Some Wisdom from Thomas Sowell

Despite the widespread notion that raising tax rates automatically means collecting more revenue for the government, history says otherwise. As far back as the 1920s, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon pointed out that the government received a very similar amount of revenue from high-income earners at low tax rates as it did at tax rates several times as high.

How was that possible? Because high tax rates drive investors into tax shelters, such as tax-exempt bonds. Today, as a result of globalization and electronic transfers of money, "the rich" are even less likely to stand still and be sheared like sheep, when they can easily send their money overseas, to places where tax rates are lower.

Money sent overseas creates jobs overseas — and American workers cannot transfer themselves overseas to get those jobs as readily as investors can send their money there.

The above was extracted from a column published on 7/29/11. Our politicians should all keep this in mind.

Such a Deal

Let's say you are shopping for a new suit of clothes. You go in store number 1 and see a suit you like for $250. But being a smart shopper you continue to look at other stores for a couple of days. But you decide that the most appropriate deal to be had was what you saw earlier in store number 1 so you return to find the suit marked at a price of $300 with an attached sign that reads: “SALE – 20% off”. So you speak to a salesman and tell him that two days ago the suit was priced at $250 but now it is $300 so that is an increase , not a discount.

The salesman replies that they were going to increase the price to $375 so the $300 price represents a 20% discount.

Would you say that is fair? Is it even ethical? No, I don't think so either.

But that is exactly how Washington is fleecing all of us. The budget was scheduled to increase by 7% bur they are only allowing it to increase 5% with their proposed new law. So that is their reduction. A pox upon all of them!