Monday, October 11, 2004

Soak these rich!

For all you liberal nanny-staters who believe government cures all ills, assuages all hurts, and will provide us lovely pastures with flowers and bunnies and butterflies if only the capitalist pigs didn't own everything, chew on this:

Teresa Heinz Kerry's effective income tax rate (based on the information they actually have released) is under 13% -- $725K on $6.8M. The Monk doesn't quite make that coin, but he pays a much higher effective income tax rate. Then again, The Monk can't afford all those offshore investments Longface has where he hides his money.

Kerry is the richest man to run for president. The richest Senator after Kerry (see here) is Jon Corzine, D-NJ, followed by the anonymous Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and socialist healthcare planner Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) [oops, originally said Rockhead was from Delaware and the Blue Hen Staters are good people; sorry].

I'm not a soak-the-rich believer because most of the rich get soaked. The wealthiest 5% of Americans pay nearly 1/2 of all income taxes. But the top marginal tax rate on earned income is 35%, the top rate on long-term dividends is 15%. Something is not right about Kerry and THK paying 12.8%.

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