Why does the president want to raise taxes?

By Tom Quiner

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIqyCpCPrvU&feature=player_embedded]

It’s a fair question, don’t you think?

The president and his party want to raise income taxes on America’s most productive workers. In other words, he wishes to create a deterrent for more productivity out of them by letting them keep less of the fruits of their labor.

It’s a terrible idea, because taxes on productivity don’t bring in much revenue for the government during a bad economy. In fact, it might bring in even less than leaving rates alone. Watch the video above for a quick tutorial.

The president knows this. So why does he really want to raise taxes on this elite one percent of highly productive Americans? Let’s analyze his comments on the subject over the last few years:

In an interview with Charlie Rose, the interviewer pointed out the concerns I expressed above. What did Mr. Obama say?

“Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”

The president isn’t concerned with revenue, he’s concerned with redistribution.

Do you remember what Mr. Obama said to Joe the Plumber?

‘‘It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.’’

The president isn’t concerned with revenue, he’s concerned with redistribution.

At a press conference in Illinois last year, the president said:

“We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.” [Emphasis mine.]

The president isn’t concerned with revenue, he’s concerned with redistribution. He wants to tax successful people for being too successful, even though the share of the nation’s wealth owned by the top 1% has been dropping for over three decades; even though the rich have paid a growing share of the nation’s tax burden over the past three decades.

So much for the American Dream.

What is the president’s campaign strategy? “Vote for me and I’ll take money from the most successful Americans and give it to you.”