{"id":3381,"date":"2011-08-31T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T05:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=3381"},"modified":"2011-08-30T18:48:34","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T23:48:34","slug":"taxing-the-rich-to-fix-economic-problems-shortsighted-wont-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=3381","title":{"rendered":"Taxing ‘the rich’ to fix economic problems shortsighted, won’t work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It’s sometimes hard to say whether economic ignorance is more severe among the poor and uneducated or the rich and overeducated.<\/p>\n

We recently had Warren Buffet issue a call to raise taxes on wealthy people such as himself in this country<\/a>. (As I pointed out then, Buffet is welcome to donate his own money, but for some reason, that’s not the route he’s taking.) Now some of the elite of Europe’s rich are getting in on the act, too, as various wealthy people in a number of countries are calling for their taxes to be raised<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A German group is proposing that wealthy people pay a special 5 percent wealth tax for two years. Does anyone sane think it would stop at two years?<\/p>\n

Why is it that these people are being treated as sacrificial when they’re actually demanding that other people<\/em>\u00a0have their money confiscated? If these people believe they owe their money to their fellow citizens, they’re perfectly capable of voluntarily turning over every bit of their money. Instead, they’re demanding that the state force other people to turn over their<\/em> money.<\/p>\n

Anyone who believes that taxing the rich — however you define that group — will end the coercive state’s economic problems is delusional<\/a>. What’s more, it’s wrong.<\/p>\n

I’m not among the rich. I’d like to be, but I’m not. However, they don’t owe me anything. They have no responsibility to subsidize the lives of the rest of us. Taxation is a moral evil<\/a>. Progressive taxation — which simply means that you are penalized at an even higher rate if you’re successful — is both evil and stupid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s sometimes hard to say whether economic ignorance is more severe among the poor and uneducated or the rich and overeducated. We recently had Warren Buffet issue a call to raise taxes on wealthy people such as himself in this country. (As I pointed out then, Buffet is welcome to donate his own money, but Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-Sx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3381"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3388,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions\/3388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}