Yeah, that’ll work.  Let’s go with that.  And of course this has nothing to do with class envy.  No siree, Bob.

Here’s what happens when we tax those worthies.  When we hit up the Obama-rich, those making more than $250k per year (or those families doing better than $200k per year), we’re actually taxing small businesses, which are organized as LLCs, S-Corporations, partnerships, and so on, so that the business’ profits are passed through to the owners, who pay income tax on that money.  Businesses or their owners, though, including large businesses that nominally pay their own taxes, don’t actually pay those taxes; they just act as go-betweens between Uncle Sugar and their customers: those taxes are passed through as increased prices which their customers must pay to buy their product.

Thus, the benefit of taxing the “rich” is this: these business’ product prices will rise, leading to less buying, leading to slower growth and lower hiring—or reduced hiring from actually shrinking businesses—leading to more leisure time for us as we continue to be unable to find a job.

Here’s just one example of how that works.  In the ’90s, the Feds instituted a 10% luxury tax on yachts, ostensibly aimed at the really rich.  The American yachting industry virtually disappeared as a result, while the rich went on being rich.  As the President of the Institute for Policy Innovation, Tom Giovanetti, put it

The luxury tax didn’t hurt the wealthy.  It hurt the people that make things for the wealthy.

Sure.  The top 10% already pay 70% of the total income tax collected by the Feds while the bottom 50% of income earners pay around 4% of the total, so the rich plainly aren’t paying their share.  Raise the taxes on the rich.  That’s the ticket.

Here’s a list of President Obama’s tax increases that are scheduled to kick in, in six short months.  The list is from the IPI’s TaxBytes.

• Bush tax cuts expire.  Obama has steadfastly refused to extend them beyond 1 Jan 13 unless the Republicans accede to his demand to raise taxes elsewhere under the Progressive fiction that tax cuts must be “paid for” with tax increases rather than spending cuts.
• Obama payroll tax cut expires.  This is a tax cut that has made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  It’s only useful purpose has been to bamboozle Republicans as they continue to make a hash of their messaging.  This cut reduced funding for an already dysfunctional and rapidly approaching bankruptcy Social Security system, while at the same time the Democrats in government have absolutely refused to allow any reform of that system.
• The child tax credit will be reduced from its current $1,000 per child to its original $500.
• The death tax will explode.  In 2010, the death tax—the tax on your estate, collected by the Feds before your heirs get a dime—had been repealed, but only for that year.  This year, and this year only, that death tax was 35% (!) of the value of your estate above $5.12 million.  On 1 Jan, it will go to 55% (!!) of the value of your estate above $1 million.  The Feds think they deserve your money more than your heirs do.
• Obamacare taxes (this is not an exhaustive list):
  • If you’re rich (which Obama defines as you making $250k or more per year, or your family making $200k or more*), the Hospital Insurance Tax goes up: the hospital insurance portion of your payroll tax will rise from 2.9% to 3.8%.  This is carefully not indexed for inflation, either.  At current inflation rates, that means that in 10 years’ time, that rich threshold drops to the equivalent of today’s $190k ($152k for families).
  • Medical device manufacturers will begin being charged a 2.3% excise tax on top line revenues—not even on profits.  There’s a pro-business move….
  • Medical deductions on your personal income tax (whether you’re “rich” or not) will have to exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income instead of the current 7.5%.  This certainly helps the less fortunate among us.

Hmm….

*Notice that: here’s the marriage penalty back, too.