Saturday, April 21, 2012

Romney's Tax The Rich Formula

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Mitt Romney has cleared the path, and is on his way to securing the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. The "Anyone but Romney" crowd has been arguing that Mitt is not conservative, and in fact is not a whole lot different from Obama. At this point even Elmer Fudd would be better than Obama, and many of the Republican voters have been willing to overlook much of Romney's shortcomings with the belief that despite Mitt's inability to be conservative at his core, at least the guy is trying to pull us back from the brink Obama has been pushing us towards at break-neck speed. . .

And then Romney reveals that the anti-Romney folks may have a point by providing his own "Tax the Rich" plan.

While talking to high dollar donors last weekend Mitt Romney revealed that he wants to eliminate tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans.  The media overheard him, and when trying to explain himself he said that because of his plan of reducing the tax rate he will need to compensate for those lost funds by having the rich pay more by eliminating some tax deductions for the wealthy.

The Republicans that love Romney quickly said he was just tossing around ideas and none of his words were actually unveiling new policies.

Romney is not naturally conservative. The strong conservative showing in the primaries have nudged him a little to the right, and that is good. But folks have been hoping, for the sake of turning things around, that Romney isn't just a Republican version of Barry Obama. But when at that fundraiser Romney talked about eliminating deductions for the rich, and creating special plans for the rich, women, and Hispanics, it makes one realize that identity politics and class warfare lives and breathes in Romney's skull. He has bought into the liberal lies, and he's trying to appease those that have somehow made him feel guilty about being rich.

Conservatives don't produce special policies. We don't try to pander to certain groups because liberty does not work that way. Doing something special for women, the Hispanics, or "soaking the rich" to appease those out there that either feel guilty about being rich or those that are envious the rich have done well is divisive, and preferential for whatever group is being appeased. If Romney wants to eliminate deductions, do it against all Americans even-steven. If he wants to cut taxes, or raise them, do it to everyone. If you want to provide special plans, do it for everyone.

When it comes to this "soak the rich" garbage, the liberals will jump in and say things like, "See, Doug loves the rich because he doesn't even want his own Romney to plan to make them pay their fair share."

This is not the Soviet Union. Success belongs to the person who succeeded. Wealth is not limited. When someone becomes rich there is not someone at the bottom getting screwed. The pie can get bigger, and if you are willing to work your butt off for it, you can get a piece of that growing pie too! As for compensating for the tax cuts, instead of taking more taxes from the wealthy, which are the producers and the job creators, how about cutting spending instead? If we reduced our federal spending to constitutional requirements only, our federal spending would be about 5% of GDP, and we would be able to repeal the 16th Amendment and get rid of the income tax altogether. Non-profit status threats by the government would no longer censor the churches. The federal government's ability to extort the States through things like withholding highway funds to get the States to do their bidding would go away. Direct taxation would be a thing of the past, and the States would return to their role as the funding mechanism for the services the federal government provides in regards to the union, and nothing more.

The liberal left says we must soak the rich, but that is a communist concept. A progressive tax rate is the second plank of the ten planks of communism in the Communist Manifesto.  Why would we want to hammer on the producers at the time of economic difficulties, anyway? Have you ever gotten a job from a poor person? Is it anyone other than the wealthy that produces goods and grows our economy? How insane is it to go after those that makes our economy work?

I don't want to punish the rich like Obama and the democrats do. I want to be among the rich. They are our role models. They have shown us how the American Way works, and now it is up to us to emulate them. But Romney has bought the liberal lie hook, line and sinker, and I think he is embarrassed over his wealth. He wants to appease those that want to soak the rich. He's making excuses for his wealth. He's trying to find ways to soothe his guilt.

Personally, he should tell them to take the guilt and shove it! Mitt Romney needs to shed the liberal skin he's got clinging to him and be happy about being rich. Say to us, "Yep, I am successful, and you can be too!" His wealth was not ill-gotten. He's not a criminal. Therefore, his wealth is the result of what America is all about. There is no reason for the guilt the liberal democrats try to lay on the wealthy.

When you start dividing America between the wealthy and the not wealthy, and you tell the not yet successful that you will, through government means, take from the rich and redistribute it down to the masses, you are killing the whole point of America. Wealth is the result of hard work, and wealth is available to all if they are willing to just pursue it. If someone inherited it, fine, someone down the line worked hard to get the family there, wanting his children to live better than he did. There is nothing wrong with that. Wealth shouldn't be something people should be feeling guilty of, or be punished for. Wealth is something that everyone should want to attain, strive for, work harder than others to achieve, and wear like the crown of achievement that it is. There is no reason to be defensive about one's wealth. Don't feel guilty. . . tell us how you did it so that we can work our butts off and do it too!

Anything different draws into the arena a system of class warfare, which always results in a larger gap, not a smaller one. Obama is creating a larger gap between the wealthy and not wealthy with his class warfare. He is putting more people on government dependency. He has different rules for the rich because he wants you to hate them, and then use that hate to win your votes. Romney wanting to eliminate deductions for the wealthy is the same kind of garbage. That's pandering. That's populism. That's communism.

By Romney making the statement he will get the rich to pay too, he is conceding that the liberals are right, and that treating people differently is the way to go.

This is America. We are created equally, and will be treated equally under federal law. We have the right to pursue our happiness. It is up to us to do what we will with it. Our successes and failures are our own dang business, and government has no right to punish wealth by taking more from them and then funneling it down to the bottom feeders who refuse to be self-reliant. Equal protection under the law, right? So why do the democrats believe the rich should not be equally protected, but that they should somehow be targeted, and made to pay?

Liberty does not work that way.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary





The Unsinkable Mitt Romney - Wall Street Journal

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