Bhruic wrote on Jan 26, 2012, 09:09:
Okay, we can defintiely agree that the CEO of Mobile Exxon is rich. But any legislation that forces him to pay "his fair share" will also end up affecting the small business owner, someone who more often than not is far from rich.
Why? You don't think it's possible to craft a law that only applies to larger corporations? There are quite a few such laws already in existence.
I made it sound like it's impossible to do so in my post, which as you state, is not the case. It's also not as simple as it sounds. It has been my observation that all legislation written or proposed in recent years is thrown together so haphazardly that it ends up hurting the small business owner and the middle income family.
To whit, what Democrats didn't mention in the past when stirring up the masses against the vile "rich" in advance of their attempts to raise taxes was that they defined "rich" as anyone making over $200,000 a year. That's just insane. That is NOT rich. It's getting to where it's not even well-off. Now I'm starting to hear $1,000,000 thrown around as the number, which is more reasonable, but still would not constitute "rich" for most small business owners when considering operating costs, employee benefits, etc. I know a guy who owns a cabinet- making business that grosses him around $1.5 million a year. He told me if taxes go up any higher he will have to lay off people because he's barely scraping by. And trust me, judging by his house and car, he is not living to excess by any stretch of the imagination.
Invariably, raising taxes translates to middle income workers losing their jobs. The net effect ends up being the exact opposite of the original goal. Maybe we just need to accept that some people are going to make more money than us (often way more) , and that not all of those people are going to behave as altruistically as we would like them to. Given how ingrained the politics of envy are in our society, however, that might be too much to ask.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
- Mahatma Gandhi