Taxes Have Nothing to do with Deficit Reduction

By Douglas V. Gibbs

If we were to eliminate the income tax from wages today the total federal revenue would drop back to what it was in 1998.  Income tax is not that massive of a revenue source.  And in reality, if the government was to cut spending to levels within their constitutional authorities, they could repeal the 16th Amendment, doing away with the IRS forever, and still wind up with a surplus.

So, why all this talk about raising taxes on the rich?  Why is there always a battle between the left and the right over whether or not to raise taxes on anyone in the first place?

Taxation, or at least Franklin Delano Roosevelt's version of it through federal withholding, is a tool for manipulation, and has nothing to do with revenue, nor deficit reduction.  The deficit can be reduced simply by the government eliminating spending it has not business throwing money after.  Besides, in the strictest definition, wages aren't income, anyway.  We barter our labor for money.  Income, as defined by those that wrote the 16th Amendment, comes in the form of things like dividends, and capital gains.  In other words, the stuff the rich gets - remember, back then (as with now) their aim was to "soak the rich."

A progressive tax rate was championed by Karl Marx as a way to create class warfare - to create a divide between the wealthier members of society, and those that labor at the bottom of the economic ladder.  Animosity against the successful boils, and a high tax rate against the rich is a way for the poor to go after the rich, and make them "pay their fair share."  What this does, however, is it punishes success, and it sends the message to the lower economic classes that they can never reach those heights of wealth, so through government it is up to them to take it from the rich.

America is not about that.  America is the land of opportunity, where anyone, with hard work and a few lucky breaks, can reach any height.  The rich people in America once were not rich, or perhaps their parents were once not rich - this is not a monarchy with a bunch of nobles running around - they come from the same roots we all come from.  They just made it. I don't want to condemn them. . . I wish to join them.

The rich tends to be the big business owners, the ones that produce goods and services, and produces jobs. How illogical is it to go after, like a raging mob, the very folks we need to be employed?  Without the successful, the rest of us don't get to work.

The goal is to eliminate the rich, the tax the rich until there is no rich anymore - then the political class will be the power-class, and everyone else will be equal. . . equally miserable.

Such is the trappings of communism.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary