How Taxes Actually Work

Political Diary - WSJ.com

This is VERY short and VERY important to read. In case you are REALLY lazy:

New data from the IRS will be out in a few weeks on who pays how much
in taxes. My contacts at the Treasury Department tell me that for the
first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers
will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will
account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will
have paid just 3%.

Any questions? The top 50% pay 97% of taxes. BO wants them to pay MORE?? Nice idea, but how likely is that really? How did they get to be in the top 50%? By being idiots? They MIGHT be there because they understand the time value of money and the value of their own time and will make different decisions if you increase their tax burden. Gee, didn't tax rates used to be higher? Let's go back and look at some historical data:

Economist Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University has shown that in 1970,
when the highest tax rate was 70%, the top 1% shouldered 16.7% of the
income tax burden. Today the top tax rate is 35% and the same class of
taxpayers pays a whopping 39% of the burden. The worst way to "soak the
rich," Mr. Hubbard finds, is to raise tax rates.

Hmm, people of some level of intelligence CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR due to the environment!! That is nearly impossible for lefty's like BO to figure out, since they don't believe in merit (other than their own of course!). They think that the folks with money either just "got lucky", or "took it from someone else". In that sort of a model, there is a fixed amount of "wealth" to be moved around and it can't be grown and it can't be shrunk. That is an interesting model, but it is completely wrong. It is VERY easy to destroy the economy, and "reasonably possible" to grow it -- we know enough of how it works to have a 100% chance of being able to slow it down or stop it, and a better than 50/50 chance of making it grow.

Looks like BO doesn't understand any of the above. Guess he just isn't "a numbers guy".