One of the perils of trying to become a full-time blogger/consultant is that your income inevitably declines as you try to establish your businesses.  So I don’t expect to make enough money anytime soon to climb into the $250,000/year and up tax bracket.  From Business Week:

Marginal tax rates for families earning over $250,000 will rise to 39.6%, up from the 33% or 35% they pay today. And taxes on dividends and capital gains for those families will rise from today’s 15% to 20%. Still, senior Administration officials point out, that’s an improvement over current law. With the end of the Bush tax cuts in 2010, dividend and capital gains rates had been scheduled to pop back to the 20% level in effect before 2001 for virtually all families. Now, for those earning under $250,000 the current 15% rate will remain.

The upper middle classes are already moaning about this:

Businessman B.G. Raymond, who walked into the salon as Ta was mid-manicure, agreed.  “Socialism,” said Raymond, co-owner of Potomac Pizza just across Falls Road. He added that he has passed the income threshold in previous years but not this one, with the economy tanking and business down. “I think this is terrible. It’s socialism, not capitalism,” he said.

That’s right:  a change in the tax frate from roughly 34 percent to roughly 40 percent isn’t fiscal policy, it’s socialism.  Run for the hills!  Obama wants to take your Lexus and your latte and give them to poor people!

I have a slightly different perspective on this.  I think if you were to ask most Americans whether they would like to make their current salary and be taxed at the relevant rate, or make $250,000 a year in return for an increase in taxes, what do you think the response would be?

I applaud those who have been industrious enough to earn that much money.  I hope to join them someday.  But for crying out loud, what makes you think that it’s an entitlement?  And if you’re so worried about it, are you willing to sacrifice 6 percent of the government services you receive or will receive — say social security, medicare, or defense?  Are you willing to see the economy go further into the toilet and make all your hard work irrelevant because nobody is buying your product anymore?

I didn’t think so.  So shut up already.

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