Let's Get it Right

Let’s Get it Right

It’s not right for politicians to ask people to elect them to take money from one person to give to another. Oh, they chose their words better than that. Instead, they talk about increasing taxes on one rich person to help 99 poor people. Politicians know that’s candy to the ears of the 99.

In reality, for politicians to take from “the rich” is anything but fair.

Some folks insist that it’s fairest for everyone to pay the same proportion of their income in taxes. Others insist that as incomes rise it’s fairest for people to pay an increasing proportion of their income in taxes.

But let’s acknowledge that our tax laws don’t result from government’s interest in fairness. Those laws result from government’s obsessive interest in coming up with spending money.

One of the biggest problems with government’s efforts to soak “the rich” is that the rich are the ones who provide the capital necessary to sustain our economy and expand it. If their capital is taken from them through taxes so it can be spent by government to satisfy its ever-growing appetite for big government programs, then that commandeered capital can no longer be used to grow our economy, thereby creating new job opportunities.

As government finances its growth by commandeering private capital, economic growth is sacrificed, and paychecks are replaced by public assistance checks. There’s nothing at all right about the government sacrificing economic growth that’s so crucial for our friends and neighbors who admirably provide for their families while prudently saving and investing for their golden years.

Kelly Payne

Social Studies Teacher