I watched Paul Ryan discuss the Republican budget on C-Span tonight. Taking questions from the audience, Mr. Ryan was asked how he justified not raising taxes on millionaires while cutting programs that serve the poor.
Mr. Ryan replied that the questioner's formulation was incorrect for this reason: the tax on millionaires proposed by the Obama administration would raise the taxes on small businesses that make over one million dollars a year. Since these businesses are the main source of job creation, the effect from the tax increase on millionaires would retard economic growth.
Here is my problem. According to Forbes, there are over 400 billionaires and over 12,000,000 millionaires in the United States. (It is projected that, by 2020, there will be over 20,000,000 millionaires in the US.) These are individuals, or people. These are not corporations.
It has been my understanding, and I'm quite sure that of the American populace, that talk of taxing millionaires applies to people, or households, that have income larger than $1,000,000 per year.
Mr. Ryan is saying that the tax applies to any entity that makes over 1,000,000 dollars per year, whether an individual or a corporation.
Obviously, one side or the other is confused about (or distorting) the context in which the tax debate is taking place. Or am I missing something here? I would dearly love to recieve an honest and informed answer.
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The principal problem with tax increases is that they take money out of circulation and hand it to the government, which inevitably spends it. The government routinely spends what it collects a FICA taxes. The government has to learn to live within its means. Constantly underwriting its overdrafts is not the way to do that. And penalizing success is simply the politics of envy.
ReplyDeleteWarren Buffett, hypocrite supreme, preaches that he and others like him should pay more in taxes — yet he has been involved for several years in litigation with the IRS. Moreover, the IRS does have a setup whereby anyone who wants to, including Buffett, can make donations to the government. So Buffett is fee to pay as much as he thinks he should anytime he wants.
The money is better left to circulate throughout the private sector. Also, if the millions or billions have been obtained honestly, exactly what is wrong with that, and why should those who have such wealth be obligated to share it with anybody else? Raise the tax enough and people just move to another country.
My post didn't address the tax itself but the words used to sell it or reject it. Someone was, in my opinion, misrepresenting who the tax was being imposed upon. I have since learned that Paul Ryan is guilty of the distortion. Mr. Ryan wants the gullible among us to believe that small businesses making over one million dollars per year will be taxed under this measure. They won't. So, the Ryan Plan is a bust for me. Another reason is that his cost cutting doesn't touch the defense budget which is bigger than all the other defense budgets in the world combined.
ReplyDeleteAs for the tax, I don't care if it passes or not. Not for any of the reasons you cite but because it won't make a dent in the debt.
If the tax is imposed, somewhere between 35 billion and 50 billion dollars will be taken in each year. The effect that amount will have on the debt is like a 500 pound man on a diet losing 2 ounces of fat.
The Republicans touting the Ryan Plan and the Democrats touting the Tax On Millionaires are prime examples of politics as usual. It's B.S.
Those last two sentences say it all. The worst poltical class ever.
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