Don't soak the rich - Thank them

A couple of commenters were kicking around the idea of imposing a special "war tax" on the "wealthy" to finance the nation's wars. This idea is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because the rich can simply pick up and leave. As a wealthy friend once told me, "what money is good for is mainly that it gives you options".

Make it hard enough on the rich and they will exercise their option to relocate, and they'll take their wealth with them.

The idea of soaking the rich to pay for wars is immoral because it is the nation's poor who benefit most from life in America.

Think about it. The rich are RICH they'll make out fine wherever they are. Just look at the apartment that Armand Hammer had in Moscow. It is the poor who live far better lives in America than they would have nearly anywhere else.

In most of the world the poor live on the edge of starvation. In America most of the poor are overweight due to the surplus of food they have.

In most of the world run the risk of death from easily treated diseases and conditions because they have no, or extremely limited, access to health care. In the US all a poor person has to do is present themselves at a hospital and they will, by law, receive "the same quality of care that the hospital would give the President of the United States if he showed up" (as a department head at a major teaching hospital told me once).

In America more than half the people who live below the poverty line own their own home, with electricity and running water. In the US most of the poor own a car and a cell phone.

What is it that makes America a nation so rich than even our lowest economic class lives a lifestyle that most of the people who have ever lived in the history of the world would regard as unbelievably opulent?

It is -- some of you have already guessed it, the rest of you brace yourselves -- THE RICH. That's right it is the rich who make the investments and own the businesses which provide the jobs and pay the salaries of the workers (not to mention the corporate income taxes and the income and payroll taxes paid by the workers).

It is the rich which are both the foundation upon which our economy rests and the engine which drives it. The rich could go anywhere and make out like bandits because THEY'RE RICH. But without the rich the poor would instantly find themselves reduced to the condition of misery enjoyed by the poor in most of the rest of the world.

And don't think that the government would, or could, ride to the rescue. Without the rich the government's revenue would dry up overnight because: The Top 50% pay 96.54% of All Income Taxes The Top 1% Pay More Than a Third: 34.27%.

That's right. No rich and no tax revenue.

If your main source of income is some kind of government payment, doesn't matter if it is a social security check, a VA pension, a welfare check or a paycheck from some government agency that you work for, then you should get down on your knees and thank God for the rich because they are the ones paying your bills.