Redistribution of Wealth

I'm hearing a quite a lot online and on the teevee about Obama's plan to increase taxes on those making over $250k a year. There's lot of phrases.. "redistribution", "socialism", "punishing success", and so on.

Here's the thing.. and it's really simple..

Do you want a progressive tax system? If not, then the poor and middle class would have massive tax increases, while the wealthy would have a relatively tiny tax burden. That's just math. If you do want a progressive system, then you have to define the amount of progresivity, right? Well.. Obama simply disagrees with the scale right now. He thinks those making over a quarter million dollars a year should have their taxes returned to where they were during the prosperous Clinton years. The amount? Roughly 4%.

YoW!!!1 Maassiveee

Sure, if you make 10 mil a year, 4% is quite a bit of money, but relatively speaking, you're still filthy rich.

But.. but.. what about small business? Small business very rarely pays any tax. The business owner pays personal income tax.. and if 4% of his personal income is going to make or break his company, or cause him to change staffing levels.. then his business sucks anyway and he's a shitty manager.

Every time somebody says the plan will impact small business, there's only two possible reasons. They are lying propagandist (the Doug Gibbs type), or they are really freakin' stupid (the Doug Gibbs type). heh

And finally.. remember.. virtually every single wealthy person cheats on their taxes to some degree. There's lots of personal stuff that gets reported as "business expenses".. there's lots of hidden income and "tax shelters", off shore accounts, etc. There's lots of taxes they simply never report to the Fed and which goes unnoticed.

Consider the 4% rates the same as the rates they are now, except with no cheating.

Oh.. and the tax cheating thing? It's not a big deal. If, and it's a small chance it's going to happen, the IRS audits you, they may find you owe additional monies and just ask that you pay it. Unless you are committing massive fraud, there's no other penalties. Just a dirty little secret about taxes..

Let's just end deductions and create a progressive system based on gross income. That's so much easier.

/adding

The Obama administration is ending the ban on media coverage of the fallen soldiers returning home. Instead, it will be left up to the soldier's families.

When you take a nation to war, you do NOT hide it's costs. That's inherently dishonest. The only way war will end in this world is when everyone sees what it does. I'm pleased that Def Sec Gates agrees.