Surely your understanding of the destructiveness of government confiscation is more insightful than this.

Ha Ha – very funny. Unless you think that's a good description of crooked back-room deals to channel taxpayers money to favored cronies.

That's a joke, right?

Do you really, truly, actually not distinguish between a tax that contributes revenue to open, democratically established federal programs and a banana republic kick-back?

No business wants to invest in a place that takes a large portion of your earned wealth. Whether they throw it in a hole, give it to tyrants, or build the worlds greatest monument – it is still a large portion of wealth forcibly removed.

This is the objectionable part. It is always the objectionable part no matter the surrounding politics. That some political environments are worse than others does not change the objection which Don highlights.

Do you really think voters understand they are taxing themselves when their elected representatives tax corporations? That's the big problem with corporate taxation. Unlike payroll and income taxes, the corporate tax is completely hidden from those who pay it.

If voters understood that they were actually paying for those "open, democratically established federal programs", we'd have far fewer such programs.

What happens to the money afterward is irrelevant. It reduces incentive the exact same way.

Be it a crooked African head of state or a cultural arts program, one would have no desire to spend 2-3 hours a day doing community service for either of them.

Can you explain to us why that changes his point?

If investors don't want to invest in something where the government skims 20% off the top, I fail to see why investors would feel differently about that simply because the government doing the skimming is democratically elected.

I had to scratch my head when I read that.

From Obama, or any other of the big taxers.

The pot calling the kettle black, and without the slightest realization of it?

And then Daniel's comment.

Was he serious?

Then it comes to me.

Investors recoil at the politicians' taking the money for their own personal use but welcome it when it is for the good of the people, for the nation, for creating a favorable climate for investment. The 20% is too much to pay just for tribute but not too much for the favorable climate for investment.

That I suppose is the reasoning.

And quite apart from judgment, there is no rebuttal short of the argument for the the climate created by the free market vs that by the state, that the state and its taxes should be abolished altogether, that we get nothing from them that we couldn't get better and cheaper on the free market — with but one exception, the redistribution of wealth and income. And that is what it comes down to, the "bottom line," as Prof Boudreaux has so aptly called it.

Let's all have an open democratic vote about whether DK should donate all his assets to Cafe Hayek and then go jump in a lake. I'm sure he'll comply with the wishes of the plurality.

Don,

That 39% is on top of the cost of exceptionally stupid regulatory compliance which serves only to destroy choice and raise prices for consumers and wasting otherwise productive individuals' time.

There's probably already a word or two that describes what just happened here. If there is a word or two, I just don't know what (it) they are. If there's not, what about kuehn?

If keen means "intellectually alert : having or characteristic of a quick penetrating mind" then kuehn can be "intellectually lost : characteristic of accusing someone of ignorance while only demonstrating one's own ignorance.

Daniel, that's some 'kuehn' insight from you above.

Cafe Kuehn indeed.

ELIMINATE the corporate income tax.

Since individuals already pay personal income tax, there is no reason why those individuals working for or owning corporations should be inflicted with this additional penalty. Profits that are not reinvested in the company already get taxed as wages, dividends, or ultimately as capital gains–and the rates of these taxes could be equalized to all count as income.

This is already essentially realized for small corporations that structure under Chapter S.

Throw in a law that counts total compensation as an employee's taxable income, and adjust personal income tax rates to make the law revenue neutral, and you will relieve another government-imposed burden on our economy–healthcare inflation.

To make the changes more palatable, cut government spending sufficiently to give everyone a personal income tax cut.

Vote VikingVista in 2010.

"This is about more than just holding elections. It's also about what happens between elections. Repression can take many forms, and too many nations, even those that have elections, are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves … or if police – if police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top … or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end."

Sounds like he's talking about Chicago politics.

You got my vote!

Too bad the only way to get elected these days is to promise more government, not less.

BHO: hypocrite