Instead of or in addition to gas taxes to punish consumption, maybe the government could limit the mileage deduction to only 5,000 miles a year. This might very well reduce gas consumption, and possibly it would tax high income earners more than low income earners. It’d be a tax on small business owners, and that would be “good” in Obama Philosophy. But it might also reduce dining out in restaurants, shopping trips to the mall, and home-based business start-ups that require people to use their cars to visit customers’ homes. It would damage restaurants and retail, push up unemployment, shrink the income tax base, and discourage initiative. Ah, those nasty unintended consequences again.
This is the problem with his ideas for inflicting punishing tax policies only on the top 5 percent income earners – The Rich. If you really believe the damage will be confined to only that 5 percent you’re unbelievable ignorant. If you judge the consequences and all that collateral damage irrelevant, you’re enslaved to a philosophy that says the end justifies the means…and the discrimination….and the mess.
In truth, the top 5 percent needs only to mildly rebel by slightly reducing spending and investment to flood the 95 percent with unimaginable pain. And don’t think they won’t.
Just the other day, I was on the verge of calling up one of those closet designer companies to come out to my home and re-do a cramped, poorly designed closet. I’d guess the job would pump about $6,000 or so through that small business into employees’ paychecks, suppliers’ bank accounts, taxes, etc. In short, I was going to put $6,000 the economy.
Just as I was ready to make the call, I saw on CNBC a re-cap of the Obama Tax Attack aimed at me, followed by an ad for little plastic doodads that hang five times as much clothes in the same space, cost $19.95, and come with a free stick-up light. Bingo! I really don’t need to get that closet re-done. I even decided to skip the entire Home Show coming to town to avoid finding anything I might want to buy. I call this “the Obama backlash.” I’m starting to hear it a lot: We’ll show Him – we’ll just keep our money in our pockets.
A friend of mine and fellow member of The Targeted has placed this bumper sticker on his car: “Buy Nothing Until He’s Gone.”