Over at Reason magazine, Ryan Bourne does a scholarly debunking of Rep. Ocasio-Horseface’s suggestion of a top marginal rate of 70% on “the rich”. Here’s an excerpt:
The idea that the value of rich people to the rest of society rests solely on their tax contributions… is bizarre. In fact, the risk that higher tax rates might deter entrepreneurial activity by reducing the future payoff to innovation should worry us greatly.
In language designed for ordinary citizens, that thesis actually leads to a question: what if rich people (and their expensive tax attorneys) resist the idea that they and their activities are simply money sheep waiting for the government to shear them?
And quite frankly, I have another, more relevant question. Why the fuck are we even giving any credence or time to anything that this Commie ingenue says?
Well, the media thinks that AOC is the new wave of the Democratic party. They are going to give her and her ideas WAY more air time and paper coverage than she deserves. The DNC won’t slap her down yet as she provides wonderful entertainment for the “woke” new world elites. So they will let her spout socialist propoganda publicly, but the first time her 70% tax pisses off a mega donor to the DNC, guess what. She will either toe the line and be quiet, or continue her loud diatribe and suddenly be ostracized by her own party. To slowly fade into non-existence for poking the wrong bear.
She’s going to be used as a sideshow while the power players continue to play.
Logic and reason have nothing to do with AOC’s popularity. She’s spouting the usual left wing crap about tax the rich and give it to the poor. The hordes of people thinking that they are gonna get something for nothing, free college, free medical care, free housing, etc etc. From each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs. The world is full of people that have bought into that crap and soon lived to regret it, that is if they survive the “cleaning up of the thinking” that inevitably follows.
Sadly the world is still full of fools thinking that this time it will be different.
We’re seeing the results of people who went thru High School and college reading pap like Twilight instead of Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, or even Lord of the Flies. They really think the rich will be like the horse in Animal Farm and keep working harder while the sheep bleat and the pigs spout the official line.
AOC and her fellow travelers really believe:
– There’s only a finite amount of wealth, so if one person has more it must be at the expense of someone who has less.
– That the workers in a business are capable of managing that business, and should be doing so.
– That people will work harder without financial incentive.
– That people will work harder to support someone ELSE’S need, even if it means their own needs go unmet.
Some years ago I wrote a post on my (now long un-used) blog entitled “Socialists are Either Stupid, Crazy or Evil”, I’ve seen nothing to contradict it since. They’re either too stupid to realize it doesn’t work, too crazy to stop doing the same things that didn’t work before, or evil enough that they KNOW it won’t work, but they intend to be among the animals that are more equal than others at the expense of everyone else.
“Socialists are Either Stupid, Crazy or Evil” – never ignore the Power of And!
The whole “free college” thing makes me LOL. People who push “free college for everyone” don’t seem to understand that the old notion of “having a college degree means getting a better job and making more money” only works when college degrees are difficult to get and rare.
It’s just like diamonds. Except for some industrial uses, diamonds are valuable because they are rare. If they were as common as pebbles they would be just as valuable as pebbles – i.e. not at all.
The most egregious (and cynical) perpetrators of the “college degree = better life” myth are the colleges and universities themselves, who, of course have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth.
I think we are getting closer to the day when most employers realize that a bachelor’s degree merely means the applicant spent 4 years (or likely more) partying at Drunken State U or nursing a whole nest of personal grudges at Malcolm X Revolutionary College. Either way, if I’m looking to hire a management level candidate that “credential” is going to mean exactly zero in terms of hiring (if it doesn’t actually count as a negative since hiring a candidate with a degree in “womyn’s studies” or some such is pretty much begging for multiple discrimination lawsuits.)
If that happens, high-school age students planning out their careers might do well to consider whether 4 years of college is even necessary for their future employment prospects. And that kind of reconsideration might cause a significant drop in college admissions.
As I’ve said before, if you want to see what “free college for everyone” looks like, take a look at the former USSR. The result of their expansive “university” education system was not a nation of geniuses and critical thinkers that put less “educated” nations to shame, rather it was the phenomenon of store clerks with Masters Degrees and taxi drivers with PhDs.
Mike Rowe, smiles.
“And quite frankly, I have another, more relevant question. Why the fuck are we even giving any credence or time to anything that this Commie ingenue says?”
I have tried to ignore the stories about her, but I can’t help myself. It’s like driving past a ten car pile up on the highway without looking.
My uncles were tax attorneys, and CPA’s…they first started their practice around 1960 when the marginal tax rate was 90%. When I asked one how anyone would pay a 90% tax rate he explained that they didn’t: They spent 90% of their time finding legal ways to avoid paying.
And that day, I became libertarian.