Taxing the ‘rich’ shortchanges the economy

Jay Carr, Henderson

Saturday, June 7, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

An editorial in Friday’s Las Vegas Sun (“Tone-deaf economic policy: As average Americans struggle, Bush seeks permanent tax cuts for the very rich”), reflects your ignorance of basic economics and the principles that foster sound economic growth in this country.

Historically, the liberal economic position calls for higher taxes to support higher spending. Liberals think this is what grows our economy. That’s baloney! It never has and never will.

Their promises for economic growth are empty. The key to economic growth in this country is capital formation. It is predominantly small-business people and entrepreneurs who take chances to build businesses, create capital and jobs that drive our economy. This is what generates wealth and incentives for people to succeed.

Increasing taxes on these so-called “rich people” is not the answer.

In fact, in 2005 the top 5 percent of income earners (adjusted gross incomes exceeding $145,000) paid 60 percent of all federal income taxes! How much more do we want to tax the very people responsible for our economic growth?

Tax policy that encourages capital formation and government policy that discourages excessive interference is what has driven our economic engine through history. Excessive spending, higher taxes and excessive government regulation retard economic growth.

I’m tired of listening to uninformed economic liberals promoting higher taxes on the “rich” to support their spending programs when they don’t have an understanding of basic economic principles. You seem to have never seen a Milton Friedman economics book, never mind read one!

It would be beneficial to all of us if we would hear less about raising taxes or increasing spending and more about encouraging economic growth, which benefits every citizen in the United States. As the adage goes, “ignorance is bliss.”