Obama and the income tax

The time has come to talk about the policies of Barack Hussein Obama. It can be a tricky thing, criticizing our new president, and I feel like a scamp just typing his full name. Of course, we all know that since the inauguration the wall has fallen, and the name taboo is no more. Still, just uttering those magical syllables really had the Chief Justice rattled, didn’t it? Well, rattled or not, I will be choosing my words more carefully than John Roberts did. And I won’t allow Obama to interrupt me.

Now I don’t want this post to be a complete splenetic diatribe against the president. That sort of thing has been done before by people who have sharper pens and more animus against Obama than I do. Besides, no one wants to read page after page of personal invective. Personal attacks are cheap and classless, and they accomplish nothing. So I’ll confine them to the single paragraph that follows.

You see, I just don’t get the whole Obama mystique. What is the allure? When I look at him I see an empty suit pseudo-intellectual who somehow rose to prominence on a platform of reform in the most corrupt political machine since Tammany Hall, and he did it by . . . organizing the community? What the hell does that mean? To me it means that he became a senator despite having accomplished nothing more impressive in life than somehow getting into Harvard Law School with a GPA under 3.3. How far under 3.3? No one knows, because his transcripts are apparently documents of import to national security not fit for public consumption. (Maybe that’s what has embittered me. If only I could suppress my high school transcripts, maybe I could be president, too. . . I mean, if I were also over 35 years of age....shut up.) It’s clear that Obama has risen to prominence swaggering from one sinecure to another. Along the way the people who hold his strings have put some nice copy on his teleprompter, and he’s managed to read it pretty well. But he’s still just a socialist metro-sexual incapable of a creative thought, gift-wrapped by his handlers into an attractive package. And they did a fine job, too, except they probably should have taped the ears down a little better.

Okay, I'm done.

But my real problems with the President is his fantasy that he can pay for his socialist utopia—or, as he likes to call it, hope 'n' change—with an income tax on the rich. What he fails—or refuses—to understand is that, even if it were a morally justifiable or economically feasible for the government to take money from the rich at the point of a gun to pay for his welfare state, he cannot get at a rich person’s money using an income tax. No, an income tax can only confiscate money belonging to people trying to become rich; the indolent rich are spared.

Consider a doctor fresh off of her residency who just landed a three hundred thousand dollar a year job to go along with her two hundred thousand dollars of debt. Inarguably, the income tax is a wonderfully effective method for the seizure of her money. Now consider a divorcee’ fresh out of marriage with three hundred million dollars and no job. (If you have three hundred million, why work?) The income tax can't touch her assets.

Now, which of these two women is rich? And which woman will feel the effects of Obama’s "tax on the rich"?

Warren Buffet falls into the same category as our imaginary divorcee’: rich and, for all relevant intents and purposes, unemployed. He is, in fact, one of the world’s richest people, yet, compared to his lifestyle and reputation, he has admitted that he has little of what the IRS would call “income.” (Incidentally, Buffet proudly voted for Obama, but since the Republican candidate was John McCain, it’s hard to blame him). Instead, Buffet lives very comfortably on his capital gains, stock dividends, and the huge pile of cash upon which he rolls around naked every night. Warren Buffet may be rich, but he is not a potential target of the income tax.

Consider again the stinking rich doctor I hypothesized in a previous paragraph. She lives off the money she receives in trade for the value of the work she does, or what her accountant might call her income. She pays her huge student loans, her exorbitant mortgage, her kids’ college fund, and her spendthrift husband’s credit card bills out of the portion of her income the government didn’t confiscate. And I suppose it serves her right after she put herself through medical school on the backs of the poor. More importantly, she is the “rich” Obama’s tax plan intends to soak.

Buffet commented indirectly on this paradox when he lamented the fact that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he. And she does. Why? Because his secretary, the doctor I invented, my barber,and everyone else in the universe who pays an income tax has their “contribution” calculated based not on the assets they have, but on the money they receive for the work they do. The more productive you and I are, the more we are charged for the privilege of plying our respective trades. One of the great things about plying one’s trade in the United States is that it can make us rich. But Obama’s plan does not tax the rich; it taxes people trying hard to become rich.

Obviously, by removing more and more of what we earn, an income tax makes becoming rich a whole lot harder. This is bad for you greedy bastards that want to be rich, but it's possibly worse for the economy as a whole; quite literally, an income tax punishes productivity, and therefore discourages it. Not to sound too erudite/full of myself here, but a high national income tax represents a government policy to discourage productivity directly proportional to the rate of the tax. (I would address the effects of the tax on capital gains that Warren Buffet does get to pay, but I don’t want to remind the Obama puppeteers that he promised to raise that one to over 30%. Not only that, it’s a really boring subject. Frankly, I’ve never attempted a capital gains tax smirk-jerker, and I’m not sure I could pull it off without an emoticon or a rim-shot. I’m pretty sure the best I could do is snarky sarcasm.)

Yet we hang a halo of selfless patriotism over the heads of those luminaries—like Warren Buffet, George Lucas, George Soros, Bruce Springsteen, et cetera and ad nauseum—brave enough to support Obama’s income tax hikes. And what do those people have in common? They are already filthy rich. Obama could impose a 100% tax tomorrow and these paragons of altruism could continue living like kings until the country collapses around them—as it surely would.

If Obama wants to implement a confiscatory income tax, he has the majorities in congress to do so. But don't fall for the tax-on-the-rich line he has been tossing around. Rich or poor, the income tax is a tax on productivity, and it is only paid by those who choose to be productive, whatever the state of their portfolio.

The question is, at what tax rate do people say, "why bother?"

new post coming this weekend

tell your friends.

Conservatism and me

Recently a liberal--sorry, I meant progressive--friend of mine, who had not previously had the misfortune of engaging me in a political discussion, accused me of being a conservative. His hurtful ad hominem came after I went off on one little rant about high taxes and profligate federal spending. For the record, I'm against them. More damningly, I suppose, I am also against nationalized health care and gun control, and I am reluctant to think that we brought 9-11 on ourselves. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking that poor people might do a little better if they would try a little harder. But despite all the hard evidence against me, I am not a conservative.

A conservative is a guy who talks about limiting the size and role of government, but he's not really buying it. Oh, he'll mouth some good words about getting the government out of people’s lives. He might even believe it. But then the guy down the street teaches evolution, starts a religion, smokes a joint or talks with a pronounced lisp, and government becomes a conservative's last best hope to save America.

So I have been forced to conclude that a conservative only wants the government out of people’s lives if those people choose to live productively, raise wholesome children, and defend the world from communists/terrorists. And I guess what makes conservatism so seductive is that these are all good and decent things to do, and most of us hope that somebody does them. In fact, it's hard to argue that the world wouldn't be a better place if everyone worked hard to support themselves, didn't go around oppressing others, and believed in a tough-loving God with a long memory. Or, more correctly, it'd be better if everyone else did. And that is the sine qua non of conservatism: live and let live, so long as everyone lives a reasonable approximation of my grandfather's life.

Alas, a lot of us don't. Some of us would rather spend the weekend wearing our Che Guevara underoos in a THC induced stupor watching Rent. Again. And that's why a conservative, bless his heart, must impose upon the rest of us his sodomy laws, drug prohibition, military conscription, and Walker, Texas Ranger in syndication.

But maybe my socialist--sorry, I meant progressive--friend wasn't too far off the mark. If I were to define libertarianism for those unacquainted with the concept, I might start by calling it a consistent conservatism. A conservative wants the government out of his life; a libertarian wants the government out of your life, too. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to be consistent. As Emerson wisely said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Ok, I don't really know what that means. Should I be offended? Maybe. Or maybe I'm being way too consistent on this proper-role-of-government thing. After all, my libertarianism means that I must stand idly by while the latest owners of my childhood home paint it a mind-searing hot pink that would only be appropriate if it were attached to sequins and flaccid dollar bills. But if I'm going to shoot deer, watch NASCAR, and teach my children that the savior of mankind looked remarkably like Chuck Norris, I have to allow my neighbors a little leeway. And if I choose instead to snort marijuana, convert to Islaam, and bugger my like-minded friends, the government should be the least of my worries. Emerson and his hobgoblin notwithstanding, if freedom is good, it's good for us all.

*Note*: I don't really watch NASCAR. That was just poetic license.

for better or for worse

As a libertarian, I have to be for the right to marry whomever one chooses, right? Well, maybe I am. I mean, it’s not the state’s business whom I sleep with. Nor, as in the case of marriage, who’s turning me down for sex. But I get impatient with those who assert a constitutional right to gay marriage. There is no such thing.

Of course, the gay lobby trots out the old “equal protection” bromide. The right to the equal protection of law simply says that if you have a right, I get it too. The homosexual lobby’s argument boils down to this: you got to marry the person you wanted to, so why shouldn’t I? It seems a fair point. But gays are permitted to marry in every state in the union, and many have done so. What has them up in arms is the fact that in most states a homosexual may not marry a member of the same sex. They also can't marry a first cousin, an animal, or more than one person, not even if they have a really good reason for doing so. (Reasons like religion, a severely limited dating pool, or a burning need to legitimize what happened at last month’s family reunion.)

Now, are these silly preclusions? Maybe. As a people, at least 51% of us have decided that the mommy-state will feed me, my family, and my widow in the event I fail to do so, and if mommy is footing the bill, mommy should have some say in whom I will marry (More on this later). Do these preclusions represent a civil rights issue? Are there constitutional rights of gays, consanguine-ophiles, polygamists, animal lovers and people with really hot siblings that are being violated by these policies? No way. All the state has done is what it has always done, rightly or wrongly: it defined the terms. And since we all live with the same definition of marriage, we are all protected equally—if shabbily-- under the law. If you want to change the definition, change a few minds. Depending on your state, it only takes a bare majority either in the statehouse or on the street. And I will be right there at the march with you, holding your hand, singing “we shall overcome, ” and hoping your boyfriend isn’t the jealous type. But don’t get some judge to impose on a hesitant populace an invented constitutional right to do something the founding fathers clearly never envisioned--not even Ben Franklin. Forcing what--to you--is a beautiful thing down the people’s collective throat is not just a poorly chosen allegory; it’s divisive, and it’s the sort of thing that puts social conservatives back in charge.

But, as I alluded to earlier, the government should not even be involved in this issue. In a perfect world, whether I marry a man, woman, men and women, my cousin or some other forbidden object of love only affects you if the object is a child, or your prized poodle. By confiscating your money to pay for such things as family planning, survivor benefits, and social re-education, the government suddenly makes a public concern out of what should strictly be a personal or religious decision. I guarantee if marriage were simply that, a ceremony to sanctify a promise, no one but Dr. Ruth and Dr. Dobson would care anymore who does it with whom.

But, alas, we are all connected by the socialist-fascist constructs of government, and both sides of this debate--radical left and religious right—insist on rubbing the other side’s nose in it. Everyone has an agenda: the left wants recognized legitimacy for its lifestyle, and the right wants us all to stop touching genitalia that looks like our own. But government has no plenary power to grant legitimacy, and has had a devil of a time making us keep our hands to ourselves.

So I have some advice for both sides that might save us all some frustration: Stop looking for government to validate your lifestyle. Live your life, and let your neighbors live theirs. Call the people and animals you live with what you want to call them, and memorialize your union therewith however you choose to do so. And if the sexual preference of the neighbors has really got you down, put away the binoculars and close the curtains.

Kyoto is cool

Note: I wrote this seven years ago, and sold it to a website that has since gone defunct. I think I'm safe reprinting it here...

The Kyoto Accord is a very progressive treaty. It has style and flair, and all the really au courant scientists are talking about it. Global warming is, by far, today’s most fashionable worldwide environmental crisis. It is all the rage. We as a nation cannot afford to let pass this opportunity to remain at the forefront of environmental trends.

In the sixties, it was the “population explosion” that captured the imagination of cutting-edge alarmists. I have seen the clips of learned men in loud clothing and long hair, with their dire predictions of imminent catastrophe. Movies like “Soylent Green” really seemed to stir the pot (so to speak). Paul Erlich had the solution, and became an overnight sensation with racy predictions that in the 1970’s hundreds of millions of people would starve to death—65 million dead in the US alone. Alas, the years have not been kind to Erlich’s predictions, and the chic-left lost a fashion statement. (The book has been a solution of sorts. To those who have suffered a table with one leg too short, it is indispensable. The book could have found even more use, if Erlich had predicted a “great toilet paper shortage.” It should be noted that Rachel Carson wrote an interesting book during the same decade. Silent Spring was, perhaps, not as prescient, but was every bit as useful.)

In the seventies, curiously, there was wild speculation of “global cooling” and of a coming ice age. This never panned out as a frightening global disaster, since, I suppose, the image of Raquel Welch in “One Million Years B.C.” was still fresh in the American male psyche. Being a Neanderthal just didn’t seem so bad after all. Scratch another promising global disaster.
I may date myself when I recall the “acid rain” Armageddon of the eighties. Every scientist with a beaker to spare was pushing this one, and even pop-culture got into the act, raising awareness while they entertained. I remember a particularly poignant episode of “Diff’rent Strokes” when Kimberly Drummond rinsed her hair in rain water, only to watch in horror as her hair turned green! Those were heady times to be a hip, intellectual environmentalist. Unfortunately, that fad didn’t have staying power, and the trendy leftist was forced to consider the “animal rights” movement as a more effective outlet for his altruism.

Sadly, it seemed that mainstream environmentalism just wasn’t “cool” anymore. Enter Global Warming; the designer disaster of a new generation. Gone are the risky predictions of previous manufactured disasters; the payoff on this one is so far in the future it doesn’t matter if it never happens. The statistics that once had to be cooked to show a causal connection are a thing of the past; Global warming began in the 19th century, just when the nasty industrialists were really beginning to hit their stride (a 2 degree increase in 150 years can’t be a fluke). And this is a catastrophe that doesn’t need any real villains; we are all to blame for this one, from the hairspray wielding teen in California to the flatulent bovines of Calcutta.

The scientists who study global warming have brought crisis-mongering into the 21st century, melding the technology of today with the superstitions of our forefathers. It’s inspiring to see an accord between the rent-seeking whores of the laboratory and the fur-eschewing Gaia-worshippers of the “rainbow warrior.” Global Warming is the most promising prospective cataclysm in 50 years. It certainly won’t become a relic of alarmism like the disappearing-fossil-fuel thing, or the ozone-layer-is-almost-gone thing. If it does, well, that depletion-of-the-rain-forest thing looks like a real winner! (Did you know that the rain forests are the lungs of the earth? And we are cutting them down at a rate of a million acres a day! Or something like that….)

An added benefit of the Kyoto accord is that it offers a wonderful opportunity to control the behavior of people, groups and corporations. While these opportunities generally occur every time congress meets, the Kyoto agreement was to be beyond such formalities as congressional approval.

Unfortunately, hide-bound reactionaries have forced a debate on constitutional grounds. Debate or no debate, there really is no choice, is there? After all, what’s good enough for Japan and Britain and Uganda is good enough for the USA. Well, not Uganda. We need to give countries like them a chance to catch up –industrially speaking – before we can implement Kyoto and cripple their economies, too. Besides, we’ll need to purchase a few “pollution permits” before this is all through, and what better way to get the permits we need than to give a few stunted economies an unlimited supply? See?

This accord won’t be a total economic disaster. It probably won’t stop much pollution either, but what it will do is redistribute some of our wealth into the coffers of countries who really could use a handout. And that’s important.

So let’s sign the Kyoto Accord. All the cool countries are doing it, and it’ll make us feel like we’re doing something about a global problem of epidemic proportions. And let’s squelch all that talk of economic disaster right here and now; Kyoto won’t cost that many jobs. After all, bureaucrats need work, too.