The Occupy Wall Street Movement continues to stink up our public thoroughfares and demand reforms that would legalize a specific type of cannibalism: “eating” the rich.
But guess what? The rich are already half-eaten.
Facts are stubborn things, Save Jerseyans. 30 years ago, when the top income tax bracket was 70%, the wealthiest 1% of Americans paid only 19% of all federal income taxes. The current top rate is significantly lower (35%), yet the top 1% now pay 39% of the total tax load. Moreover, the top 50% of taxpayers actually pay 97% of all income taxes! And at the state level, the top 1% of New Jersey taxpayers pay 40% of New Jersey’s state income taxes.
I suspect that these stats would shock quite a few ignorant “occupiers.” They also beg the question: how much more should the “rich” pay? Should the top 1% pay 50% instead of 39%? Alternatively, should the top 50% pay 100% and carry the bottom half in perpetuity? After all, someone has to pay for the Pell grants, food stamps, 99 weeks of unemployment and medical coverage promised to us by the Obama Regime. I doubt the hippies and anarchists defecating on NYC cop cars will be able to manage themselves let alone prop up anyone else.
However, if we do sharpen our steak knives and “eat the rich” one and for all, then where will “the blood” come from when we inevitably run out of stones? From where will a triumphant, reshaped socialist economy’s capital be derived when the capital-generators are extinct? Who will make the money to pay our bills when the incentive to make money is gone?
None of the radicals on Wall Street or Pennsylvania Avenue seem to know. Or care. So it’s exactly the question our eventual GOP nominee needs to confront President Obama with during the fall 2012 debates.
