Politics of Envy

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. 
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. 
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”
― Abraham Lincoln

Mark Steyn Explains The Euro Crisis

Mark Steyn has a gift with words and is the most interesting conservative commentator around.

"Europe" has a basic identity crisis: As the Germans have begun to figure out, just because the Greeks live in the same general neighborhood is no reason to open a joint checking account. And yet a decade ago, when it counted, everyone who mattered on the Continent assumed a common currency for nations with nothing in common was so obviously brilliant an idea it was barely worth explaining to the masses. In the absence of ethnic or cultural compatibility, the European Union offered Big Government as a substitute: The project was propped up by two pillars — social welfare and defense welfare. The former regulated Europe into economic sloth even as India, China, and Brazil began figuring out how this capitalism thing worked. The latter meant that the U.S. defense umbrella ensured once-lavish budgets for hussars and lancers could be reallocated to government health care and other lollipops — and it still wasn't enough. Whatever the individual merits of ever-more-leisurely education, 30-hour work weeks, six weeks' vacation, retirement at 50, the cumulative impact is that not enough people do not enough work for not enough of their lives. And once large numbers of people acquire the habits of a leisured class, there are not many easy ways back to reality.

<http://www.steynonline.com/4576/lethal-leisure>

High Taxes Forced Michael Caine to Leave UK

'I left the country for eight years when tax was put up to 82 per cent. You didn't get the 82 per cent tax from me for eight years. You didn't get any tax at all from me for the next eight years,' he told the BBC.
'Apart from that, a quarter of a billion dollars of movies were made outside this country instead of inside it which is just from one stupid, loud-mouth moronic actor. Imagine what is happening to companies, proper companies, who then disappear. It's no good.'
The Oscar winner, 77, added he once told Tony Blair 'you can't tax people who have enough money for air fare' because they would just leave.
However, he admitted he would not quit Britain for a second time because he would not want to be separated from his three grandchildren.
Sir Michael, who is worth an estimated £45million, spent eight years living in the U.S. in the 70s after income tax hit 82 per cent but returned when Margaret Thatcher came to power and cut the rate again. 
He is a vocal critic of high taxes and vociferously attacked Labour last year after the top rate was hiked to 50 per cent, threatening to go back to America if they rose any higher.
At the time, he said: 'You know how much they made out of that high taxation all those years ago? Nothing. But they sent a mass of incredible brains to America.
'We've got 3.5million layabouts laying about on benefits, and I'm 76, getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them. Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it on.
'You're saying to poor people "let's tax those rich gits" and I understand that. You slice up the cake, give everyone a chance, but don't destroy the people that are making the bloody cake.'

The limits of Socialism

I don't know who Dr. Rogers is but this makes sense:
Dr. Rogers is quoted:
"Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the
wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working
for, another person must work for without receiving. The government
can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take
from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don't
have to work because the other half are going to take care of them, and
when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because
somebody’s going to get what I work for, That, dear friend, is about the
end of any nation."

Margret Thatcher (former UK PM) said it this way: "Socialism works until you run out of other people's money."

Our wealth goes to OPEC

From and article by Tom Friedman (NYT):
If this huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians continues, power will follow. According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft, with oil at S2oo a barrel OPEC could “potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days.”

Why we need free enterprise

"Before wealth can be distributed it must be created."

Slogan used by conservative candidate in recent presidential election in France against his socialist opponent.

What all this buzz about tax cuts favoring the rich?

Do you think federal income taxes unfairly favor the rich? Of course, what is fair is debatable but consider the following: Of the approximately 130 million taxpayers in this country about 48 million pay zero federal income tax. These are almost all low income persons. Is this fair? Another feature of our tax system is the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you qualify you can obtain up to $4,000 back from the IRS over and above any tax you paid. In other words, you can receive a net profit from the tax system. For fairness this credit requires that your income be low and all of it must come from wages. About 20 million returns qualify for this credit.

If your income is over $60,000 you are in the top 25% of taxpayers. This group pays 84% of the total income tax bill. This too is considered fair. Also note that a corporation will pay up to 35% tax on dividends given to shareholders. Shareholders then pay tax on this as personal income. A person in the 39% tax bracket would then see a total of 74% of the dividend go to the government.

Any across-the-board tax cut will have no benefit for people who already pay no taxes. Only persons who pay taxes will benefit. This seems fair to me but as we know, fairness is a very debatable issue.

Update 15Apr2005: According to Rush Limbaugh's website (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html) 20% of taxpayers pay 80% of taxes and the top 50% pay 96% of the bill.