Time to Get out the Calculators

Sorry for the long absence. I had been traveling. I tried to do a post over the phone but it didn’t go through.

Democratic presidential candidates are trying to outdo each other in proposing new taxes on the rich. One wants a 90% tax bracket while another wants a wealth tax. Everyone talks about the rich paying their “fair share” to fund the socialist agenda.

While they are trying to outdo each other in demagoguery, none of them seem to care about the facts. The income tax is the largest source of revenue. The top 1% paid 39% of the total while the bottom 90% paid only 29%. Sounds like fair share to me.

The bigger problem is that they haven’t got out their calculators and crunched the numbers. There just aren’t enough rich people to pay for the socialist utopia. If the government confiscated every dollar each billionaire had, it wouldn’t even cover one year’s budget.
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Time and time again governments have made promises they can’t pay for. Many cities and some states are in trouble because of retirement benefits. We are seeing the tragedy that is unfolding in Venezuela. Some advocate printing more money. That devalues the currency. Venezuela is expecting 10,000,000% inflation this year.
Let’s hope they get past their talking points and come up something can actually work.
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