Robin Hood to Rescue USA?
President Barack Obama is America’s modern day Robin Hood.
Problem is, this is reality and not a fairy tale. Reality is, once you tax the rich at a certain level, you create a disincentive for them to work and stay in a particular area.
Robin Hood Memorial near Nottingham castle
Take a look at Great Britain, whose leaders recently raised its top tier tax rate to over 51.5% and is struggling with its high debt level:
“The trouble with taxes is that raising them above a certain level becomes counter-productive. People will find it economical to hire expensive accountants to avoid paying the full amount. If everything else fails, they may take themselves and their money abroad to gentler tax jurisdictions, as the actor, Sir Michael Caine, just threatened to do.”
Reality is, when you have the bottom 40% of income earners in Americans who pay a “negative share” of federal income tax, you’re creating an unsustainable drain on America.
“President Obama’s tax policies would cause federal income taxes paid by the top 20 percent to increase and the shares of the remaining 80 percent to decrease even further. These policies include those passed as part of the stimulus legislation and those included in the President’s Budget Blueprint.”
It sounds good to say you’re going to fix America’s revenue problem by soaking the rich with taxes and redistributing wealth. Unfortunately there’s no easy fix for the predicament America finds herself in. High debt and not enough revenue coming in means it’s time to stop the spending spree and start slashing the budget.
“The shifting of the tax burden to a small segment of high-income taxpayers is economically dangerous. The beneficiaries of government services are increasingly those who share little or none of the tax burden to pay for them. As they become more numerous, they put more pressure on Congress for more services. Meanwhile, those who bear most of the burden are being squeezed even more, shrinking their number. The result is a growing group of government beneficiaries clamoring for more of a shrinking group’s wealth. Congress should put an end to this practice.”
Problem is, budget cutting doesn’t seem to be in the cards for the Democratic majority and president.
When will Americans realize that Obama’s fairy tale stars him as a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Photo Source: Wikimedia
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I really wish that our politicians would remember that Robin Hood is a English hero, and not an American one. I understand that it does not take above average intelligence, or even normal intelligence, to be an American politician; however, even a first grader learns that we fought a war to drive out the British. We have American heroes from whom to learn, though most of our illustrious politicians would not understand what they have to teach.
The first that comes to mind is Johnny Appleseed. He does not teach, as the environmentalists would have you believe, anything so mundane as planting trees or eating organic food. He teaches, rather, that one ought plan ahead, be frugal concerning oneself, give to charity, and love one’s country. These, because the effects will be prosperity.
A second might be William Bradford, primary architect of the Mayflower Compact; those who do not recall this from school should simply understand that it was the first document of the American Democratic Republic. Bradford was extremely educated, yet strong enough to lead the Plymouth Plantation through a disastrous winter. This was not all he did though, he also changed the economic structure of the Plantation. Where it had been a Commune based on Christian/Puritan-Platonic Idealism and had not worked, he changed it to a free market. After this change, which was made necessary by a hard winter that made them dependent on the Indians, they were prosperous enough to feed the Indians.
A third would be the Great Immigration of 1843 on the Oregon Trail. They paid a dollar upfront, a great deal in those days, to suffer hardships together until they arrived at their destination 2000 miles away. Most survived. Of course, the misery did not end when they arrived; but they knew that was the way it would be. Despite that, they chose to persevere through the misery of staying and settling to make a better life for themselves and their children. They did not expect help from the newcomers, when they came, or from anyone outside the community: they could not, and so became so self sufficient as to be able to help the newcomers when they came.
Examples could be multiplied, but the idea is clear. The American virtue is perseverance bordering on stubbornness. Turning that towards envy is manifestly destructive to America. Any politician who so turns perseverance one must hope is ignorant, for if he is not, his loyalty is suspect: he may be English.