Taxing the Rich More is Common Sense?

On Monday, President Obama stood in front of a crowd of college students at a community college in Virginia to lay out his latest budget proposal…which looks eerily like his previous budget that the Senate rejected 97-0. He told his captive audience that making the wealthy pay more…to pay their fair share…was not class warfare or envy of the rich, it was just common sense.

Mr. President, it has nothing to do with common sense.

Common sense says that when you have nearly fifty percent of this country paying no Federal Income Tax…that’s zero…zip…nada…and the upper five percent paying over 58% of all Federal Income taxes collected, it is not the wealthy that are not paying their fair share.

Common sense says that maybe it is time to throw out our ridiculously complicated and unfair tax code and create a new one…a simpler one with a flat tax rate of ten to fifteen percent…a tax code with no exemptions, no deductions, no special tax credits, etc…just one tax rate for everyone. Wealthy business owners, wealthy individuals living off of capital gains, middle income wage earners, lower income wage earners, and individuals living off of public assistance would all pay the same tax rate, no excuses and no exemptions...everyone would have skin in the game for a change. Plus, this would be the most reasonable and fair way to make sure that everyone is participating in your shared sacrifice scenario.

Common sense says quit spending this country into oblivion to keep the ne'er-do-wells dependently happy. It is time make serious and necessary cuts and changes to our bloated and underfunded entitlement programs.

• Have incentives for people to get off of public assistance and make it less comfortable for them to stay on it. No one should be making more money on public assistance, than someone who is working.
• End the “tax cut” gimmick which is actually a reduction in future benefits for social security beneficiaries. We have a social security system that is under funded by trillions of dollars. It makes no sense to continue this farce.
• Restructure social security and take it out of the general fund…put it back in its own trust fund where it was supposed to be. Protect it for present, and future, retirees who paid into it. Stop using it for discretionary spending.
• Restore fiscal responsibility to the government. Don’t spend what you don’t have.

Common sense says that when the President of the United States continually uses the office of the Presidency as a bully pulpit to demonize the producers in this country, it creates envy and hatred toward those individuals. Yes, Mr. President, it is class warfare and it most definitely is class envy. And to make matters worse, the flames of discontent are being fueled by you. Your divisive rhetoric…pitting the poor against the rich, main street against wall street, lendees against lenders, unions against non-unions…is not becoming of someone holding the highest office in the land and it needs to stop before this country implodes. You’re not a community organizer any more; you’re the President of the United States…the entire United States.