We already DO "soak the rich"

Here we are in January 2019, and Democratic candidates for the 2020 Presidential election are already lining up.   Front-runners include New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Ocasio-Cortes

One theme you will repeatedly hear from these and other Democrats is that we must start making the ultra-rich "pay their fair share."  Well, I agree whole-heartedly!  Only not the way the probably meant.  What I mean is that the top wage-earners already pay WAY too much in taxes, and the system should be adjusted in order to be more "fair".

According to the Tax Foundation, here are some figures from FY 2016, derived directly from IRS receipts:  The top 1% of income-earners paid about 40% of tax revenues.  The top 10% paid 71%.  The top 50% paid over 97%.

These statistics have been around for many decades, and have not changed significantly from year to year.  And yet the perennial cry goes up:  "Soak the rich!!!"  The "Occupy Wall Street" movement from a few years ago was all about the supposed inequality of the system and how the super-rich are "getting away" with making all that money but not paying enough taxes on it.

Let's be clear:  this mentality has nothing to do with the real world and how much of everybody's income the government actually confiscates via taxes.  Rather, it's all nothing but plain old-fashioned envy.  We have crybabies in our society who cannot stand the idea that some people make "too much" money, and want the government to "do something" about it.  And they have found a sympathetic ear in the Democratic Party.

Personally, I don't care how much money other people earn.  If somebody has the brains for it and wants to work their butts off and make a pile of money, I got no problem with that. 

If somebody makes a zillion bucks and wants to spend it all hiring construction workers to enlarge their mansion, I'm Ok.  If they want to hire shipbuilders to build them another yacht or two, that's fine.  If they want to blow it on restaurants and Broadway shows and hire restaurant cooks, waitstaff, and entertainers to feed and entertain them, I'm good.  Or they want to do something really bizarre and invest the money back into their businesses so they can expand and hire more employees, hey that's Ok with me too. 

Or worst still, if they want to become philanthropists and just give it all away to the needy, the sick, and the downtrodden - well, I still have no problem!

It's much better to live in a society where it's Ok to work hard and strive to succeed and earn lots of money, and then get to KEEP most of it.  But evidently, the socialist-leftist-progressives DO have a problem with a society like that, and want to follow the success stories of nations like Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union.