Common Sense For New Hampshire

“The way I look at it, the state of New Jersey has a revenue problem.  I don’t think it has a spending problem.  We need to start looking at: How do we get revenues into the state of New Jersey?”

Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D-Hudson

His solution, of course is to soak wealthy people even more than we already are by punishing them with a 10.75% (!) income tax.

Prieto said his goal is what he called a “true millionaires tax,” rather than one applied to income at $400,000, as has been done in the past, or $500,000. The Senate Democrats estimated a 10.75 percent tax rate on income over $1 million would generate $565 million in the coming budget year, not counting the one-time infusion — estimated at $105 million, which includes the impact of a 10.25 percent tax rate on income above $500,000 — generated by applying the tax retroactively on income since January.

I don’t know how you can tax people retroactively, but in any case let me just give you a few reasons why a millionaires tax is a ridiculous idea:

The great majority of rich people get that way by pleasing people.  Except when the gun is involved, the amount of money one makes is a pretty good indicator of the amount of happiness that person is providing to others.  So why would we want to punish them?  We used to celebrate these people.  That was before envy, instead of being a sin, became cool.

Of course there are a lot of people who do use the gun and are rich because the government makes them rich.  This would include recipients of various green energy subsidies, banksters at the outflow of the Fed’s money printing pipeline, and possibly the country’s greatest welfare queen, Warren Buffett.  But the answer is not to steal from us and give the money to them and then tax them.  We should just stop giving them our money.

Another reason not to have a millionaires tax is that millionaires won’t pay it.  They have the ability to hire good accountants and tax lawyers and shield a lot, or even most, of their income.  Just ask Warren Buffett.  Or maybe they’ll just move, which is what happened in Maryland.  That’ll be real good for jobs.  In Florida.

We can’t even depend on taxing those stupid enough to stay and pay because the incomes of the rich are very unstable.  When there is a recession, the income of rich people are the most affected.  Salaries and wages generally stay pretty stable, but the incomes of the entrepreneurial class is all over the place.  If the state gets too dependent on taxing these people, when there is downturn state revenues will plummet.

I also think we would probably have to change the state’s Constitution to use income tax to pay for public pensions.  Income tax revenues are supposed to be used solely for education aid to municipalities so they can cut property taxes.  (Unfortunately it is currently used mostly to make trade unions rich by building palaces in Abbott districts.)

Of course the main reason not to do this is because it’s not nice to loot people, whether you do it yourself or hire a politician to do it for you.  It’s not our money.

Here’s another gem from Prieto:

“We really would like to see how we can minimize putting a burden on businesses. Businesses are the job creators, so we’re looking at that with a fine-toothed comb right now.”

So you minimize the burden on businesses by putting a 10.75% tax on them and that will create jobs!  Either this guy is an idiot or he’s a smart guy who understands that his constituents are idiots.

I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.