Posted on 03/16/2009 11:46:56 AM PDT by Signalman
President Barack Obama’s rapid race into socialism is creating an escalating tax revolt. With a never-ending stream of stimulus packages and new entitlement programs, the Americans who will be stuck with the bill are shouting a clear message: “Enough!”
Many organizations are calling for a Tax Day Tea Party (http://taxdayteaparty.com/) on April 15. To Democrats, “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share,” but many of the top 20 percent of wage-owners who pay 83 percent of the income taxes are taking to the streets.
Yes, Obama is my president, and as Warren Buffett said, “We’re all in the same boat.” But if the boat’s captain is so busy enjoying his applauding throng to notice that he’s sending us full-speed into an iceberg, you’d better do more than just disagree.
Writing letters, complaining to your representatives, even tax-revolt protests may not be enough. When workers reject their contract, they strike. Maybe it’s time for Atlas to do more than shrug! Is it time for the top tax-paying Americans to strike?
John Galt, the fictional protagonist in Ayn Rand’s classic novel “Atlas Shrugged,” responded to the growing regulations and taxation in Rand’s fictional socialist America by convincing “the rich” to leave and let socialism fail. How would you respond if John Galt wrote this letter today?
My fellow taxpaying Americans,
I write you to warn you and to challenge you. We deserve this economic collapse. We’ve allowed our politicians to sacrifice justice to forced compassion, trade our freedom for government dependence and confiscate earned wealth to fund more entitlements.
For more than two centuries, the American Dream has demonstrated what excellence unleashed can do, but for decades, politicians have conducted a war on excellence. Personal responsibility has given way to entitlement. Instead of honoring excellence, we elect politicians to confiscate as much money as possible from wealth producers to fund entitlements for those who haven’t earned it.
Some of today’s bailout recipients are no better than burglars, but burglars don’t ask us to sanction their crime. As the government seizes your wealth through unfair taxation rates, liberal politicians want voluntary compliance from you, the tax-paying victims.
When America began, government cost the average citizen $20 in today’s money. That’s $20 a year! Taxes rose during wars, but for most of the history of America, spending never exceeded a few hundred dollars per citizen.
During and after World War II, government just kept expanding.
The cost of the recent stimulus packages alone is more than $18,000 per household. We are witnessing the climax of over 70 years of creeping socialism. America created a system that produced the wealth of the world, and we’re letting the destroyers dismantle it.
Citizens and companies now compete not to achieve but to receive the biggest bailouts. The responsible citizens pay, and the beggars collect. But money taken from the achievement of others won’t buy intelligence for the fool, admiration for the lazy or respect for the incompetent. The irresponsible takers are unwelcome hitchhikers.
We have always been a compassionate people, but compassionate Americans, not the government, should help their neighbors in need.
When those who fund our growing federal debt stop buying, who’ll pay the bill? Washington could confiscate all the taxable income of everyone making over $75,000 and it would barely produce $4 trillion.
Our unchecked entitlement system will eventually collapse; I challenge you to make that happen now! It’s time for Atlas to shrug — to calmly, consciously and deliberately go on strike for true fairness. Our collective response must be simple and non-violent: “No more! I will cease to achieve, invent, produce, hire, serve or invest until all Americans pay the same flat income-tax rate!”
Re-engage when America once again is a country that protects everyone’s rights — the right to property, the right for every person to rise as far as she’s able. We ask for no special rights — only freedom to take our own risks, to bear our own losses and to experience our own rewards.
For those of you who voted for this liberal takeover, take pause. Do you have so little confidence in yourself and your children’s ability that you can’t succeed without government subsidies?
It’s not too late to choose freedom over dependence, earned rewards over entitlement and personal responsibility over collective rights.
American automobile companies can emerge from bankruptcy with a smaller but more vibrant business model. Out of a bankrupt America can emerge a leaner government based on America’s founding principles. With shared equal responsibility and shared equal opportunity, a new optimism and entrepreneurial spirit will unleash an economic recovery like we have not seen in decades.
Risk striking for a new America worth believing in!
— John Galt
There is no letter. There is no strike. John Galt does not exist. How would you respond if he did?
Is that why colleges and universities offer Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics, but Bachelor of Science degrees in Accounting?
Eeewwwww, sorry I asked.
I’d argue that Accounting is not a Science either. (See Madoff, et al.).
so, sten ... does taking rand seriously mean that you hide your capital letters just like you’d hide any other capital?
It MIGHT be a science if done CORRECTLY, though.
You know, if it weren’t for metaphors, we’d all be up a creek without a paddle.
EXACTLY......then on to cash only.
But Rand's description of the power of liberal media is freaky! How words and ideas and books become "plugged" across storylines until they seep into the mass consciousness...
Still, she has enough sense to vote Republican because she understands the economy for people like her will always be better long term when the adults are in charge. I once suggested to her that with her expertise on the various government programs, she could make a good living steering people on how to get their share.
She looked at me like I was crazy and said "there's no market for that when the experts are already working for the government and giving away this advice for free."
Indeed, well stated
The Accounting theory is changing all the time. Plus the Feds and the LAW have an input. Numbers don’t lie by there are plenty of lying accountantacy systems (the Fed gov’t as the prime example).
I don't know about you, but as a Boy Scout, we always carried at least one extra paddle for trips into the wilderness.
I would quit medicine and move to Galt Gulch.
Economics lost much of its cachet when it begin to admit liberal arts and behavioral science people who dumbed-down the math and turned a science into an art of deception, behavioral manipulation and political excuse making to explain away all the failures of the left.
I had thought these nimrods reached their zenith during my undergraduate years during the Carter administration when a 1950's theory called the Phillips Curve was dusted off to explain why both unemployment and inflation could continue to rise indefinitely. The only solution was lowered expectations.
Then Reagan was elected, the Phillips curve was put back into its 1950's limited context and I thought we would never hear about it again.
But Oba Mao's current team of economics advisors has ensured that it will be brought back.
LOL
Thank you first laugh I have had today.
I am not disparaging your SIL, but the insanity of her statement
Would appear that she is more knowledgeable of govt than minions that are dispensing govt largesse.
There is a statement attributed to known statesman in 18th or 19th century that fits this situation but name and reference escapes at this time.
Atlas Shrugged ping!
The rich will just declare themselves citizens of Barbados, SwitzerlandIf this were an option, why haven't they done so already? BTW, do you have any idea what the taxes in Switzerland are like? There's your first hint.
As did I, as a youngster at Camp Literal. We lost our Scoutmaster though. He was trying to teach us how to tie flies, and...
:)
the lack of caps was due to being on the road with a laptop. the keyboard gymnastics for my (big) fingers were sacrificed for speed
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