Going Galt

From Some Have Hats, on the Big-O's plan to punish the productive:

Michelle Malkin is putting great stuff up faster than I can link to it, so go read her blog. Meanwhile, here's a letter from the L.A. Times that she posted:

I have employed about 50 people during the last 20 years, and my family’s taxable income is about $300,000. In order to avoid paying a higher percentage of taxes on all of my income, I will decrease output, lay off some staff and still end up keeping the same amount.

I have no incentive to hire people or expand my business, because the more I make, the more President Obama will take to expand government. This discourages expansion of the private sector. It will backfire with disastrous consequences for all.

It is repulsive that Obama is being allowed to take this country backward by pickpocketing the very people who run the private sector through their energy, money and creativity.

Kay Santos
Diamond Bar

I figured it went without saying that the Galters would not be hiring any extra employees under the assault-the-overachievers Obama tax plan. And we've already explained over and over how it will mean lost jobs, but the HopeandChange brigade has no interest in logic. They just want to cause pain to the Evil Rich People and give houses to the poor who are holy by virtue of being poor.

In my 30 years of being an Evil Rich Person (which, I hasten to point out, is a group to which I am a former member) I have left in my wake a large number of "hard working Americans" whose lives were made better by my hard work -- which, of course, was not considered hard work because I was an Evil Rich Person. All my life I have made it a practice not to talk about the things I've done because, as I said in Dark Debts, God knows what you've done and if you need to crow about it, you must be doing it for someone else.

But it's making me nuts to watch the demonization of the people who have spent their lives working hard and following the rules, and since I only have first-hand knowledge of my own life, I am forced to use my own examples if I want to talk about it. But I can tell you that from what I know of the stories of other people in my former tax bracket, I am not different or special. Charities have existed since the country became a country, and they have always been funded by (apparently this needs to be said loudly) THE EVIL RICH PEOPLE. ...

Read the rest here. Good stuff. (In case you didn't get the John Galt reference, see here.)


Meanwhile, Pursuing Holiness says he's going on strike:

Chuck Schumer says no one cares about this lard-fest. I say that the approximately 4o% of the country who actually pay more taxes than they consume in government services care deeply - it’s just that we’re outnumbered by people who think we should continue to pay their way, and expand our service to them. So be it; if you’re making it your goal in life to empty my pockets, I’ll make your task easier by ensuring my pockets are pretty empty already. At this point, the question isn’t whether Atlas will shrug, it’s when.
...
It’s not just that I despise socialism, although I do. It beats people down, makes them dependent, and keeps them poor by taking away their hope. Socialism attacks my church. It teaches that government is the giver of all good things; it glorifies government, not God. I will not support such a system.

Like most religious conservatives (and conservatives generally, unlike liberals), I give a healthy portion of my income away. In our family, we start with 15% of our gross income. We live modestly and don’t lack for anything, and give as much as we can away. As soon as we have met our obligations to debtors, we’re going to start reducing our income. It’s one thing to give our money away. It’s an entirely different matter to have it forcibly taken, and to be told that no, that’s not enough, and for it to be made clear that it may never be enough. “Peggy the Moocher” doesn’t want to have to worry about filling her gas tank and paying her mortgage? Well, guess what? I don’t want to worry about paying Peggy’s mortgage or filling her gas tank either. People think they’re going to get rich by some magical means, “because we have Barack Obama.” But he’s not interested in creating wealth. He’s ignoring every historical means of doing so, and placing all his focus on taking wealth from one group and giving it to another. Which has never worked in all recorded history. H.L. Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” ...

Others have decided that they aren't going to work their butts off just to give more of it to the government. From an ABC News story:

President Barack Obama's tax proposal -- which promises to increase taxes for those families with incomes of $250,000 or more -- has some Americans brainstorming ways to decrease their pay in an attempt to avoid paying higher taxes on every dollar they earn over the quarter million dollar mark.

A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama tax plan be passed by Congress and become law.

"We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00," she said.

"We have to find a way out where we can make just what we need to just under the line so we can benefit from Obama's tax plan," she added. "Why kill yourself working if you're going to give it all away to people who aren't working as hard?"
...
Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder, Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of paying the taxes proposed in Obama's plan.

"I've put thought into how to get under $250,000," said Poczatek. "It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off."

"Generally it means being less productive," she said.

Poczatek argued that by reducing her income from her current $320,000 to under $250,000 by having her dental hygienist work fewer days and byl treating fewer patients, she would avoid paying higher taxes on the $70,000 that would be subject to increased taxation if Obama's proposal is signed into law.

Additionally, any interest from a checking or savings account or capital gains from stocks, would also count as taxable income.

"The motivation for a lot of people like me -- dentists, entrepreneurs, lawyers -- is that the more you work the more money you make," said Poczatek. "But if I'm going to be working just to give it back to the government -- it's de-motivating and demoralizing." ...

As a quick aside, and as the ABC article points out (though you have to read it closely), the Obama plan would increase the marginal tax rate for income above $250,000 for families (or $200,000 for individuals), so each additional dollar above the $250K mark would be subject to higher tax (the first $250K would still be taxed at the lower rate). Of course, if the plan also includes phaseouts for deductions as income rises, the incentive to get or stay below the magic number will be even greater. At any rate, what a great way to incentivize our most productive citizens to produce less.