Dakota Beacon

People are wondering why so many prognosticators are predicting that the economy of the United States will not come back to its robust nature for well over ten years.  I watched “Queen Pelosi” smugly talk yesterday on TV and felt Dennis Gartman of the Gartman Report explained well what took place:

We listened yesterday as she came to the platform to make the announcement and we were stunned by what she had to say, and more importantly, we were stunned by how she said it. We are of course talking about Speaker of the House Pelosi who strode to the platform, surrounded by her friends on the Left and surrounded by a phalanx of microphones to announced the new legislation that the House had passed on health care reform, which was also the largest single tax increase we can recall in the past many years… a virtual assault upon the highest income levels and an attempt by the Left to wreak havoc upon those in the US who are the nation’s most productive citizens.

When Ms. Pelosi came to the platform she began by saying “This is truly a great day” for America. She noted that she and the other members of the Democratic Party’s leadership had created legislation that would exempt everyone from taxes to pay for universal health care whose income, as a two person family, below $350,000, but above that level new taxes will go into effect, graduated up to a 5% surtax on those making more than $1 million/annually.

The lower income levels will love this plan of course, for someone else shall be paying for their health care. The upper income levels, however, should view this is as simply another left-of-centre assault upon them when it is they who already pay for government and it is they who will pay more.

Remember, in 2006, the latest available year from CBO, the top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3% of all federal income taxes, an all time high. During the same period, the bottom four quintiles all saw their share of the federal income tax burden fall sharply. The latest data shows that the top 1% of the nation’s wage earners paid 33% of the total taxes and that the top 5% paid 52% of the taxes. That is going to go up… materially. When it does, the sad truth is that those same taxpayers will quietly begin to make their way away from the US; will quietly, but resolutely move their incomes, where they can, out of the US and to other jurisdictions; will defer income and will take whatever legal actions can be taken to limit their incomes and limit their tax liabilities. Atlas is indeed getting ready to shrug. and Ms. Pelosi is smiling!

What people need to understand is that without incentive and the ability to enjoy the fruits of their labor and hardships, similar to athletes striving to win the gold, why would anyone in this country want to work hard and make a lot of money if it is going to get confiscated by the government?  That is why our economy will continue to flounder if we propagate the idea that it is ok to penalize the innovative and energetic of our society for the good of all.