OPINION: Wealth Tax Fixes Nothing
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 9:10AMGovernment’s problem is too much spending, not too little revenue.
The promises to save billions this year got whittled down to only $300-million. Then in August Congress and the White House agreed to spend another $23-billion this year. Now they’re talking about $11-billion more this year. They say it’s for emergencies, but they could just hold back other spending instead, if they would.
Meantime, there’s an incessant call to raise taxes on the people who already pay the lion’s share, while more than half of America pays zero federal income tax.
But even if you doubled the taxes on the wealthy, it would not close the federal deficit. In fact, even if you taxed them at 100%, it would not close the deficit.
Only major discipline on spending will help—but very few in Washington have proven willing to do that.
From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.
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