"The rich get richer, the poor get the picture ..."

As someone who's decidedly not wealthy, I'm getting really tired of the mantra, "The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer." As if that's the wealthy's fault (as far as I can tell, only those who are quasi-communist and keenly buy into the notions underlying class warfare -- e.g., "Let's sock it to the rich" -- could ever think so; I'm open to seeing another perspective).

Do people really think the wealthy by-and-large spend their days looking for ever more ways of getting blood from the turnips who are their employees or the vast underclass we have in this country (12-25% depending on your source)? Have you seen the income tax rates for the upper 10%? The upper 1%? Did you know that  according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, 1% of the taxable population (i.e., the wealthy) shoulders 70% of the federal tax burden? Or that "the bottom 20 percent of American earners paid just three-tenths of a percent of the total tax burden." Seriously: Who is not paying their fair share?

Also, what power do the wealthy have that we the unwealthy do not? They can move their wealth to where it's not taxed as much. Do you know how many millionaires have their residence in Nevada but work in Los Angeles or the Bay Area? How many millionaires states such as New York and Nevada have lost in the last few decades?

Do you know why British rockers such as Rod Stewart moved to the US back in the 1970s? It wasn't because they loved American ideals or had grown disillusioned with their homeland. It was because of the UK's confiscatory (i.e., enormously high) tax rates. The quest to use the tax code as a means of achieving social justice backfired. As a result, the very poor and working poor high tax rates were meant to help suffered even more.

Tell you what: When the rest of us start paying our fair share, then let's go to those who create jobs with their wealth (only a jackass hoards their profits; if you're smart, you prudently use those to try and grow them, and that means increasing production and markets, which means creating jobs) and ask them to do the same.

Until then, Mr. President, Mr. Reid, stop playing the class warfare card. Stop being so divisive. Start doing what is necessary to bring down the high unemployment rates your policies have caused so that the empty tax coffers will fill of their own accord.

Since that's not likely to be the case, listen to one of my favorite bands on the subject (although MO and I are poles apart on the subject ... still, it's a rockin' song).