Who am I kidding? It's probably pointless for our "supercommittee" or entire Congress to watch it.
Shoot, when these guys are testifying before the supercommittee without understanding this short lesson, what hope do we have?
Two dozen wealthy members of the group Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength are targeting members of the deficit "supercommittee" to increase their taxes.
So they are patriotic? Why wait for everyone to be taxed for them to contribute more? After all, do Patriotic Americans who enlist in our military simply wait for a draft so everyone has to put on a uniform rather than walk into a recruiting office, raise their right hand, and take an oath to defend and uphold our Constitution? Of course not. They simply took an individual decision to serve and defend the rest of us.
Why don't these Patriotic Millionaires simply tell their tax attorneys to ignore all those tax loopholes that allow them to lower their tax bills? Nobody forces these Patriotic Millionaires to take all those deductions. Couldn't they volunteer to put on a higher tax rate to help defend and uphold our budget? At least a little bit?
If you don't like the tax breaks our companies legally take advantage of (And indeed, if they are publicly held, don't they have a legal responsibility to their stockholders to do so?), take away the tax breaks that Congress has passed over the years.
If you don't like it that Congress passes those tax breaks, don't make it so profitable for the revolving door of legislators, regulators, and big businesses to operate and thrive in that system.
Reduce the scope of our federal government and it will no longer make sense for companies to spend resources to legally bribe Congress to unlevel the playing field in their favor rather than actually focusing on competition with other companies as best they can. The idea that making government larger and more intrusive is an answer to problems caused by our government being large and intrusive is just mind boggling.
The fact that even some of the wealthy can spout such nonsense at least proves that the wealthy aren't naturally smarter than the rest of us. They just have more money. Which gives them better access to Congress, as their testimony demonstrates if they care to ponder that.
We are so screwed.
