Beware the retooling of tax code

Apparently the only signature item on the agenda of the January 2012 State of the Union address was a clever little moniker dubbed as “retooling the tax code.” In street language, it's called “soaking the rich,” a favorite ploy of Marxist/socialist governments of every era and always packaged as “redistributing the wealth.”

There is, however, one small, seemingly - insignificant, often overlooked fact of the matter: It has never worked in any government of any country. The confiscated wealth of the upper class never makes it into the hands/pockets of the common gentry.

The current tax arrangement requires the top 20 percent of U.S. wage earners (upper class) to pick up the tab on 80 percent of all taxable income. By contract, the bottom 20 percent of wage earners (lower class) pays little or no income tax. Most of these individuals are eligible for a generous little perk known as earned income credit, which can result in a rebate anywhere from a few hundred, to a few thousand dollars, leaving the middle class to cover the remaining 20 percent of the national tax requirements.

Since the upper class is presently shouldering the burden of providing what realistically amounts to a free ride for the lower class, it is safe to assume that any retooling of the present code will, as always, only serve to increase the size/scope of an already humongously bloated. hopelessly out-of-control federal bureaucracy. ...

This is otherwise known as Insanity Economics 101.

Wendell Carr

Ottumwa