This is from Bulldog.
The other day, former Google employee Doug Edwards asked President Obama to please raise my taxes. Edwards has the luxury of being "unemployed by choice." This is a very nice choice to have, one which I wish I had when I was unemployed. Not having the financial wherewithal Mr. Edwards has, it forced me to make some very different choices during my period of unemployment. One of them was not related to raising my taxes at all.
Where Edwards, and Warren Buffett, go off the rails is their assumption that raising their taxes is something they should be allowed to impose on others who may not share their views. If Mr. Edwards has a very good friend who is also making money by selling his stock from "a small startup that did quite well", it's quite possible that friend is happy with his tax rate. Is it fair or right for Mr. Edwards to tell his friend that his taxes should be raised?
More importantly, what is Mr. Edwards doing with his money that he wants the government to have? He pointed to Pell Grants, infrastructure and job training programs as things he considered important and worthy of having his money taxed. We could all agree that infrastructure is in need of improvement. But couldn't Mr. Edwards put his money to better use by setting up scholarships and grants on his own, or becoming an entrepreneur and doing his own job training program by starting a business? Mr. Edwards, I don't want to tell you how to spend your money. After all, it's yours, and I have no right to tell you how it is best used. That's up to you. If you want to pay more taxes, then pay. After all, you can gift money to the government. Nobody's stopping you.
On the other hand, if I had the luxury of Mr. Edwards' position, I'm fairly certain I could set up a scholarship fund and provide money for schools far more efficiently than the government. Why would I want the government to take my money, spend hundreds of thousands of what they collect on bureaucrats who don't add value, and have those people distribute the money to needy school students? There's less money to help the students. Of course, it does become a remarkably inefficient jobs program. I suppose that's the joy. You've been taxed and given several people useless jobs that you could probably do better on your own.
If I had the background that Mr. Edwards has, and lived in the startup capital of the US, I could probably be an entrepreneur. Then my money does several things. It becomes productive, I get to have my own jobs program, and the company and all its employees get taxed. Funny thing about the free market; you can actually be quite effective with your money if you have a good idea.
Mr. Edwards and Buffett aren't asking not for their taxes to be raised, but for everyone's taxes to be raised, and they have missed the very point that not raising taxes creates value if people want it to create value. Edwards and Buffett think the money has to go to the government to be effective. Sadly, the money will produce nothing of value, and the government will only ask for more later after this money is misspent.
Mr. Edwards, the only thing I can think is that you mean well, but you have missed the boat entirely. It would probably be far more useful to everyone if you and your "Patriotic Millionaires for Higher Taxes" set up a Venture Capital Fund or funded some schools in down and out regions of the US. I'm sure all of your "Patriotic Millionaire" friends are very smart and capable people, so one option would help create jobs and taxes, while the other would reduce our reliance on the federal government for handouts. Either way, you get to feel better and we all win.
