America’s vampire government has long been feeding offtaxpayers. While Washington may not go for the jugular, it has taken aim atyour wallet, and it’ll take more than a wooden stake to bring it down. Butvampires aren’t the only ghoul haunting taxpayers this fall. A zombie-likesurtax on millionaires is scaring the life out of job-creators everywhere.
The Washington Times reports:
“Like a horror-movie villain, themillionaire tax is once again back from the dead. This version – the third inthe past two years – would slap a 5.6 percent surtax on everyone earning $1million or more per year. It’s Senate Majority Harry Reid’s way of paying forPresident Obama’s misnamed job-creation plan.”
Unlike say, The Walking Dead, the Democrats’ surtax plan isone zombie that’s not receiving rave reviews. Economists have argued that the planwould create a number of harmful economic distortions, including increasing theincentives to reduce taxable income and penalizing saving and investment. Businessgroups have pointed to Obama Administration statistics that 4 out of the 5taxpayers who will face this new tax are business owners, thus reducing theamount of money available to invest or hire. And if that isn’t enough, historyindicates that lowering marginal tax rates on the wealthy has encouragedinvestment and growth – exactly the outcomes you’re looking for to escape arecession.
In fact, Obama seemed to agree with this sentiment not toolong ago. “The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of arecession,” Obama told NBC reporter Chuck Todd in 2009, “because that wouldjust suck up – take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in afurther hole.”
And although economists may say we’re technically no longerin a recession, doesn’t that same logic still apply? Sen. Marco Rubio thinks itshould.
In a Small Business & Entrepreneurship CommitteeHearing, Sen. Rubio challenged Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner over theAdministration’s continued push for a 5.6 percent surtax, which would push thetop marginal tax rate to over 50 percent– well above the international average of 43.5 percent.
Check out the rest of Sen. Rubio’s defense of taxpayers here:
With leadership like that America can put this misguided zombiesurtax in the ground once and for all. Then, and only then, can we go about thebusiness of enacting comprehensive tax reform that doesn’t terrorize America’sjob creators.