The first number, “2-33,” is the top 2% of tax payers, who spend 33% of the money. They may earn it by having a great job. They may have hit a jackpot in Las Vegas, or in some way earned more than 98% of the rest of the population. Democrats seem to think they are some sort of evil entity with all that money. Those 2% don’t keep much of their money, they SPEND it, and no matter where they spend it, they put people to work. With their spending, people are working, receiving salaries, and paying taxes. Restaurant waiters, cashiers, and chefs? Cruise ship personnel? Swimming pool builders? Fancy clothing sales people or seamstresses? Auto sales people, mechanics, gasoline station attendants, or those who build vehicles? Furniture sales people or manufacturers? Contractors, painters, landscapers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, or tree trimmers, are not in that top 2%, believe it or not. They are in the other 98%, like me, which shows how much the top 2% really contribute to the economy. When only 2% of the top taxpayers spend 33% of the money, why would the Democrats want to raise taxes on them?
The next category is the top 1% of taxpayers. The very top 1% of wealthy people pay 40% of all taxes paid! 40% of Americans pay no income taxes at all, and it is said that between the 2% and 1%, 50% of all the money is spent by them. You say, “Well, they probably just sock it away, and don’t spend it at all.” So what? If they put it in a bank, the bank has money to loan. If they buy stocks, the stock brokers make income from it. If they buy gold and silver, which is the smart thing to do, my kids and I have an income, but so do the mints which make the gold and silver coins and bars, and the miners who mine it, the fabricators who stamp them and pour them, and even the UPS, and U.S. Mail, who deliver it.
There is absolutely NOTHING a rich person can do with their money, which does not benefit everyone. If they travel around the world, build a sumptuous mansion, or eat at a fancy restaurant every day, so what? Don’t be jealous, and if you are, which is understandable, don’t think they are harming the economy, and need to be taxed more. The obvious is true. We’d all like to be rich, and few of us ever reach that point, but stop hating the rich, believing they hurt the economy, when they don’t want to pay more taxes than they already do. Every dollar going to government, to pay welfare, bureaucrats, regulators, and the D.C. swamp, harm the economy.
Do businessmen pay taxes which liberals think should be raised? They will simply have to raise their prices to pay the taxes, making things more difficult to buy, thereby harming the economy. Raise corporate taxes? Same thing, only they may move out of America to avoid taxes, thereby eliminating American jobs.
Government and bureaucracy don’t make a profit, or contribute to the economy. It is the PROFIT MAKERS and SPENDERS, who contribute to the economy. Government, at any level, stalls or weakens the economy, and gets in the way of progress. Why start a business and hire people, if the red tape, regulations, and prohibitions, make the possibility of success, negligible? Do you really think that MSHA and the EPA, which make gold and silver mining, virtually impossible, and are responsible for 90% of the mines being closed, helped the economy? Silverton Colorado, Lead South Dakota, and a dozen others I can think of, are dead in the water, now that the mines are closed, and depend on slim tourist business to weakly survive. There’s plenty of gold and silver in these closed mines, but regulations and regulators make mining almost impossible.
How many off-shore oil rigs have given up, costing thousands of jobs, because of the Obama and Biden stoppage of drilling and exploration? Under Trump, we were energy independent, and an exporter of it. Now, we buy foreign oil. Under Eisenhower, a million small and large businesses went bankrupt, when government built the interstates, bypassing cities, which also destroyed the railroad freight and passenger business. Now, we have hundreds of thousands of tractor-trailers, getting six miles to the gallon, using millions of barrels of oil each day. Railroads can haul a ton of freight, a mile, for about a quart of diesel. Railroads used to haul most freight to cities, and trucks delivered from freight yards to recipients, rather than from originating factories, which has raised transportation costs and retail prices. Steel wheels on steel rails, with two employees on a 15,000-ton train, are infinitely more efficient than a one man driving a 53 foot rubber tired tractor-trailer thousands of miles, rather than a few from a rail yard to a retailer or manufacturer. That’s too late to change, but I am old enough to remember when there were no interstates, and it was a lot nicer. Interstates make auto travel quick, but passenger trains went faster and you didn’t have to drive them, stop for gas and food, and spend nights in motels.
Does anyone really believe that strict regulations on what new cars must have on them, thereby raising their cost by thousands of dollars, has helped the auto industry? I still remember the regulations prohibiting fins on the rear end of a car, because someone might hurt themselves by leaning on them. Yes, they were ugly, and I’m glad they’re gone, but not by government force. Other than ruining ears, are air-bags worth a few million dollars or a lot more, per life? Shouldn’t car buyers pay a $3,000 extra accessory, if they wanted an air bag, rather than it being compulsory? The list is endless, and America is wallowing in the dust of endless, un-Constitutional new bureaucracies sprouting up in America, making rules and prosecuting violators of those rules, mocking our Constitution. Our Constitution says Congress makes the rules not bureaucrats, who aren’t even elected, but appointed, with no approval by anyone. See what happens, when you become ancient like me, and remember all the fine things which ‘used to be?’ I’m eliminating my e-mail address, I am getting so much junk mail from it. Many every day. 970-249-4646.
(As I write this on Friday, Canadian silver Maple Leafs are current, rather than the months wait for Buffalos).