The most-viewed post in the history of this blog is the “riding in the wagon” cartoon, but the post that has received the highest number of star-ratings is my video on class warfare.
I hope that means people share my concerns about the destructive and punitive mentality of so many of the kleptocrats in Washington.
Speaking of which, I debated one of those people on Bloomberg TV.
We got a decent amount of time, so a lot of topics were discussed. Here are the ones that merit a comment or two.
- Stealing all the income of the rich wouldn’t be enough to finance big government, though I should have used the three-month figure Mattie Duppler shared in her video indictment of Obama’s tax policy.
- There should be a cap so that nobody has to pay more than 25 percent of their income to government. I actually think that’s far too high, but polling data shows that this is a good way of framing the issue.
- Our fiscal problem is an excessive burden of government spending.
- Entitlement reform must be part of the answer.
- My opponent says higher taxes are patriotic, so I guess he belongs in the same category as Joe Biden and Francois Hollande. I guess we’ll call them the Three Stooges of statism.
He also claims that it would be “fair” to go back to Bill Clinton’s top tax rate, but anybody want to bet that Michael will now call for even higher tax rates now that Obama succeeded in pushing the top rate to 39.6 percent?- And we definitely know he doesn’t want to go back to Bill Clinton spending levels, so he wants the bad part of the 1990s but not the good part.
- Michael asserts that the United States is a low-tax nation, simply because we don’t tax as much as Europe. But, given the economic stagnation and lower living standards on the other side of the Atlantic, why would anybody want to mimic those failed welfare states.
- Unsurprisingly, I make my typical point about how we can balance the budget if we merely limit federal spending so that it grows 2.5 percent annually. In other words, Mitchell’s Golden Rule leads to good results.
- But I do agree with Michael that payroll taxes are too high (not that this is what he really thinks), though I should have echoed my January 2 post and said that those taxes should be reduced as part of genuine Social Security reform.
One point I failed to emphasize, though, is that class-warfare taxes won’t raise much revenue because of Laffer Curve effects. My comments about successful people escaping places like France and California touched on the issue, but I should have been much more explicit.
P.S. Was I right, or was I right, when I wrote that the real national title game was played on December 1? Such a tragedy that Georgia fell four yards short of the championship.
Since ‘Bama trounced Notre Dame by 28 points and edged Georgia by 4 points, I guess that means the Bulldawgs would have crushed the Irish by 24 points. Which would have been even more impressive than when we beat them 17-10 to win the 1980 national championship.
International Liberty 
[…] my decades of trying to educate policymakers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit […]
[…] P.S. One obvious effect of wealth taxation, which is mentioned in the study from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, is that some rich people will become tax expatriates and move to jurisdictions (not just places such as Monaco, Bermuda, or the Cayman Islands, but any of the other 200-plus nations don’t tax wealth) where politicians don’t engage in class warfare. […]
[…] the “Class Warfare Olympics,” and even Joe Biden is thinking about going hard left with a tax on financial […]
[…] my decades of trying to educate policymakers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit […]
[…] my decades of trying to educate policymakers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit with […]
[…] my decades of trying to educate policymakers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit […]
[…] my decades of trying to educate policy makers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit […]
[…] In my decades of trying to educate policy makers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit with the argument that high tax rates don’t matter since America enjoyed a golden period of prosperity in the 1950s and early 1960s when the top tax rate was more than 90 percent. […]
[…] my decades of trying to educate policy makers about the downsides of class-warfare tax policy, I periodically get hit […]
[…] via The Never-Ending Class Warfare Crusade « International Liberty. […]
Another authoritarian leftist statist eyeing his fellow citizens as milk cows, asserting they must submit to claims against their property and labor by the state checked apparently only by the grace of the state and on grounds only that they have property – or is it “excess” property? – that can be seized. Not sure whether a New Yorker or San Franciscan is rich at $400 k single filer income. All I could say to the authoritarian lefties with high incomes in these places who support politicians of the current ilk is, “You get what you deserve.”
One bright spot: tax-exempt advocacy organizations not getting direct federal money such as the Center For American Progress – I can only hope it’s not getting funneled tax dollar-based funding though I might be disappointed – should take it on the chin with the new limits on exclusions and deductions.
That trite and lame statement that paying taxes is patriotic because the government gave us benefits has grown tiring. It’s just silly talk of statists conflating civil society with the government apparatus and the gang that for the moment runs it for its mob of supporters. It is despite the burdens of the state, especially the federal government with its long-past unmooring from its proper role set out in the constitutional compact and its gaoler’s view of citizens’ expatriation and related hatred of tax competition, that prosperity in that place has continued. Momentum perhaps, but the inheritance is being squandered. Besides, I need all the property I can keep now to grow my wealth and be a productive citizen and prepare for old age. I emphatically do not need the state to seize and dissipate my wealth so that I can be poor and dependent in old age.
I agree that it is disgusting to watch citizens preying on envy and avarice in other citizens in order to bolster their party and their group’s power. Revolting, really.
The USA floats on a sea of debt. Brokest nation in history. The day of reckoning approaches, despite – or because of – these meaningless shows of political theater and class – or is it performance? – warfare. Reckoning will come because of fellows like this and the policies they advocate. Poor or mediocre performers, you should just raise the level of your game instead of supporting state actors who take from others on your behalf or, worse, just to tear them down.
The Bush tax cuts were class warfare? That’s ludicrous. The idea was to foster some growth in prosperity and also let people keep more of their own property in an oddly humane twist by the federal government during days gone by and all without regard to class. It was the current greater depression and the smoking holes where several economies – unstable as they were due to numerous government interventions – once were that collapsed the federal revenue take while the federal government floored it spending wise.
Finally, Social Security (and Medicare and Medicaid) reform should involve only one solution: abolition. Fat chance I know. But, how can you reform a Ponzi scheme to make what is impossible work better? Geez, even Ponzi schemes are voluntary. Means testing just screws over the better performers sooner to let the music play a bit longer, creating just one more avenue of confiscation. That doesn’t sound right unless you also let them or anyone really exit altogether. The luring of people into dependency and free-riding must stop also. It is destructive to human achievement.
[…] The Never-Ending Class Warfare Crusade “The most-viewed post in the history of this blog is the ‘riding in the wagon’ cartoon, but the post that has received the highest number of star-ratings is my video on class warfare. I …” […]
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
There’s a nice video included. This character from the Center for American Progress could use another college degree. He doesn’t seem to have learned much the first time around.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Selling envy is so disgusting.