Articles: What Does Fair Share (in Taxes) Mean?

By Richard Winchester

 

What do left-wing Democrats such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders have in mind when they demand that wealthy Americans pay their “fair share” in taxes? 

Demanding that the rich pay their fair share in taxes is part of the age-old Democrat Party playbook that uses class warfare to acquire and hold power. It conveys the presumption that the big-money types are unfairly gaming the tax code so they don’t have to pony-up to Uncle Sam’s coffers on April 15th.

Sadly, this ploy often succeeds, probably because leftists are seldom asked to specify what they mean when they demand somebody pay a fair share in taxes.

Thomas Sowell took a step in the right direction in an essay posted on Nationalreview.com last October 21st. He opened by noting that people who demand the rich pay their fair share do not specify what either the rich or fair share mean. Essentially, Sowell stated, fair share means, simply, “more.”

Sowell made two important points. First, when governments raise income taxes on the wealthy, such as Maryland did in 2012, tax revenues actually fell, because many wealthy people left the state. On the other hand, when U.S. governments in the 1920s (Coolidge), 1960s (JFK/LBJ), 1980s (Reagan), and in 2001 (Bush #43) have lowered income tax rates, the result has been increased revenues.

Sowell concluded, nevertheless, that cries to “soak the rich” have worked again and again, and may also succeed in 2016. That’s probably because terms like the rich and fair share are used “not to convey facts or even allegations of facts, but simply to arouse emotions.” As he noted, cries to soak the rich are “one of the many signs of the mindlessness of our times...”

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Articles: What Does Fair Share (in Taxes) Mean?