The Rangel Wrangle

Today, we live in a society of which there are many that think government should be able to drain your account, so they can have money to buy your vote. This group is made up mostly of politicians and those that stand to gain from them, both in influence and financially.

It's not enough that they spend billions on bogus programs that create dependency, they need more. And the people that are being targeted to foot the bill are those that work hard for their money.

No folks, the big spenders are not satisfied with the money they already seize from us, by force. Now they feel they need more, to support their spending addictions. As of this writing, they are making plans to sock it to us in the form of a surtax, on what they perceive as wealth.

Here's how they are trying to package this deal:

Corporations would see their top tax rate cut to 30.5% from 35% under a tax plan unveiled Wednesday by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to fellow committee members.

Sounds nice, right? Well let's see more:

Middle and upper-middle income families would benefit under the plan by a repeal of the alternative minimum tax starting Jan. 1, 2008.

Now don't get me wrong here. There's nothing wrong with helping out the middle class. But someone will need to foot the bill.

Upper-income families, however, would pay for that repeal with a 4% surtax on incomes above $150,000 for a single earner or incomes above $200,000 for a married couple. That surtax would grow to 4.6% for incomes above $500,000.

It's not the fact that the filthy rich will pay that irks me. They can afford it.

It's the notion that rich people deserve to pay for politicians and their pork. It's also the idea that we just cannot seem to get it out of our heads that government should have the right to wrest money out of our pockets, before we ever see it. For some reason there is an elitist class that worships government and believes that the more money it collects, the less suffering there will be in the world. As if our tax code isn't complex enough, they find seek to make it even more so.

But the thing that gets me the most is, it is rich people that create jobs. The more we saddle them with taxes, the less they invest. The less they invest, the less opportunity there is for the rest for those of us that want to work and succeed. No one thinks of that when they scream for the rich to be punished.