John Rossomando
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Occupy Wall Street’s basic refrain “Tax the Rich”, a slogan that has been bandied around by communists and others on the far-left for generations, belies the movement’s basic economic ignorance.
For starters, even if you were to confiscate all of the wealth of every member of the hated top 1 percent, it would not come anywhere near closing the nation’s $1.2 trillion deficit.
George Mason University economist Walter Williams observed in a column last April:
“This year, Congress will spend $3.7 trillion dollars. That turns out to be about $10 billion per day. Can we prey upon the rich to cough up the money? According to IRS statistics, roughly 2 percent of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It's not even yacht and Learjet money. All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25 percent, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100 percent tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there's a problem because there are 224 more days left in the year.”
Barack Obama has already proven that overregulation deters the capital investment that creates jobs. Government interventions deter job creations and potentially encourage further job losses.
Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe observes that these regulations are already having severe negative impacts:
According to Inhofe, the administration’s proposed CO2/greenhouse gas-emission regulations—due out in November—could chop $300 billion to $400 billion alone off the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) each year. Estimates from the Senate Energy and Public Works Committee's Republican staff estimates this regulation could cost in excess of the 2 million jobs that would have been lost as a result of Waxman-Markey Climate Change Bill.
Other estimates suggest that the EPA’s Utility MACT and Transport Rule could cost $184 billion and 1.4 million jobs. Statistics Inhofe provided suggest the rule could shutter hundreds of coal-fired power plants around the country—equaling as much as 20% of the nation’s total energy output.
This rule would require 23 states to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions from their power plants to reduce their effects on neighboring states.
The National Associations of Manufacturers estimates the Utility MACT and cross-state air pollution rules will cost its members $18 billion annually, and drive its members’ electricity costs up by 11.5%. It also shares Inhofe’s analysis that these regulations could cost 1.4 million jobs annually.
Coal ash regulations would touch countless industries, such as concrete, road construction, plastics and petrochemicals, among others. The Partnership for Affordable Clean Energy estimated in a June 2011 study that the EPA’s coal ash regulations could cost 316,000 jobs and cost the economy around $110 billion.
The protesters should study economics before attacking capitalism. What would they replace it with – moribund central planning. Even the Soviets and Eastern Europeans found they couldn’t escape the laws of supply and demand.
Socialism only benefits the well-connected and those in political power while squeezing out everyone else. History shows that revolutions only replace one groups of corrupt elites with another even more corrupt group.
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