I know I have posted several Antony Davies videos, but he is very good at putting debt and deficit issues in very clear perspective.
One thing that Liberals, Keynesians, and Class Warriors of all stripes always ignore is that there are consequences to their policies. Namely, that higher taxes are a disincentive to business and economic activity in general. Davies points out that to balance the budget (not reduce the debt) you would have to raise the taxes of the top 5% of Americans to 88%. This would reduce the average "rich household's" real income to about $36,000/year. "Making the average rich household worse off than the average household."
Would you, or anyone, continue to work hard to make a lot of money if it were going to be taken from you, redistributed to the less productive, and make you worse off than someone with an average job? History tells us no. Whether the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony who became lazy and unproductive in their commune established by the Mayflower Compact, or the Soviet people who had a common saying that "as long as they pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work." Socialism has never worked. Taking from the rich simply makes the rich less productive...taxing corporations simply passes on the cost to the consumer, who buys less product. Raising taxes on any activity reduces the activity...which reduces the tax revenue. Many central planners have been surprised and dismayed, for example, that raising taxes on cigarettes has actually resulted in decreased revenue as some people stop smoking or cut back, and some find other, lower taxed sources.
Here is another great video where Professor Davies shows how ridiculous it is to continue to call for taxing the rich to deal with our deficit The answer is to CUT SPENDING. As he says in the last line of the video:
"The budget deficit is so large that there simply aren't enough rich people to tax to raise enough to balance the budget."
