals love this system, but maybe they should take note of the words of 1976 Nobel Prize award winner and economist Milton Friedman: “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”
