In a commentary published at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/ Thomas Sowell made the following interesting points regarding the effects of taxation on our financial behavior:

The biggest immediate tax issue is whether the Bush tax cuts will be extended for everyone. Here, as elsewhere in politics, sheer hogwash reigns supreme.

Nancy Pelosi claims that the “tax cuts for the rich” cannot be continued because it would be “too costly.” Although former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey says, “Demagoguery beats data” in politics, here are some data anyway.

The first big cut in income taxes came in the 1920s, at the urging of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. He argued that a reduction of the tax rates would increase the tax revenues. What actually happened?

In 1920, when the top tax rate was 73 percent, for people making over $100,000 a year, the federal government collected just over $700 million in income taxes– and 30 percent of that was paid by people making over $100,000. After a series of tax cuts brought the top rate down to 24 percent, the federal government collected more than a billion dollars in income tax revenue– and people making over $100,000 a year now paid 65 percent of the taxes.

How could that be? The answer is simple: People behave differently when tax rates are high as compared to when they are low. With low tax rates, they take their money out of tax shelters and put it to work in the economy, benefiting themselves, the economy and government, which collects more money in taxes because incomes rise.

High tax rates which very few people are actually paying, because of tax shelters, do not bring in as much revenue as lower tax rates that people are paying. It was much the same story after tax cuts during the Kennedy administration, the Reagan administration and the Bush Administration.

The New York Times reported in 2006: “An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year.”

Expectations are in the eyes of the beholder– and in the rhetoric of the demagogues. If class warfare is more important to some politicians than collecting more revenue when there is a deficit, then let the voters know that.

Please read the entire article at: Deficit Reduction

Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2010

IRS Can’t Verify Obama Claim that Bush Tax Cuts Go to Americans Making ‘Up to More than a Billion’

Small Business Owner Confronts Obama on Tax Cuts

House Punts on Tax Cuts Vote Until After Election

U.S. Government Funding Study in Which Boys as Young as 16 Create ‘Web-Based Sex Diaries’ About Homosexual Experiences

Gold prices touch another record high

IMF fears ‘social explosion’ from world jobs crisis

Bank of America warns of new fees after financial reforms

Feds Spent $800,000 of Economic Stimulus on African Genital-Washing Program

Senate rejects amendment to strip out IRS reporting requirement in new health care law

$9.3 million in overdue taxes owed

Dem aides could face massive layoffs

The 67-cent down-payment mortgage

US loses ground in competitiveness report

Economists cut U.S. growth forecast again

Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data

Reid: Don’t blame me for Nevada’s high unemployment rate

Report: Castro says Cuban model doesn’t work

Obama: U.S. can’t afford to extend tax cuts for rich

So letting Americans keep more of the money they earned is “irresponsible”.

Clueless Capitol: Dem Whip Says Top 10 Lawmakers Had No Idea Financial Crisis Was Coming

Gold Coin Sellers Angered by New Tax Law

Currency tax: A way to invest in our future (Rep. Pete Stark)

Raising Your Indirect Taxes

Tax Increases on the Horizon

Greenspan: Bush tax cuts should expire

Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax

Tax Damaging Choices, Not Beneficial Behavior

Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax

The IRS’s vast new ObamaCare powers

Firms cancel health coverage

Insurers Push Plans That Limit Choice of Doctor

A chart of unemployment since 1995

The CBO Warns the Nation; Is Anybody Listening?

Fed’s volte face sends the dollar tumbling

Greenspan: Bush tax cuts should expire

Growth Fears Turn Tide Against Greenback

Fed paints weaker picture of growth and employment

$787B Spent to Create 3M Jobs

Mass Foreclosures This Year Expected to Eclipse ’09 Levels

Debt commission leaders paint gloomy picture

Largest Tax Hike in U.S. History on the Way

Payday: Trial lawyers could get major tax cut despite major federal deficit

U.S. pockets $20.6 bln in sin taxes in FY’09

Obama fiscal commission co-chair pans health bill’s impact on costs

I am having a very difficult time understanding many of my “fellow Americans”.

I look around me and see the “American Way” quickly becoming something I am less than proud of.   I see that corruption in our federal government has risen to extreme levels that I never thought possible.

Radicals, socialists, communists, crooks, thugs and automatons pervade the highest levels of our government.

I see a huge power shift from the people to our corrupt government.

I see Black Panther bullies given a pass for outlandish intimidation of voters at a polling place.  By the way, my concern has NOTHING to do with race, it has only to do with America and our law.  I wonder how Mr. Holder would have handled guys in white sheets intimidating black voters in Mississippi?  (I would hope he would stow them under the jail as he should have done with the Panthers. Now I have insulted both the panthers and the clan.)

I see a health care law enacted that creates many more problems than it solves and a US Army unit training in Georgia to handle “domestic unrest” with in our own borders.

I see terrorists being called ill instead of hateful and Americans who cherish traditional American values being ridiculed and mocked.

I see presidential promises broken with a wink instead of an apology (and America winks back).

Speaking of apologies, I see POTUS apologizing to the world for everything that is good in America.

I see our government trashing our relationships with our closest allies and sucking up to those who hate us.

I see our economy being trashed and our children’s future being squandered.

I see what has been a worthless media, rising up and becoming a malignant force that seems to be bent on our destruction.

And our congress! when did it become the enemy of America?

I feel like Rip Van Winkle!

It seems that bad has become the new good and good has become outdated, uncool, and stupid. (Props to Isaiah the Hebrew prophet for warning us this would happen)

The point is, I see these things and think: Germany, circa 1936, Argentina, circa 1955 (or North Korea, circa today).  Whereas, millions of my fellow citizens, see a great new hero who is leading America to its glorious destiny.

And, when I try to talk to one of these citizens who refer to themselves by the euphemism “progressives”,  I begin to see how much trouble we are really in.  Trying to talk to these “progressives” about our founders and the constitution or freedom and its price, is worse than trying to talk to a fence post.  At least the fence post can generally be counted upon to be free from body odor and refrain from spitting on you or clubbing you to death with nonsensical sound bites and mantras.

It is more like trying to teach a pig to fly.  It is a complete waste of time and it annoys the pig.

In reading this, you may conclude that I hate Mr. Obama, but that is not the case.  I hate what he is doing to the America i grew up in.  The one that was created and preserved by the blood and sacrifice of my ancestors.  The one that I have served and struggled to pass on to my posterity.

But I do not hate Barack Obama.

I believe he is simply being himself and doing what he sincerely thinks is best for himself and those he cares about.  There are no surprises with Mr. Obama.  He is exactly what he seemed to be before he was elected and he is behaving exactly as he told us he would (for example: why should he prove he is ineligible for this great job when he can get a pass and keep feeding at the trough?).

When he reminded Republican law-makers that “Elections have consequences” shortly after his inauguration, he was simply setting the tone for his presidency.  He brought his friends and associates with him to Washington just as Jimmy Carter (the last president whose stupidity we almost didn’t survive) did.  It just so happens that rather than being a bunch of “crackers” (and I mean that in the kindest possible way.  Some of my best friends are from Georgia) Obama’s cronies are a bunch of thugs, crooks and radicals (ooops, now I have insulted Chicago).

I don’t hate Barak, I just want the USA to survive him and get back on track.

And I should say this:

Our country has been off track since long before Mr. Obama bounded onto our stage.  In fact, we have been the proverbial “frogs in a pot” for decades.

We have been steadily pursuing a slide down the slippery slope we started in 1962 when prayer was first banned in schools.  This slide was certainly accelerated in the decade beginning in 1965 during which we sacrificed 50,000 American lives in a futile war in Vietnam for which we had no clearly defined objective and no commitment to “win” (whatever that meant to the politicians), then again in 1973 when Roe v. Wade paved the way for the legal slaughter of over 40,000,000 unborn babies so far.

I thought the slide was over when Ronald Reagan was Elected in 1980.  Unfortunately, that merely just a pleasant delay, but it made me feel optimistic about our country again after the Carter fiasco…er… administration.

When you think about it, If the Obama regime serves as a wake up call to a sleeping American populace (who have been enjoying the warming water in the pot for at least five decades) before we actually boil to death, Mr. Obama could be the best thing that has happened to America in fifty years!

Side Effects: Obamacare Creates a Costly Drop in Employer Health Coverage

The President repeatedly promised that if you liked your health plan, you would be able to keep it. Nothing would change. Fat chance.

In fact, millions of Americans of Americans will lose or be transitioned out of their existing employer based health insurance. The official Actuary at HHS- who doesn’t speak for the Administration- said it would be 14 million. But a new report by former Director of the Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin predicts it could be as high as 35 million. That kind of disruption comes at a high price: It’ll cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion more than previously estimated.

Employers Expect Costs to Rise Under Obamacare

“The overwhelming majority (90%) of employers believe health care reform will increase their organization’s health care benefit costs;”

Nearly nine in ten firms (88%) plan to pass increased costs from the law on to their employees through higher premiums;

Nearly three in four firms (74%) plan to pass the law’s higher costs on to their employees by changing plan options, restricting eligibility, or increasing deductibles or co-pays;

More than one in ten firms plan to pass on the law’s higher costs by reducing employment (12%) or reducing employer contributions to retirement plans like 401(k)s (11%);

Of those firms offering coverage, 43% are “likely to eliminate or reduce retiree medical programs” as a result of the law’s enactment.

Labor Markets and Health Care Reform: New Results

SENIORS WILL LOSE BIG UNDER OBAMACARE

Passage of ObamaCare will have negative consequences for practically all Americans. However, it is the nation’s senior citizens who will get the short end of the stick after enactment of the president’s health care agenda, says Robert Moffit, a health policy expert with the Heritage Foundation.

ObamaCare’s Hidden Time Bomb

Obamacare’s Hidden Time Bomb, Cont’d.

Obamanation: CBO admits Obamacare raises costs, national debt tops $13 trillion, oil spill worsens

Fiscal Fraud of Obamacare Snowballing Already

CBO Director Elmendorf Destroys A Core Presidential Health Care Argument

ObamaCare’s Ever-Rising Price Tag

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod argued earlier this year that health-care reform would become more popular after it passed, boosting Democrats in the midterm elections. “We have to go out and sell it,” he told the National Journal, adding in an interview in Newsweek that “people [will] see the benefits that accrue to them.”

That’s not quite how it has worked out. ObamaCare is becoming more, not less, unpopular. The Rasmussen poll reported the week after health reform’s passage in March that 55% of likely voters supported its repeal while 42% did not. A Rasmussen poll last month showed that 56% backed repeal; 39% did not.

Some may argue that President Obama has been able to extol the legislation’s supposed virtues only sporadically, instead having to confront other challenges from the Gulf oil spill to foreign policy controversies. But the real problem is ObamaCare’s substantive defects, some only now coming to light. Consider the April 22 analysis by Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, which blasted to smithereens many of Mr. Obama’s claims for the bill.