Bill Kristol went on Fox News on Sunday and said it “won’t kill the country” to raise taxes on millionaires, a standoff issue between Democrats and Republicans, suggesting that the Republican Party should not “fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile to Republican principles.”
For such an intelligent person, I am gobsmacked that Kristol would embrace this position. It has never been about protecting or defending millionaires.
This is simple math. Do the figuring for yourself. If we started taxing the rich under the anticipated tax laws, it would make absolutely no difference to the deficit or the national debt. All of this class warfare rhetoric is window dressing. Double the taxes on the Rich; go ahead. It won’t have any impact. Do. The. Math. Quadruple their taxes; it STILL won’t have any measurable impact on the annual deficit or the national debt.
There’s only one way taxation will work, and that’s for all of us to pay more while demanding that the Government spend dramatically less. Both of these things must occur for the math to work. The questions then become pragmatic: How much tax and what to cut? But as long as we continue to insist that the solution is taxation on a tiny minority of high earners we’ll continue to distract ourselves from the real, substantive conversation of relevant issues and the development of real solutions to end our fiscal problems.