Bill Gates (father and son) want a high earner income tax....why???

Dr Laffer of the Laffer Curve and great growth policies points out the problem with people like Bill Gates pushing for "progressive taxation", e.g. regressive tax policies.  But please Dr Laffer, don't expect them to care.  Bill has his.  And it amazes me....Gates is anything if not a great businessman.  If he has his head out of his ass he should know what this will do to Washington's business climate. 

Arthur Laffer: The Bill Gates Income Tax - WSJ.com 

Framed on a wall in my office is a personal letter to me from Bill Gates the elder. "I am a fan of progressive taxation," he wrote. "I would say our country has prospered from using such a system—even at 70% rates to say nothing of 90%."


It's one thing to believe in bad policy. It's quite another to push it on others. But Mr. Gates Sr.—an accomplished lawyer, now retired—and his illustrious son are now trying to have their way with the people of the state of Washington.


Mr. Gates Sr. has personally contributed $500,000 to promote a statewide proposition on Washington's November ballot that would impose a brand new 5% tax on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and couples earning over $400,000 per year. An additional 4% surcharge would be levied on individuals and couples earning more than $500,000 and $1 million, respectively.

...To imagine what such a large soak-the-rich income tax would do to Washington, we need only examine how states with the highest income-tax rates perform relative to their zero-income tax counterparts...


...In the past decade, the nine states with the highest personal income tax rates have seen gross state product increase by 59.8%, personal income grow by 51%, and population increase by 6.1%. The nine states with no personal income tax have seen gross state product increase by 86.3%, personal income grow by 64.1%, and population increase by 15.5%....

...Over the past 50 years, 11 states have introduced state income taxes exactly as Messrs. Gates and their allies are proposing—and the consequences have been devastating.


. ..The 11 states where income taxes were adopted over the past 50 years are: Connecticut (1991), New Jersey (1976), Ohio (1971), Rhode Island (1971), Pennsylvania (1971), Maine (1969), Illinois (1969), Nebraska (1967), Michigan (1967), Indiana (1963) and West Virginia (1961).


Each and every state that introduced an income tax saw its share of total U.S. output decline. Some of the states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have become fiscal basket cases. As the nearby chart shows, even West Virginia, which was poor to begin with, got relatively poorer after adopting a state income tax.


Washington's I-1098 proposes a state income tax with a maximum rate higher than any of those initially adopted by the other 11 states. In one fell swoop, Washington would move from being one of the lowest-tax states in the nation to being one of the top nine highest. It's economic suicide.


The states that have high income tax rates or have adopted a state income tax over the past 50 years haven't even gotten the money they hoped for. They haven't avoided budget crises, nor have they provided better lives for the poor. The ongoing financial travails of California, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan and New York are cases in point.


...What's true for those states with the highest tax rates is doubly true for the 11 states that have instituted state income taxes over the past half-century. They too have lost huge sums of tax revenue.


...If Mr. Gates Sr. and his son feel so strongly about taxing the rich, they should simply give the state a chunk of their own money and be done with it. Leave the rest of Washington's taxpayers alone.

Dr Laffer, you're missing something.  Hypocrisy is a trademark of rich liberals.  Kinda like the Kennedy's who liked high taxes after the Old Man Joe made the family fortune as bootlegger...Teddy really thought well of high income taxe rates while his money was protected from them in muni's and "foundations".  Paying taxes is only for the little people. 

I recall when New York raised the income tax again and Limbaugh said he was leaving.  That idiot governor said "If I knew this would have gotten Limbaugh out I would have raised taxes earlier...."  Gee Gov, are you missing the taxes the man paid....and are you counting the moving vans taking people (i.e. taxpayers) out of the state....and leaving tax consumers only in their wake.

Hopefully the people of Washington state realize this is like the declining definition of "rich" in Washington D.C. and kill this bill...I have my doubts.  The idiots liberals who infected the state will probably vote it in.  And states like Texas (no income tax) will take the companies and jobs from them. :)