A question … if the Democrats manage to get some sort of tax increase on the evil millionaires and billionaires, is that going to be enough for them?  What do the progs and libs do when they figure out that taxing the rich isn’t going to help them decrease deficits and solve our budget problems?  So then what?  They push their tax increase plans just a bit further … ever further. 

So now the Democrats are pushing for a millionaires tax … again.  This time their tax-the-rich plan is being floated to for another extension of the current payroll tax cut, Harry Reid says that the Senate will vote for a bill that imposes a 3.25% surtax on incomes over $1 million.  Notice that we are talking income here, not wealth.  So evil rich people like Warren Buffett would escape this tax, seeing as he receives a salary of just $100,000 a year.

The Democrats have set this up beautifully.  Here’s how it goes, according to Harry Reid: “If [Republicans] choose to oppose this payroll tax cut, we’ll know what they meant to say was, we can’t afford to raise taxes on the rich,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “In fact, more clearly, we cannot afford to raise taxes on the rich, but we’re happy to raise taxes on the middle class.”

You gotta give the democrats credit here .. it’s a great ploy.  They will be able to effectively paint the Republicans as protecting millionaires at the expense of the American middle class.  As we move the funding of Social Security and Medicare benefits from payroll taxes --- contributions, if you will --- to funding from taxes levied on the rich, we move Social Security and Medicare into just more government welfare programs. 

You had to know when this idea of a “temporary” cut in payroll taxes came about there would be people in congress who would push for extension after extension, and playing the class warfare game against anyone who suggests that people ought to pay for their own Social Security and Medicare benefits.  Which will it be?  Retirement benefits that are paid for while you’re working?  Or welfare programs funded by taxes on high achievers.

By the way … this 3.5% surtax on the rich to pay for Social Security and Medicare?  Add that to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts … you’re looking at an increase in taxes on the most productive citizens in the 8% range.  Yeah … that’s going to help grow our economy, isn’t it?