E.J. Dionne argues that rich Americans are “undertaxed”
(“In American politics, stupidity is the name of the game,” July 29).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072804529.html

He quotes the Congressional Budget Office to explain why: “the gaps in
after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the
middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between
1979 and 2007.”

Mr. Dionne’s view of “undertaxed” is odd. The IRS reports that in
2007 (the latest year for which data are available) the top 1 percent
of taxpayers in the U.S. paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes
collected by Uncle Sam. This percentage is well above the 24.8
percent of the income-tax burden borne by this group in 1987, the year
after the 1986 tax reform. Moreover, the top 1 percent of taxpayers
now pay more federal income taxes than do the bottom 95 percent
combined!*

If taxes are the price we pay for government services – rather than
booty to be extracted simply because someone is unusually wealthy –
then Mr. Dionne’s conclusion that rich Americans are undertaxed
overtaxes credulity.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

http://cafehayek.com/2010/07/undertaxed.html

* See the Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodge.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/24944.html

On Jul 31, 9:15*pm, wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:57:17 -0700 (PDT), ?baMa? Tse Dung

wrote:
Mr. Dionne’s view of “undertaxed” is odd. *The IRS reports that in
2007 (the latest year for which data are available) the top 1 percent
of taxpayers in the U.S. paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes
collected by Uncle Sam.

However, they own 90% of all the wealth. *

Also, their contributions stop at less than 1% of their total income
to SS, and the tax code makes it possible for them to pay nearly
nothing.

They contribute nothing of value to the Nation, provide no military
service, can buy their way out of most everything, afford anything

BINGO. WELL SAID!!!!!

On Jul 31, 9:15*pm, wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:57:17 -0700 (PDT), ?baMa? Tse Dung

wrote:
Mr. Dionne’s view of “undertaxed” is odd. *The IRS reports that in
2007 (the latest year for which data are available) the top 1 percent
of taxpayers in the U.S. paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes
collected by Uncle Sam.

However, they own 90% of all the wealth. *

Also, their contributions stop at less than 1% of their total income
to SS, and the tax code makes it possible for them to pay nearly
nothing.

They contribute nothing of value to the Nation, provide no military
service, can buy their way out of most everything, afford anything

This income disparity of which you point to is not a result of
Capitalism.
On the contrary! It is the result of ever increasing government
interference in free market capitalism.
If this interference is allowed to continue, and God forbid increase,
it will result in far more disastrous consequences which are not so
far off on the economic horizon.
Detroit and Chicago are well on this path.

Here is what is happening thanks to an ever increasing Socialist Creep
of government influence and regulations of the U.S. economy.

I post the following for study as an example of the increasing rate of
Socialism's detrimental creep into our economy.

As one had recently posted elsewhere with all emphasis mine:

"Socialism with Chinese Characteristics"
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90...1/6275043.html

The Chinese planning system has encountered the same problems of
inflexibility and inadequate responsiveness that have emerged in
other
centrally planned economies [which all have failed]. The basic
difficulty has been that it is impossible for planners to foresee all
the needs of the economy and to specify adequately the
characteristics
of planned inputs and products [Mises, Hayek, Friedman- http://mises.org
]. Beginning in 1979 and 1980, the first reforms were introduced on
an
experimental basis. Nearly all of these policies increased the
autonomy and decision-making power of the various economic units and
reduced the direct role of central planning. [Uh oh!]

In the 1980s, rural China gained the upper hand, and the result was
rapid as well as broad-based growth. China’s rural economy took off
in
the 1980s, led by ‘township and village enterprises’ that were
essentially private, only to be ignored in the 1990s by state-led
development that focused on urban regions such as Shanghai. The
‘Shanghai miracle’ – as any businessman who has worked there knows –
was not the simple triumph of capitalism, but of a stronger and more
intrusive (and effective) state. IF ONE WANTS TO UNDERSTAND THE POLICY
ORIGINS OF China's [and similiarly the U.S.] GROWING DIVIDE BETWEEN
RICH AND POOR, urban and rural, one need look no further.

In the 1990s, urban China triumphed. In the 1990s, the Chinese state
reversed many of its productive [private capitalist] rural
experiments, with long-lasting damage to the economy and society.
[China's post-Mao Tse Dung leaders were well aware of the dangers of
rural power. That is how, afterall, Mao Tse Dung and Communism came
to power]. A WEAK FINANCIAL SECTOR, INCOME DISPARITY, rising
illiteracy, productivity slowdowns, and REDUCED PERSONAL INCOME GROWTH
are the product of the Socialism with Chinese characteristics [state
interference] of the
1990s and beyond. While GDP grew quickly in both decades, THE WELFARE
IMPLICATIONS OF GROWTH DIFFERED SUBSTANTIALLY. The single biggest
obstacle to sustainable growth and financial stability in China today
is its poor political governance [Hello!]. China faces some of its
toughest
economic challenges and substantial vulnerabilities that require
fundamental institutional reforms.[Goodbye 0baMao Tse Dung]

When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled,
unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and
economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation
of state and church.

The best example of Freedom is the full, pure, uncontrolled,
unregulated laissez-faire capitalism that was pre-1989 Hong Kong:
View "Free To Choose - ORIGINAL 1980 SERIES: Volume 1 - The Power of
the Market"
http://www.ideachannel.tv/
http://www.freetochoose.net/store/pr...products_id=36

It is no wonder that Communist China was intent on snuffing out Hong
Kong laissez-faire capitalism.

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual
rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately
owned.

The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of
physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be
violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or
group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only
function of the government, in such a society, is the task of
protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from
physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of
self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against
those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of
placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.

A capitalist marketplace is a sort of Darwinian organism, evolved
through natural selection as the fittest way to satisfy our needs.
It
is Human Nature. Itis natural. It is natural to be free - Born
Free! And nothing you think or say will ever change that fact. It
is
normal.

Liberal Fascism, Progessivism, Socialism, Communism are abnormal.
They are a mental disease.
History reeks of the rotting stench from this diseased corpse you
love
so much:

http://www.globalmuseumoncommunism.org
http://www.forfreedomssake.com/blog/...-of-communism/

The disease is necrophilia.

If you don't suckle on mother nature's Capitalist milk you're Dead in
Pyongyang.