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I titled this post the way I did as a tease.
As i was prepping to write a manuscript, I pulled out a copy of M. Stanton Evans' "Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government." This was written in 1975, only two years removed from the landmark Roe Vs. Wade decision. I'm in the act of reading it now and I found this his concerns are eerily similar to those today and his remarks probably as apt today as back in 1975.
After giving a brief expose of the intent of the Founders, he gives details of the expansion of federal power and his explanation is that, despite claims of many politicians that they respect freedom, they are roundly suspect of it. There is very little in life where there is a problem and government intervention is proposed as the solution whether it be wage and price controls of federal subsidies. What is interesting is that this is 25 years before the current discusion over the relevancy of universal health care, Obama's bailout of GM, stimulus sometimes dubbed "porkulus" and so forth. what we are looking at is an imbibed way of doing things that seems difficult to subvert. Evans reproduces the thoughts of historian Charles Beard who says that individualism is resposible for the distress in which Western civilization finds itself. years later talk show host Neil Bortz, in his book, would share the opinion of Edward Kennedy who gave a similar dark view of individualism. Obviously some elite individuals know what we want (or SHOULD want) and feel duty bound to make us want them.
The constitution does little to give the government the federal powers some people want and hence the courts have had to find ways around such a blockage. one way has been to find hidden powers within the text such as expanding the definition of what regulating commerce is.
Evans makes two very interesting and illuminating points that I had to bookmark in my mind. one is in regards to individualism. It seems some people feel that the very act of wanting more than someone else breeds competition or an end result where you have more than someone else. This creates unequal circumstances. However, Evans explains when one wants more than another but realizes that his ability to have more than another can best be brought about when he creates the conditions where ALL can have more than they used to have. In other words, if I compete with others to have more but do so in a way that brings up the standard of living for everyone, then my share of the pie may get bigger but so may everybody's.
I thought that this similar to how I work with my fellow co-workers. I work hard to hopefully get a decent raise and bonuses and provide more "good" things to the company and by doing so, the company will get better. Thus, my bonuses and raises will get bigger but so might everybody's since the company will grow and get better via my efforts.
Evans later, on the subject of tax reform, makes a point that I think is as relevant then as today and I think Paul Ryan has made at one of the meetings pushing his budget revision plan:
"The truth is that progressive tax rates on high-income citizens can do little or nothing to relieve the tax burden on the average American. There are simply too few high-income people for progressive rates to make much of a dent in the total enormous revenue burden, so that even if these citizens had all their income confiscated outright the rest of us would go on paying exorbitant taxes. The rationale for steeply progressive rates is punitive, and has little to do with agressive revenue needs. Representative Wilson . . . puts the matter this way: 'If the Federal government confiscated all income earned by all the millionaries in the nation, it would pay the cost of the government for only 39 hours'"
so i did a web search for how many millionaires are in the U.S. According to this site
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/06/22/u-s-has-record-number-of-millionaires/
North American millionaires had a combined wealth of $11.6 trillion in 2010.
So i checked out the current federal deficit at this site:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
and as of tonight it was $15 trillion dollars. if you took away EVERY SINGLE dollar from every millionarire you still would not balance the budget. this does not even take into account what would happen to the economy if this wealth were confiscated.
As i was prepping to write a manuscript, I pulled out a copy of M. Stanton Evans' "Clear and Present Dangers: A Conservative View of America's Government." This was written in 1975, only two years removed from the landmark Roe Vs. Wade decision. I'm in the act of reading it now and I found this his concerns are eerily similar to those today and his remarks probably as apt today as back in 1975.
After giving a brief expose of the intent of the Founders, he gives details of the expansion of federal power and his explanation is that, despite claims of many politicians that they respect freedom, they are roundly suspect of it. There is very little in life where there is a problem and government intervention is proposed as the solution whether it be wage and price controls of federal subsidies. What is interesting is that this is 25 years before the current discusion over the relevancy of universal health care, Obama's bailout of GM, stimulus sometimes dubbed "porkulus" and so forth. what we are looking at is an imbibed way of doing things that seems difficult to subvert. Evans reproduces the thoughts of historian Charles Beard who says that individualism is resposible for the distress in which Western civilization finds itself. years later talk show host Neil Bortz, in his book, would share the opinion of Edward Kennedy who gave a similar dark view of individualism. Obviously some elite individuals know what we want (or SHOULD want) and feel duty bound to make us want them.
The constitution does little to give the government the federal powers some people want and hence the courts have had to find ways around such a blockage. one way has been to find hidden powers within the text such as expanding the definition of what regulating commerce is.
Evans makes two very interesting and illuminating points that I had to bookmark in my mind. one is in regards to individualism. It seems some people feel that the very act of wanting more than someone else breeds competition or an end result where you have more than someone else. This creates unequal circumstances. However, Evans explains when one wants more than another but realizes that his ability to have more than another can best be brought about when he creates the conditions where ALL can have more than they used to have. In other words, if I compete with others to have more but do so in a way that brings up the standard of living for everyone, then my share of the pie may get bigger but so may everybody's.
I thought that this similar to how I work with my fellow co-workers. I work hard to hopefully get a decent raise and bonuses and provide more "good" things to the company and by doing so, the company will get better. Thus, my bonuses and raises will get bigger but so might everybody's since the company will grow and get better via my efforts.
Evans later, on the subject of tax reform, makes a point that I think is as relevant then as today and I think Paul Ryan has made at one of the meetings pushing his budget revision plan:
"The truth is that progressive tax rates on high-income citizens can do little or nothing to relieve the tax burden on the average American. There are simply too few high-income people for progressive rates to make much of a dent in the total enormous revenue burden, so that even if these citizens had all their income confiscated outright the rest of us would go on paying exorbitant taxes. The rationale for steeply progressive rates is punitive, and has little to do with agressive revenue needs. Representative Wilson . . . puts the matter this way: 'If the Federal government confiscated all income earned by all the millionaries in the nation, it would pay the cost of the government for only 39 hours'"
so i did a web search for how many millionaires are in the U.S. According to this site
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/06/22/u-s-has-record-number-of-millionaires/
North American millionaires had a combined wealth of $11.6 trillion in 2010.
So i checked out the current federal deficit at this site:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
and as of tonight it was $15 trillion dollars. if you took away EVERY SINGLE dollar from every millionarire you still would not balance the budget. this does not even take into account what would happen to the economy if this wealth were confiscated.
...then apply to the $15 trillion dollar Obama deficit...it may not be enough...but it sure would put a dent in it....
I mean, then we're looking at what....4. ? trillion left in the red column....
At least it's something....
Those who have less are not helped by forcably taking from those who have more. Government is not full of charitable geniuses that know better than than we do, how the money we earn should be distributed. Our Founders understood that.
If the government had stuck to the limited powers in the Constitution we would not be in debt now. One major thing we must do is cut all those unconstitutional agencies that have power over our liberty (you know, taxation without representation) such as the Dept of Education, Dept of Energy, Dept of Labor....
Shaking down millionares for money may be attractive to those who prefer envy to action. It's really just more of the same, isn't it? The country is in debt, those people who were more clever with their money aren't in debt so they ought to bail out the country!
Better, we took the government restrictions off business so those millionares could expand their companies, start companies, invest their money in the private sector rather than in government. This would create jobs here in the US. Real jobs that make a product or provide a service. Give the money to governement and you get another pointless bureaucrat position that costs the taxpayer ninety times more than his wages to support.
There's a fallacy built into the "take the money from the rich" philosophy which is that life must be fair. This is impossible in principle although it may make one feel good. For instance, I'm more talented and intelligent than my live in friends. that's unfair. so how do even things out there. Dumb me down? I've got more money than them because I've worked more than them? so how do we fix that? Why should I suffer just to make someone else as even as me? where's the justification for that? What about all those who are really good at writing books and getting them published? should their money be taken from them to give to those who can't write just to make us all even? What's the logic in that?
I could go on and on and it's simple to deflate this idea when you ask questions like I've asked. But I would ask one additional question which puts the issue where it needs to be: "Do you want powerful people in government to determine how much money each individual can have or should have? would you be willing to give your freedom up to those people who might even rule on how much money you should have or can have?"
Frankly I can't think of anyone who would answer that question in the affirmative. But that is precisely the question that needs to be asked each and every time.
Another point: What do you do when you force these millionaires to sell their stock? What happens whenever any great quantity of stock is sold? the cost goes down on their shares as well as everybody elses, that's what. so we end up hurting a lot of other people just so we can feel good about ourselves for making these millionaires give up their money. real nice.