We have a few younger relatives and friends, who are/will be in the new tax bs.
A couple have told their bosses or if they control/run the company, they only want to earn about 200K and have more time off each year.
They saw this coming with the Joe the Plumber and reactions from Obozo to Joe’s comments.
So they are spending more time on vacations and/or just off work.
Two young couples in their late 30’s-early 40’s, where the wife is the big earner, the husbands have given up working and are house dads.
Another couple in their early fourties with now two teen agers, had planned on the wife going back to work. She is now messing around with a couple of small business startups with minimal pay instead of going with a good 6 figure salary.
All of them saw this coming and knew if they brought in more money, they would have gone to another level of spending and then taxes from the Obozos. So they are capping their incomes and doing more enjoyable things.
This is the kind of "Going Galt" that I've been seeing (heck, I've been DOING) for a number of years. Lots of people not completely off the rails like in Rand's novel ....but only pulling along at about 50% of their capacity.
For instance, my dad was a computer consultant. For a long, long time, he'd only plan to work for a certain number of months a year. He'd say "After I reach X in income, 2 out of every 3 dollars I make goes directly to the government. Why bother?" He'd usually wind up piddling around the house for 4-5 months a year, only working contract gigs if he felt like it, or if one of his customers really, really needed a hand.
He retired completely a few years ago. Said that it was more fun to play with the grandkids than it was to work.
Just recently he told me that, even though his spending is scaled way back, it didn't really change his lifestyle all that much. I'm paying *very* close attention to what he's doing, and learning one heck of a lot. :-)