I couldn’t make this up if I tried! 
Jesse Taylor, one of the major writers on Pandagon, in an article condemning the idea of “going Galt,” which he had previously described (actually, linked to a description) as higher income people looking for ways to avoid the Obama tax increases, wrote:
“Going Galt” is demeaning to the very idea of America – that we make a valuable contribution to society by being good citizens, working hard and raising families and anything else you’d put in a Norman Rockwell painting, like drinking Coca-Cola. Capitalism needs cogs as much as it needs cog-placers, and the fundamental promise of the American dream is that the former matters just as much as the latter. Apparently not anymore. The new message: forsake your babies and your God and go make partner, because that’s what makes you a good person.
I am so glad that I had already finished drinking my Mountain Dew when I read that, or I’d have spit it out all over the keyboard and monitor. Is Jesse Taylor, a major writer on Pandagon, saying that it is a good thing to be raising families, and that “forsaking your babies and your God” is selfish, Ayn Rand-ish and just plain not part of the “very idea of America?” One wonders if Amanda Marcotte, another major writer on Pandagon, has seen this yet?
Of course, if “going Galt” is defined as upper income earners trying to either restructure or even lower their incomes to fall below the $250,000 threshhold for the big income tax increase, then we could, I suppose, describe legal tax avoidance as evil and, thanks to Joe Biden, unpatriotic as well. That, I’m sure, is why former senator and Miss Marcotte’s early favored presidential candidate John Edwards used the perfectly legal method of forming an S Corporation to reduce his tax liability by about $591,000.
This is pretty much in the same vein as all of the appointees of President Obama who were very much for increased taxes and government spending, yet somehow managed to underpay their own taxes. Somehow, according to Mr Taylor, it’s just plain wrong for people who advocate lower tax rates to try to find legal methods to avoid higher taxes, but there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about people who advocate higher taxes, for the good of the country, don’t you know, illegally failing to pay all of their taxes.
While I never treated the writings of Ayn Rand as holy writ, she did identify the bad guys. No real hero will likely come up to her standards but the pseudo-charitable (with other peoples money) are the villains in the real world as well as in any work of fiction.
Look at the niggardly giving of Joe Biden, with his family mired in hedge funds and influence peddling. He is the role model for the political hack who lusted for control all of his life.
Those of us who have worked hard for some material rewards do not like being obliged to support victims of self-inflicted wounds who do it again and again and make it a generational tradition.
A person who inherits a tax sheltered trust fund should be advised to indulge in altruism on his own dime and merely encourage parasitism.
Look at John Edwards as a man who has milked the system and given nothing. How did the sleazy Tennessee Gores make their money?
Obama has done nothing but play politics throughout his life. His teaching post was likely an affirmative action thing. He does identify with parasites.
Well, not quite Art. There are many, (millions), of Obamatrons that reside in the liberal mindset that those who legally strive to achieve success and retain wealth by those achievements are considered parasites by not willingly “sharing” their success/fortunes with the less fortunate. We are now in a period where our “representative government” intends to correct this “oversite” in the name of compassion and equality.
Jesse has a point, Dana. Isn’t conservatism supposed to be all about “family values” and duty to society and all that jazz? If so, how does selfishly withdrawing from society just to avoid paying a couple extra bucks in taxes fit in with that idea?
The idea of “going Galt” is completely different from the idea of cutting back on your business and hanging with the family because the market’s crappy and it’s not worth the extra money you’d make. It’s intentionally depriving yourself of the chance to make money in order to extend a giant middle finger to society. I just don’t see the point of that.
I’m always amazed when liberals act like “the rich” should just gladly fork over whatever percentage of income has been deemed “fair” these days, without ever trying to find (legal) ways to reduce their tax bill. It’s like the only people who don’t like to pay taxes are poor working stiffs. Do these idiots think “the rich” are aliens or something, devoid of human emotions? I mean, let alone the fact that “the rich” include any number of small business folks (the sort Jesse Taylor hopes to become if he hangs out his shingle after law school).
Jeff, you are abusing the term “family values” here. When conservatives talk about family vaules, they aren’t talking about going to the government to support their families. They are talking about being as self-sufficient as possible. There’s no “family value” in dinging the producers so government can determine who is worthy of receiving the largesse and who is not.
“Going Galt” is about the fact that making extra money that you don’t get to keep and use isn’t worth working for. What’s wrong with deciding you would rather have the time than not have the money?
Sharon, that’s decided by the market, isn’t it? If there’s a boatload of money to be made in working more, it doesn’t really matter at what rate it’s going to be taxed, you’re going to work for it. And if there isn’t much money to be made, it doesn’t matter at what rate it’s going to be taxed, it’s just not worth the time away from home. This isn’t a tax issue, it’s an issue of the market sucking.
And to address your first comment – I agree. Which is why we should eliminate all deductions and credits and all that crap and just charge everyone a graduated percentage of their income, from whatever source. The 1040 should be one side of one sheet of paper. (The percentage levels would still be progressive, but they’d all be lower.)
Oh, and come to think of it, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if a bunch of business owners and CEOs “went Galt.” I’d be more than happy to take over their job in their stead
[...] “GO JOHN GALT” when you can just “go Tim Geithner?” “Somehow, according to Mr Taylor, it’s just plain wrong for people who advocate lower tax [...]
Meanwhile, back in the real world…
Oh, that poor oppressed upper class…
I’m not sure I fully get what people mean when they say “going John Galt”, but my understanding is like yours–people simply earning less so they don’t contribute to policies they consider socialism or at least confiscatory. They’re not going to help Obama pay his bills.
But this raises the question, how, exactly, is working less and spending more time at home with your family equated with “forsak[ing] your babies and your god”? The pandagon post is utter nonsense.
Jeff,
Remember it’s not charity if it’s taken at the point of a gun.
“extend a giant middle finger to society.”
And why not? It’s merely in reaction to the net consumers in the entitlement class doing the exact same thing with their prolific, unsustainable spending of the common resources whilst embracing the class warfare rhetoric that brands the producing class as the “evil rich.” In addition to a metaphorical one finger salute, they are much in need of a literal kick in the ass.
“Going Galt” means refusing to support those who aim to destroy you.
“The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.” – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
I wonder how many well to do liberals DON’T itemize deductions and, instead, just take the standard deduction?
I’ll bet the number is close to zero. They really believe that “someone else” should pay those higher taxes, just like Obama’s liberal appointees didn’t bother to pay their fair share of taxes.
Did you ever happen to notice that the hot spots for well to do liberals also happen to be high tax Dem controlled states. Yet those states, and the well to do liberals living in them, screamed loudest about the Alternative Minimum Tax. In fact, Obama is now going to “fix” the AMT so higher earners in those blue states bet to keep their fat deductions for state and local taxes.
If there’s a boatload of money to be made in working more, it doesn’t really matter at what rate it’s going to be taxed, you’re going to work for it.
You are not serious, I hope. Then you personally would not mind a tax rate of 80%, right? Or 90%? What the heck – how about 100%? How many takers for a life of hard work do you think you will get in that case?
In the book Atlas Shrugged, going “John Galt” was an act of perfectly legal defiance against a corrupt, incompetent authoritarian government (which is what we are stuck with now). Dissent used to be the highest form of patriotism, but maybe that all changed after January 20, 2009.
Jeff – The peopel who make, let’s say $275k generallydon’t have the choice or opportunity to make a “boatload” more money. Its usually, perhaps, 10-25% more. The point is that the marginal return after the Obamatax and the disappearance of the previous deductions isn’t worth the additional effort to earn it. So they just say fleece someone else.
This is an extremely dangerous argument to put forth, since the really rich spend vast amounts of time and effort structuring their income and holdings to minimize taxes. If a dentist works somewhat less to avoid Obamataxes and is seen as some sort of slacker criminal, but George Soros isn’t questioned about the foundations, trusts, etc he uses to avoid taxes, we have a serious “fairness issue”.
Conservatives are going John Galt while the communist are going Tim Geithner.
Let me see, as someone who actually does pay the top end tax rates let me tell you Jeff rates make a difference. Especially when the deductions are phased out out or eliminated in their entirety. Its just not worth the effort to make the extra gross at the margins. The net returns have to be outsized to justify the effort and risk. There are only so many hours in a day and at the point that the tax bite becomes so great as to not be worth bothering with, most won’t. There is a reason John Lennon was living in NYC when he was killed. The unbelievably high UK taxes in place at the time.
I work for my benefit, not yours. I am not you slave, I owe you nothing. Instead we should tax every one equally since in theory government benefits us all equally. If the “entitlement” programs were to be abolished entirely tomorrow it would have no effect on me yet other than debt service and national defense, virtually of my income taxes go to “entitlement” programs. I have no problem unlike that cheap worthless bastard Biden in giving to charity, that is my choice unlike the compulsion under the pain of imprisonment to what is nothing more than legalized theft.
Service yes, servitude no. And no Jeff, judging by your mind set, you are not capable of taking over the job of CEO or business owner. Ever.
Instead of progressive taxation we should have progressive voting, the more you pay in absolute terms the more you vote is weighted. Really anyone born and raised in this county and who has reached the age of thirty has no reason to be poor. If you are its (other than physical or mental impairment) almost a certainty that that person is a total fuck up and frankly not worthy of aid or compassion. I do not feel the least bit of compassion for people who always make the wrong choice in life yet expect others to support them. Liberty and freedom is having the right to try succeed and with that comes the risk of failure. Stay in school, do not drop out, stay drug free and don’t have kids before you are an adult and capable of self support and live within your means. Its not that difficult a goal to accomplish.
No we don’t. Because George Soros supports the proper causes and spouts the proper cant, and therefore Can Do No Wrong. Whereas that dentist is an uppity serf that needs to be put in his (or her) place by our Dear Leaders. /sarcasm
Conservatives also believe that society has a duty to individuals to respect their rights, including their right to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Conservatives also believe that everyone has a responsibility to contribute to society, and that a society which increasingly relies on a productive minority, is a society that is increasingly illegitimate.
Despite the bellowing boasts of intellectual omnipotence from the left,they’ve never managed to grasp the basic concept of “yours/not yours”.
My wife and I are software engineers, and we fit that description. In metro DC, $275k/year is not rich, it’s upper-middle class for a working couple.
Jeff says: “we should eliminate all deductions and credits and all that crap and just charge everyone a graduated percentage of their income, from whatever source.”
But if you eliminate all deductions then you would be taxing GROSS earnings, not their NET . For low margin businesses that would lead to taxing away everything they made (all their profits) and perhaps more as well .
Jeff wrote:
The notion that Mr Taylor would be writing about family values and “being good citizens, working hard and raising families and anything else you’d put in a Norman Rockwell painting,” on a site like Pandagon, where his most prolific co-blogger absolutely despises the idea of having children or getting married, and where the next most prolific blogger spends most of her time espousing a form of marriage (pun intended) that would definitely not make a Norman Rockwell painting is laughable in itself.
But Mr Taylor gets it worse when he’s actually being serious. He’s telling us that perfectly legal tax avoidance tactics — I assume that he means legal ones, because in his initial linked description of “going Galt,” he linked to descriptions of legal activities — are “demeaning to the very idea of America,” yet has been thoroughly supportive of an administration that can’t seem to find many appointees who don’t have problems with not having paid taxes they legally owed. Considering the site’s support for John Edwards at the beginning of 2008, the same John Edwards who engaged in perfectly legal tax avoidance, this is hypocrisy to an astounding extent.
And I’d point out here that President Obama has included certain tax avoidance provisions in the stimulus bill — primarily the tax credit for first-time home buyers — because he wants to encourage some particular economic activity.
It’s always nice to see someone like Jeff, who proves that one can be intelligent enough to write reasonably well and still totally not understand human nature, basic economics, or logic. (Maybe it’s actually Obama commenting under the name ‘Jeff’?)
*ALL* humans constantly make calculations, once they get above life sustainment, of the return on their efforts. *ALL* humans at some point will decide not to put forth an effort when their perceived return is too small. Where that point is varies from individual, but it exists in all.
Even people on welfare occasionally quit getting it because the cost of compliance is so high.
The major and constant failure of ‘the Left’ and ‘Progressives’ is the inability or unwillingness to recognize that there is such a thing as human nature in the face of thousands of years of evidence.
It’s the John Lennon model. Sing about “imagine no possessions” and then flee your country of birth because of the 95% (!) marginal tax rate in Great Britain at that time. That rate is why the Beatles wrote the wonderful “The Tax Man”, incidentally. (“That’s one for you, nineteen for me…”) Some people just have a problem integrating their beliefs into a coherent philosophy, I guess. Or, maybe they don’t and they’re just be pack of rancid, power-hungry hypocrites. Could be, folks.
Mwalimu, hope you enjoyed building that straw man there. Sure, 90% is craziness, but what’s the difference between 36% and 39%? And the tax code is constructed so there’s almost no way you can make more money before tax and take home less after tax.
Burns, I’m talking personal income tax here, not business tax. Business taxes would still be on profits, just like they are currently I think.
Mike T, having grown up in NoVa, I understand. Ideally there’d be a cost of living adjustment for income tax rates. But by far the best solution here would be to shrink the federal government and give the states and local governments the power we take from the federal level…
Cubanbob, yeah it matters at the margins, but how far at the margins? Five or six anecdotes does not a trend make. And if the economy were going along well and there were money to be made in expanding one’s business, would we even be having this discussion? Of course not. People would still be adding to their businesses, tax increase or no. And if some of the “Galters” didn’t want to add to their buisnesses, someone else would and so it wouldn’t matter. The fact is that what’s being passed off as some principled revolt against Obama’s proposed tax increase is nothing more than a rational reaction to a contracting economy and a decrease in consumption. That dynamic is not going to be affected by the relatively small tax increase proposed by Obama. We’re still on the left side of the Laffer curve here, folks.
Dana – agreed on that point, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, the solution to that is to eliminate deductions. We ought to quit trying to use tax policy as a means of social engineering.
PIATOR:
Long time no see over at Protein Wisdom. *ahem*
And what is wrong, precisely, with the “rich” keeping most of their wealth and income, if they got it honestly and lawfully? Oh, wait– wealth is *bad* because it causes poverty, inequality, and lawlessness, like down in Mexico, per the website you point to.
Correlation proves causation….. Riiiiiight.
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland
As usual on a daily basis, this Liberal makes an assclown on himself. Every idiot knows that his country was formed because of excessive unfair tax levies.
It has always been dedicated on the idea that what one earns one keeps and that government should and would NOT impose itself on private citizens.
Here we go down the USUAL communist road after Barry and his goons try to confiscate the earning of people and those people refuse to comply by slaving the appropriate amount for the State next will be the laws requiring forced labor.
You see it everywhere that these nuts try once again to inflict communism on a population. How many more times does this nonsense have be fail miserably before we rid this world of these idiots?
PS:
Sounds like Jessie and his ilk are getting a little worried that nobody is willing to work the those extra hours to pay for his monthly check and his “free” healthcare.
But businesses should pay no taxes, only the owners on their profits from the business, if any.
Well, lets consider this; with Phoenician’s link as a premise.
Lets bump the top tax bracket back up to 70%+ for pre-Reagan bill.
Lets have a single earner (for ease of math) working for 250K a year at 40 hours a week; with the opportunity to make 300K if he’d work 45 hours a week (50 weeks per year)
Wage/hours 250,000/(40 * 50) = $125/hr
300,000/(45 * 50) = $133.33/hr
Not a dreadful deal, more work, but more pay per hour to compensate it. Except now the Government doesn’t take 35% of your $125/hr; or something like $85,000 but it’s taking 70% of the extra $50,000 you earn or ($35,000 more).
Actual wage earned per hour estimate after taxes:
(250,000 – 85000)/ (40 * 50) = $82.5/hr
(300,000 – 120,000)/ (45 * 50) = $80/hr
You’ve worked more hours, so taken in more total dollars; but your hourly wage went down. How many people do you know that would willingly work overtime at their job for less wages compared to their current salary?
So, spend an extra 5 hours a week with your family, or on your hobby, or whatever; or spend an extra 5 hours a week at your job making less on a per-hour basis than you currently do?
Anyone really think that “the rich” are bad at money management and can’t figure out a bad deal when faced with one? If you do think this; maybe you should try for a position on Obama’s cabinet. He still has some openings.
“Isn’t conservatism supposed to be all about “family values” and duty to society and all that jazz? If so, how does selfishly withdrawing from society just to avoid paying a couple extra bucks in taxes fit in with that idea? ”
Same way “helping the fat guy” might involve withdrawing your Snickers Bars, even though he really, really wants Snickers Bars.
“Duty to society” doesn’t simply mean “give society whatever it wants” – it encompasses helping society towards the goals and improvements that you value – the goals and improvements that you believe would improve society.
The “couple of extra bucks in taxes” isn’t the driving force in the decision to Go Galt – it’s more the “and then they take those couple of bucks and use them to actively discourage someone else from improving their own lot in life, and by doing this, they keep that someone from any need to work towards self-sufficiency, and thus they use my “couple of extra bucks” to degrade the lives of such people, all for their own political gain of keeping the government-needy voters addicted to my bucks.
So, why let them use my money – i.e., the reward that was given to me in exchange for doing something more valuable to society than ditch-digging – as their main tool for proving to people that they’re incompetent and incapable and, really, not quite good enough to dare wander away from the benevolent source of all, The Mother Party?
Gekkobear,
Excellent analysis! But you do realize the liberal mentality is it’s your duty to work the extra hours for the benifit of those who are not so fortunate. Where’s your compassion for your fellow man? /sarc
…. Then you personally would not mind a tax rate of 80%, right? Or 90%? What the heck – how about 100%? How many takers for a life of hard work do you think you will get in that case?
A very good question. Ludicrous marginal rates encourage either clever tax avoidance schemes or moving to a less confiscatory land,
Our top marginal rate was once 91%. Few likely paid it and the net result to revenues when JFK slashed the rates was prosperity.
Sweden once had a top marginal rate of 101%. That was intended to stifle anyone getting really wealthy. Olaf Palme may have gotten hit with a dose of Bad Karma for that one. Good riddance anyway.
Look at the idiotic ‘Luxury Tax’ on boats that was forced on Bush I by the Dems. It was great job killer and the folks who could afford big boats bought offshore.
I suspect that the losers of the world do love higher taxes on other people.
And what is wrong, precisely, with the “rich” keeping most of their wealth and income, if they got it honestly and lawfully? Oh, wait– wealth is *bad* because it causes poverty, inequality, and lawlessness, like down in Mexico, per the website you point to.
The facts are that in the US over the past few decades, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor are getting poorer. The middle class is hollowing out.
America is run for the rich at the expense of the poor, and has been so for a while. This is an objective fact – the increasing GINI trend demonstrates it.
Despite all the whining, Obama’s plan is not even a tiny step in the other direction – it will simply slow this trend.
And the results of such a trend have been researched.
But keep shouting. Maybe another Republican will be elected for eight years with similiar policies to Bush. I’m not sure your country would survive another such President.
“Research has shown a link between income inequality and social cohesion. In more equal societies, people are much more likely to trust each other, measures of social capital suggest greater community involvement, and homicide rates are consistently lower. [...]
“There is a very robust correlation between socioeconomic status and health. This correlation suggests that it is not only the poor who tend to be sick when everyone else is healthy, but that there is a continual gradient, from the top to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, relating status to health. [...] Lastly, it has been found that amongst the wealthiest quarter of countries on earth (a set stretching from Luxembourg to Slovakia) there is no relation between a country’s wealth and general population health[2] – suggesting that past a certain level, absolute levels of wealth have little impact on population health, but relative levels within a country do. [...]
“Economic inequality is thought to reduce distributive efficiency within society. That is to say, inequality reduces the sum total of personal utility because of the decreasing marginal utility of wealth. [...]
“In their study for the World Institute for Development Economics Research, Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Julius Court (2001) reach policy conclusions as to the optimal distribution of income.[4] They conclude that too much equality (below a Gini coefficient of .25) negatively impacts growth due to “incentive traps, free-riding, labour shirking, [and] high supervision costs”. They also claim that high levels of inequality (above a Gini coefficient of .40) negatively impacts growth, due to “incentive traps, erosion of social cohesion, social conflicts, [and] uncertain property rights”. They advocate for policies which put equality at the low end of this “efficient” range.”
In 2005, the GINI index for the US was 46.5. And rising.
So there you go – your social inequality has reached the point where it is making your country less cohesive, placing you personally in more danger of being murdered, making you sicker, producing less real human good, and making you poorer overall than in more equal societies.
Apparently, according to Obama, it’s also not charity if it’s given to a church. Won’t that throw giving into a tailspin — not to mention willingness to throw our taxes at the interest on the debt (an illegal bondage to begin with — we as ‘chattle’ of the corporation of the US).
” Jeff:
Mwalimu, hope you enjoyed building that straw man there. Sure, 90% is craziness, but what’s the difference between 36% and 39%? And the tax code is constructed so there’s almost no way you can make more money before tax and take home less after tax.
Burns, I’m talking personal income tax here, not business tax. Business taxes would still be on profits, just like they are currently I think.
Mike T, having grown up in NoVa, I understand. Ideally there’d be a cost of living adjustment for income tax rates. But by far the best solution here would be to shrink the federal government and give the states and local governments the power we take from the federal level…
Cubanbob, yeah it matters at the margins, but how far at the margins? Five or six anecdotes does not a trend make. And if the economy were going along well and there were money to be made in expanding one’s business, would we even be having this discussion? Of course not. People would still be adding to their businesses, tax increase or no. And if some of the “Galters” didn’t want to add to their buisnesses, someone else would and so it wouldn’t matter. The fact is that what’s being passed off as some principled revolt against Obama’s proposed tax increase is nothing more than a rational reaction to a contracting economy and a decrease in consumption. That dynamic is not going to be affected by the relatively small tax increase proposed by Obama. We’re still on the left side of the Laffer curve here, folks.
Dana – agreed on that point, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, the solution to that is to eliminate deductions. We ought to quit trying to use tax policy as a means of social engineering.
6 March 2009, 2:55 pm”
Dude you obviously know squat about business. First its not just the 39.6%, its that with the phased out deductions at the federal level which brings it to that level plus the social security taxes and medicare taxes with the new top rates, if your a business owner brings it you to a 55.5% rate then you add on the state and local income bites depending on where you reside then your at the 70% rate. Why bother when 70 cents on the buck you work for is largely wasted on parasites.
The only thing this will do is make tax evasion an art form. There are hundreds of thousands of importers in this county. Many more business can become importers. You would be surprised how many services can outsourced overseas; architectural drafting, a lot of legal research, accounting and many more services. Open up a a foreign corporation and use it as a vehicle to import the goods or services and make your import costs nearly that of your selling price, presto minimal profits, minimal taxes. Just pay the taxes on the profit in the foreign country (usually a third or less than the total US tax bite) and do not repatriate the profit. Only the minimum you need. Like I said there are hundreds of thousands of companies that could pull this off. Billions, possibly hundreds of billions in taxes out of the new communist party’s hands. And its just mot a few anecdotes, its the gathering storm. Buts that alright, a sport like you can pick up the slack in tax contributions.
Speaking of deductions this clown Obama wants to limit the deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions. As for your idea of inverting the state/federal income tax load, not a bad idea in principal but in practice not sustainable. States with their much lower rates will suck up all of the oxygen from the free spending liberal states. And that will result in tax harmonization schemes that will go nowhere as the lower tax states realize the scam for what it is and keep their lower rates to draw in capital flows. Just like the EU. What you don’t get, perhaps what you don’t want to get is that the productive class is stirring and frankly getting tired of being enslaved to support a fundamentally illegitimate wealth redistribution state.
[...] thanks to the taxation policies of President Barack Hussein Obama. I touched on this briefly in Democrisy: Jesse Taylor and “Going Galt”, which got this poor site its second Instapundit link and a very happy Instalanche. Donald Douglas [...]
Tax avoidance is a legal art form that only a few can use to their advantage. Yet it often distorts the marketplace and discourages the type of investments that create real jobs?
How many of the advocates of income redistribution are losers who are merely giving voice to envy? There may be a few idlers with inherited wealth that is well sheltered. Perhaps they would like to prevent others from rising up to their level and encroaching on some of their preserves.
It seems that Jason of the Delaware Liberal didn’t like this article very much:
My comment above is locked in the Delaware Libera’s moderation queue.