What if only the top half of American income earners paid any income taxes at all, and the other half paid NONE? If that ever actually became the case in this country, what would you say we should do about it?
As long as we're imagining, let's go even further. Let's say it gets to a point where the richest of the rich, say, the top 1%, pay no income taxes at all because they get their money from investments. So they pay something called "capital gains" tax instead of income tax. Let's pretend they pay about 15% of everything they get, as capital gains taxes. So somebody who earns a $250,000 on his or her investments pays $37,500 to the government. (By the way, how much did you send the government this year?)
Anyway, back to my hypothetical America. In such a case somebody with a chip on his shoulder and a lot to gain from rousing the rabble could legitimately shout from the rooftops that the rich don't pay their fair share! (Of income taxes, that is. Wink. Wink.) But in terms of all taxes paid, let's see, $37,500 compared to my $0... Hmm. In this hypothetical case, who could be said to be "not paying their fair share?" Who's not even pulling their own weight, and who's being made to pull a lot of dead weight, all while being publicly decried, demonized as a greedy de facto white collar criminal?
Can you imagine such a scenario?
Would this be your prescription for a utopian society?
Of course, by now you've realized that my hypothetical society isn't hypothetical at all. It's America 2012, carefully crafted by the Obama administration/campaign. This is class warfare. It calls for the redistribution of wealth, from the haves to the have-nots. What might go wrong? What would it be like to be that guy who gets told he's not paying his fair share, and that he doesn't deserve the money he earns - er, gets? Do you think he's going to continue to work hard after several years of getting repeatedly robbed and spat upon by the incredibly powerful federal government? Do you think he's going to keep his business operations in the U.S? Do you think he's going to hire unionized American employees who demand more money every year based strictly on seniority, not job performance? What might be the weakness in this vision for America? Is it sustainable? After the rich are taken down a peg, then what?
I will give you my answer. The problem is this:
"Redistributing" wealth DESTROYS IT! It ends up going not from one class to another, but rather into oblivion! It is empirically impossible to transfer wealth by force! And you will lose your FREEDOM in the process of allowing the government to make the attempt, that cannot but fail anyway!
Of course this presumably isn't the goal of Obama's vision for America, but a thing doesn't have to be intentional to be BAD!
America has been given a great gift; we have the advantage of all the world's history of failed experiments in government-forced collectivism (Socialism, Communism, and the like) to show us what NOT TO DO!
