I, Atlas
By Mitch Berg
To: The 40% of Americans who will pay no income tax under the Obama “stimulus”
From: The other 60% and I
Re: The Future
Dear Deadbeats:
Well, you went and did it. You voted yourself a President and Congress who promise to give you goodies and make someone else pay for it.
All the rest of the Someone Elses and I need to ask you, though; what if we just decide to quit? Quit working, quit ponying up and paying the freight for ourselves and, with all due respect, your freeloading asses?
What’ll happen to your entitlement to our tax money?
By the way, “But you have to keep working and paying! It’s not your money, it’s taxes” is not an answer.
Think about it.
That is all.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:23 am
That’s an empty threat and everybody knows it. Working people don’t up and quit to stop paying taxes. They retire and stop paying taxes.
The Baby Boomers are at peak earning (and therefore peak tax-paying) now but they start retiring in about 8 years, at which time Social Security and Medicare outlays will explode just as tax revenues plummet. Just as the O-man leaves office.
There’s your perfect storm.
.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Polite golf applause. Nicely played.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Mitch, this is a serious issue. I believe under Obama/Pelosi/Ried’s full plan, working Americans who do not pay any income taxes will reach 51%. And many of those above that will contribute minimally.
Republicans always say everyone should pay their fair share. Equally contribute (and equally particapate in tax cuts).
How does a politician run for office and tell 51% of worker that they may have to contribute something instead of getting a free ride?
February 20th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Oh, and I work in finance. I my company failed to report and account for future liabilities, didn’t set up reserves, etc, our CEO and CFO would be in jail.
Obama (and Bush, and Clinton) need to do this. We need to add trillions to our expenses right now to account for certain future expenses.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Chuck,
That’s exactly right, but there is one flaw in your plan. If the federal government were required to comply with the accounting laws it imposes on the private sector, they would need to set aside money now against future liabilities. They can do that, but it will take a 100% tax rate for the next 5 years to do it. I’m thinking maybe this is not realistic.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:52 am
The US is a sovereign nation. We have only those future obligations which we decide to honor. That is a political process.
That’s why the gov’t can do things like raise the SS retirement age or benefits.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:06 am
JE, I’m not sure what the law is for future gov’t expenditures, but if it’s like those out in the real world, if a future expense is probable and estimatable, you have to recognize it and set up a reserve. I do believe growth in Big Gov’t will require huge future cash outlays. Big Gov’t will not say that they may cut back social security, free health care, lower the growth in education subsidies, etc. to conserve cash in the future.
I would say that whoever the CFO of the USA is, needs to set up those reserves now, and report an additional multi-trillion dollar loss for FY09 (actually should restate prior years). Not to do so would be like a peanut manuafacturer failing to deal with contamination.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“Quit working, quit ponying up and paying the freight for ourselves and, with all due respect, your freeloading asses?”
Nothing. Someone hungrier for the opportunity would replace you.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
“Nothing. Someone hungrier for the opportunity would replace you.”
…at a lower wage and more likely lower expertise level. Thus, in effect, becoming one of the freeloaders.
Your illogic, as usual, is impeccable, RatioRick.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Not illogic. Rick is simply describing the mechanism whereby America can be converted into a Third World nation. It’s not fair that a hurricane in New Orleans kills a thousand when a similar storm in Bangladesh kills a hundred thousand.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
“Someone hungrier for the opportunity would replace you.”
It should come as no surprise that the Chair of the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party is not a farmer or a laborer but a harvard eduacated lawyer.
The DFL’s don’t care about individual workers. All they want is the wealth the workers produce so they can inflict their God-complex on the benighted people whose labor they batten. Democrats. Of, by, and for the political class.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Kermit / Terry
Dont let me stop you two from going all Atlas Shrugs. Somehow I imagine the rest of us will manage.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
RickDFL never tires of spitting in the faces of working people.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
“Dont let me stop you two from going all Atlas Shrugs.“
Geez, RatioRick – can’t you get anything right? But then works by Alice Rosenbaum are way out of your intellectual reach.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Terry:
“RickDFL never tires of spitting in the faces of working people.”
I thought the whole points of going all ‘Atlas Shrugged’ (thanks for the correction JPA, sorry to confuse Ms. Rosenbaum with Ms. Geller) was to not work. Wasn’t that the nature of Mitch’s threat.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Well, RickDFL, you were wrong. The whole point of Atlas Shrugged is that your labor belongs to you, not the state. If a liberal wants to spend my money, let him do my f’n job.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:51 am
Rick misunderstands the point of Atlas Shrugged. No surprise. It’s an allegory, Ricky. When the productive class figures out that the futility of fighting the Looters and the Moochers, the society inevitably collapses on itself. See: USSR, Cambodia, China, Eastern Europe, Venezuala, Cuba, California.
The dream is a lie, long live the dream, comrade.
February 21st, 2009 at 2:33 am
Wasn’t that the nature of Mitch’s threat.
It’d be piling on to add to the repudiation others have given you on this point.
But I’m not above piling on. Not at all.
You missed the point completely. It’s not about “not working”; its about my labor belonging to me, not to my overlords in DC.
Too many lefties REALLY have trouble with that concept.
February 21st, 2009 at 11:46 am
Abraham Lincoln made something of a career decrying as immoral the idea that a person should live off of the labor stolen from others.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Y’all are missing the other side of the equation. If it becomes too comfortable to be a wart on society’s back side, More & more people will stop being productive & start becoming well rewarded warts. It’s been happening in Europe for decades! People choosing to stay on the dole, rather than accept an available job that they consider “beneath them”.
There is nothing new or revolutionary going on here. Same failed policies, different wanna-be dictator.
Oh, & don’t even get me started on Lincoln.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Mitch Et al.
You think you are being taken advantage of, I think you are the freeloaders. The Republicans are the party of exploiters. So call my bluff, go on strike, and see if we miss you.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:52 pm
You work for the government, don’t you, RickDFL? Or a union.
You should try picking up a broom or a shovel sometime. Then you’d figure out pretty quickly who the freeloaders are.
calling working people ‘freeloaders’. You know no shame, fascist.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Looters and Moochers, Rick. Get the terminology right. You’ll be hearing a lot of it in the next few years.
February 21st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
You think you are being taken advantage of, I think you are the freeloaders. The Republicans are the party of exploiters. So call my bluff, go on strike, and see if we miss you.
That is the stupidest thing you’ve stated here, & that’s saying A LOT! That’s even below Penigma standards.
I bet all the non leftist commenters on this site are in the 50% that pay your bills, dumb ass.
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Mr. Shirt
“I bet all the non leftist commenters on this site are in the 50% that pay your bills, dumb ass. ”
It is one thing to “bet” by simply venting hot air in a blog post. It is something else to really put your money where your mouth is and go on an Atlas Shrugged style strike.
“Looters and Moochers”
Sounds like a perfect description of the GOP.