The Problem With Biden’s Anti-Rich Rants

President Biden hates rich people. He’s always attacking them, insulting them, trying to punish them, raising their taxes, and, of course, blaming President Trump and Republicans for them.Ironically, it’s Mr. Biden’s Democratic Party that has become the party of the rich and the elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street, whereas Mr. Trump’s Republican Party has become the party of middle-class, blue-collar working folks, a.k.a., the non-rich.We know Mr. Biden is memory-impaired, so he can’t be expected to remember any facts underlying this class warfare he loves so much, but here’s a montage of some of President Biden’s anti-rich people rants over a period of time: “The next big battle is going to be whether the very wealthiest among us begin — and the biggest corporations begin to start paying their fair share. “We should be reducing the deficit by making sure that the wealthy and large corporations just pay their fair share.“We’re going to continue cutting the deficit and cutting subsidies to Big Pharma and ensuring wealthy and big corporations begin to pay their fair share of federal taxes.”So, the only problem with Mr. Biden’s class-warfare screed is that it bears no similarity to any known facts. For example, nowadays, according to the National Taxpayers Union, the richest 1 percent of the American economy, with earnings of roughly $680,000 and above, paid 46 percent of the federal income tax. That’s in the year 2021, from the latest IRS statistics on income.And, by the way, the bottom 50 percent of Americans — all those below the median income of about $48,000 — pay less than 2.5 percent of the income tax.You know what’s unfair? That is.Know what else is unfair? The top 1 percent of Americans make 26 percent of all the income, but they pay nearly half of all taxes. That’s unfair.By the way, for what it’s worth, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans actually pay two-thirds of all taxes.So, every time Mr. Biden or his minions start going off about “tax unfairness” or “tax fairness” or start attacking the rich, just cite these statistics. They are facts.Now, here’s something else that’s interesting. Every time the top marginal tax rate has been reduced, successful earners actually pay more in taxes. Before President Reagan slashed tax rates, the top 15 percent of earners paid less than 20 percent of the income tax burden.By the end of the 1980s, with the top tax rate cut to 30 percent from 70 percent, the wealthiest share of the tax burden went to nearly 40 percent from 17 percent. More recently, when Mr. Trump lowered corporate and individual tax rates, the tax share paid by the wealthiest moved up to nearly 50 percent.One key reason for this? Lower tax rates remove the incentive to shelter income. People don’t need tax shelters nearly as much because their marginal rate is so much lower.Final pointL Massive deficits and debt under Mr. Biden have come entirely from higher spending.Tax revenues, even at the lower marginal rates, have been rising for years. We had $2 trillion of revenues in the year 2000. Last year, revenues were $4.8 trillion. The problem is spending, stupid.The government spent $1.8 trillion in 2000 — but $6.4 trillion in 2023. Hat tip to a New York Sun contributor, Ira Stoll, for the numbers.Want to stop the government from borrowing nearly 120 percent of GDP, or close to $50 trillion, in the next few years? Reduce spending, stupid. Keep tax rates low and grow the economy. And stop blaming rich people.From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.

The Problem With Biden’s Anti-Rich Rants

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