Imagine what a success would be like

Glenn Reynolds linked to this graph from the Detroit News this weekend showing effects of the Bush tax cuts on the distribution of the tax burden among income groups.

At a flat rate for everyone of course people who make x% more money will pay x% more in taxes, so rich will always be paying more in taxes than poor. That's not good enough for lefties, however - they want a "progressive" tax system in which the next x% in income will cost more than x% in additional taxes. Fairness be damned - the intent is to cause the richer people, who presumably are more able to pay, to pay an even greater share of the tax burden.

No one has ever explained to me just how it is that a public work, welfare payment, missile or other public expenditure is somehow more valuable to the rich than the poor. One could argue that the opposite is true. But lefties figure that unevenly distributed income is somehow unjust, so they offer injustice in return by making people who have more pay more for the sole reason that they have more. Should we do that at grocery stores too? "Paper or plastic?" "What was your adjusted gross income last year?"

Anyway, the lefties screamed bloody murder at Bush's tax rate cuts for upper incomes. Knowing that their knee-jerk followers aren't too sharp mathematically, they equated lower tax rates with lower tax receipts. That's been known to be wrong for centuries, but lefties won't let lies stand in their way - it fits the lies they retail about Republicans so it became their story.

Well look at the charts and see what happened. Despite the lower rates, the rich paid more of the total income tax bill! A Republican extracted more money from the "rich".

One would think that lefties, who always want more money for govt, would take a lesson like this to heart - it's possible to increase receipts at a lower rate. Admittedly it doesn't always work (but the higher tax rates already are, the more likely it will).

But who says lefties want more govt revenue above all? There's another reason for them to keep taxes and other burdens higher than they should - it increases the value of their favors. Why else would a sane businessman give money to lefties?

No, the above isn't too rigorously presented. If you want that there are econobloggers out there who can do a better job - try the Carnival of the Capitalists. But they'll wind up reaching the same conclusions.

One last thing. Notice the headline of the linked article: "Bush fails to get deserved credit for tax cut benefits". What kind of wording is that? As long as he beats that undertaxed rich guy John Kerry, if Bush's "failure" is in getting credit for what he did, I can live with that.