Posted by
Eripides on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 11:51:45 PM
"Money it's a crime. Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie." - Pink Floyd
Years
ago I lived in Bolivia. One of the major sources of wool there comes
from llamas and to a lesser extent from alpacas. In order to harvest
the wool from the llamas, the farmers usually kill and skin it. For the
llama, giving wool is a one-time deal. You could say the llama gives up
everything to provide wool to the farmers.
I always thought this
was a strange way to gather wool, since I knew about the process of
shearing sheep. Shearing preserves the sheep which can provide wool for
many years. I wondered, why kill off the llama when you could just
sheer the wool? (Since I left Bolivia, I learned that some farmers did
indeed sheer the llamas instead of skin them.)
We are at an
interesting crossroads in the United States. For the first time we have
a statist liberal in the White House, a heavily statist Congress, and
statist control of the Democratic party. What this means for the
country, is that radical liberal ideals have very few impediments in
the federal government. Radical liberal ideals include funding
giganormous welfare programs, redistributing wealth, punitive taxation,
leveling income, and, of course, increasing government control over all
aspects of our lives.
Liberals have always sheared the American
people through taxes, which raises money for a grossly obese
government, controls spending and the society in specific ways (for
example, by giving tax breaks to married people to encourage marriage),
and punishes certain segments of the population (for example, those
deemed to be too rich).
However, with this new administration,
the wool shearers have turned into llama skinners. Instead of
preserving some Americans to give wool for another day, these llama
skinners are content to kill off a segment of the population in order
to provide enough money to fund their version of government and fulfill
their statist agenda.
President Obama made his infamous comment
about "spreading the wealth" during his campaign. In cahoots with
Congress, that translates into overtaxing those who make $200,000 (or
is it $150,000? or maybe $100,000?) or more. The plan is to raise the
top tax rate to 40% and there is talk of a "surcharge" on the rich of
5% to 6% as well. Capital gains taxes will rise. FICA taxes will
increase as well for the rich. Corporate taxes take their share. For
business owners, withholding and unemployment taxes take another cut.
Cap and trade taxes could cost more than 5%, increasing year by year.
Health care taxes will add to current medical spending and will grow
unwieldy toward the rush into bureaucratic overload (think Medicare).
States, forced to an ever increasing demand, have raised their top
income tax rates to 10%. Added together, these taxes could take a hefty
70% from the wealthy to pay for the new slew of social and
environmental programs at the core of liberalism.
The question
remains, who are these "rich" whom liberals demonize as the greedy
elite who destroyed the US economy? Who will fund the ever-controlling
government and pay for welfare? Are they all CEOs of Enron or AIG? Are
they all Wall Street moguls? In other words, who are the llama skinners
going after and what is the harm in gathering wool from those who can
afford it?
Most of the Americans on Obama's hit list are small
business owners. They own and operate businesses and are the top
employers (apart from - surprise - the government) in the United
States. As an example of a small business owner, I know quite a few
printers. Some are very successful and are, according to Obama, rich.
Let's say one of these successful printers employs 20 people in his
print shop and makes $200,000 a year. Along comes the Obama tax scheme
and takes 70% of my friends's salary, leaving him $60,000 a year.
How
does my "greedy," rich friend react? He cuts back on spending. He cuts
the number of employees, increasing unemployment. He doesn't buy new
equipment and press manufacturers go out of business. He finds his
"new" salary inadequate to pay for the home he's lived in for 15 years
and is forced to move. He doesn't buy a new car and the government has
to take over another automobile manufacturer. He cannot afford a new
computer, cell phone, iPod, or plasma TV. He thinks to himself, "Why
should I work so hard anymore since the government is going to take my
money anyway? I can work half as hard and make $100,000 and keep more
of it than when I made $200,000." Cutting his income reduces the amount
of taxes the government takes in and reduces government income.
Now
think of not one, but tens of millions of business owners who will be
affected by the statist government tax scheme. The "poor" didn't have
any federal tax increases (let's pretend here) yet the federal
government has succeeded in killing off small business and, by
extension, the economy of the United States. Government has switched
from shearing to skinning.
This is the essence of our llama
skinning government. In the name of Robin Hood redistribution, the
spending and taxing scheme created by this statist government will have
a few unintended consequences - it will skin small businesses - the
backbone of our national economy - and kill them off.
Write your
congressional representatives and your senators today and tell them you
do not agree with their radical liberal ideals to sock it to the
"rich." Do not let our government shearers become llama skinners. There
are better ways of maintaining the economy and funding government
programs than having small businesses give up their skins to the
government.