Who is John Galt?

Who is John Galt?

That is the riddle that begs to be deciphered in Ayn Rand's 1957 economic juggernaut, Atlas Shrugged.

In our current economic situations the Rand-esque question that plagues me is: Why do politicians and voters espouse taxing the rich more?

It's all simple really: There are more non-rich people in this country than there are "rich," and it's natural to be envious, even spiteful, of those who have what you do not. So, what better way to exact revenge on them than to have the government take it away from them?

For the politicians, it's even simpler: You need votes to get elected or re-elected and since there are more non-rich people in your district that there are rich, play to their wishes and desires. 

But who are the rich? We hear the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — even Barack Obama — spouting the phrase "millionaires and billionaires" when they bleat their tax-the-rich mantra, but then they reveal their plans to raise taxes on those people making more than $250,000 a year. I was no math major in college, but I do know that $250,000 does not equal $1 million, much less $1 billion.

The Democrat politicians like to use the phrase "the top 1 percent" to describe their villain in all of their tax-the-rich rhetoric, but how much do you have to earn to be included in the top 1 percent? The logical guess would be $250,000 since that's the magic number politicians tend to push, right? Alas, the correct answer would be $380,000. 

Now let's take a look at some interesting tax numbers. Now that we have established how much money you have to earn to be in the top 1 percent, let's take a look at how much they pay in taxes. 

The top 1 percent of income earners in this country earn roughly 20 percent of the total income, but are burdened with paying almost 40 percent of the total tax bill. The top 5 percent of income earners (those making more than $159,000) earn upwards of 34 percent of the taxes, but are penalized by covering 58 percent of all taxes. The top 50 percent of income earners (those earning more than $33,000) have the honor of footing more than 97 percent of the tax bill (http://www.financialsamurai.com/2011/04/12/how-much-money-do-the-top-income-earners-make-percent/).

When voters hear politicians speaking about those people in the top 1 percent, they have images of the golden parachute-wielding "millionaires and billionaires" running corporate America, but that couldn't be farther the truth. A large majority of those people are small business owners who employ other people, and if they have their tax bill increased they, in turn, will have to either raise their prices — which will hamper their competitiveness in the marketplace — or they will be forced to lay off some of their employees. And just what will that get us? A higher unemployment rate, that's what. 

Raising taxes doesn't sound like such a good idea now does it?

But for decades politicians have played the class warfare game so well that voters are too blind to see the reality of the situation. They continue to believe that those who earn the most should not be entitled to the fruits of their labor, but should have those fruits subjected to confiscation and redistribution at the hands of government.

If this behavior continues, it won't be long before Atlas shrugs.