Ronald Reagan once said that it was fairly easy to sum up government’s view of how to handle the economy. “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it,” Reagan said.
Well, some liberals want to give new meaning to the first part of that phrase. Yes, Senator Chuck Schumer (D), who is always looking for some new way to get his grubby hand in the pockets of the doer class, is pushing for the “Ex-PATRIOT” [1] act which says, essentially, “if it wants to move out of the United States, tax it.” Along with Senator Schumer was my Senator from Pennsylvania. Dear God I am so ashamed to say this, Bobby Casey Jr. (D) who only pops up every now and then and has apparently decided, after many years, to stop seeking higher office and not shirk his current one.
Ex-PATRIOT, which stands for Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy. You can bet that someone got paid good tax payer dollars to come up with that long winded title that was able to be condensed to such a cutesy acronym. Ex-PATRIOT is designed to tax people who no longer want to live in the United States because they are tired of being targeted by liberal Democrats like Schumer and Casey for higher and higher taxes and to pay for more and more unconstitutional, socialist spending. Consider this the left’s modern day version of the fence with machine gun mounts, barbed wire and landmines that their fellow travelers have often put up to convince people to not leave the "paradise" liberalism always constructs. Those fences were designed to keep people in. Those fences were meant as a signal. Do not cross this line. Do not even think about looking for a better life elsewhere. Sure, you might make it though, but we will take our pound of flesh as you leave.
Liberals like Schumer are so outraged that people like Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin are renouncing their citizenship and leaving because liberals like Schumer are constantly vilifying them. So isn’t the problem clear? Well, it is to anyone other than liberals like Schumer it is. The problem is the policies of the left that drive these people to a point where they feel that they can do better elsewhere. The problem is the left, not people like Saverin. But as usual the left cannot see the solution because they are the problem and instead double down on their own self-created problem.
Taxes are too high.
People choose to flee the high taxes.
Liberals raise taxes even higher by taxing those who leave.
In the mind of the liberal this solves the problem. Right? After all, they are getting oodles of money when they kick the doer who has decided to leave as he is headed out the door.
Wrong!
The doer is gone. And he or she has taken his or her ingenuity with them. They will create no new wealth for America and now America must replace that doer with another doer of equal ability just to keep the same level of tax revenue that was had before. In contrast, if the original doer had been treated well and opted to stay then the doer that would have replaced them instead gets added to the pool and the pool of doers increases. That is the better solution.
But no one ever accused Chuck Schumer of being smart enough to understand that. Well, no one ever accused him of being smart except for his fellow travelers who are also too dumb to figure it out. And thus, as I said before, liberals continue to be the problem. And the result will just be more and more Wyatt's Torches in defiance of the left.
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J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn.
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn.
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