‘Patriotic millionaires’ demand higher taxes, but unwilling to pay up
17th November 2011
Read it. And watch the video.
Two dozen “patriotic millionaires” traveled to the national’s capital on Wednesday to demand that Congress raise taxes on wealthy Americans.
The Daily Caller attended their press conference with an iPad, which displayed the Treasury Department’s donation page, to find out if any of the “patriotic millionaires” were willing to put their money where their mouth is.
As everyone who is paying attention (alas, a minority of the voting-age population) knows, the reason these ‘patriotic millionaires’ (or ‘buffets’, as I call them) push for higher taxes but don’t care to give on their own is not because they think that they’re taxes are too low, but rather that they think that the taxes of the people below them are too low. Raising rates will increase their relative advantage, and they’re all for that. If Hector makes $200, 000 a year, and Algernon makes $200,000,000 a year, raising the tax rate to 50% will certainly make Algernon pay more than Hector — but Algernon will still be making $100,000,000 a year, and Hector will only be making $100,000 a year, and guess which one is closer to not being able to make ends meet, especially if (say) they’ve got kids in college? Not to mention the fact that Algernon can hire a lot of fancy lawyers and accountants with that $100,000,000 that he would otherwise pay in taxes, and I’ll bet you a healthy chunk of $100,000 that those lawyers and accountants will make sure that Algernon won’t be paying any 50%.
This is all political posturing on the part of the Crust, a show put on for the rubes.