Redefining Wealth

In what came as no shock to me....
“An income tax surcharge on highly paid Americans emerged as the leading option Wednesday night as House Democrats sought ways to pay for health care legislation that President Barack Obama favors, several officials said. As discussed in the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, the surtax would apply to individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $200,000 and couples over $250,000, (since changed to $350,000) they added.” AP July 8, 2009

While there are plenty of discussions going on about the pros and cons of nationalized health care, I want to comment on this notion of taxing the wealthy.

Ever since his first day on the campaign, Obama has defined wealth using the same numbers cited above, usually in making the argument that he intended to take more money from them because “they really don’t need it”; and while I will not argue that someone making $200,000 per year is making a lot of money, I do not believe that it automatically defines them as wealthy.

Every year, Forbes magazine lists the 400 richest people in America, however they define wealth by net worth which is the value of everything that they own, minus their debt. By Forbes definition, Warren Buffett is wealthy with a net worth of $50 Billion, however in the latest information we have, Buffet’s annual salary in 2006 was only $100,000, placing him way below the standard set by Obama (I do want to point out here that Mr. Buffet is a big supporter of Obama and has helped him in numerous ways).

Further more, the latest public information about our elected officials shows that Speaker Pelosi has a net worth of about $62 Million, yet her congressional salary of $165,200 puts her way below the wealth standard as well. In fact, if you start looking at the net worth of all of our elected officials, you would see that the latest reports show a median net worth of $746,000. The Senate especially is truly a millionaires club with a median net worth of $1.7 million.

Said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which conducted the latest study on congressional wealth:

"In the House of Representatives, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., ranks No. 1, with $397 million, followed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., with $343 million. Rep Robin Hayes, R-N.C., ranks third, with $173.4 million. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., ranks sixth, with $62 million.

"In the Senate, the two Democrats from Massachusetts claimed two of the top three spots.
"Sen. John Kerry led the pack, with $336 million, while Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ranked third, with $104 million. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., ranked second, with $241.5 million”.

Senator Kohl is one of my Senators and in a recent exchange, said in no uncertain terms that there would be no need to include government employees and elected officials in the new Health Care system meaning that they were going to keep their current health care system, while forcing the rest of us into their newly created model.

So not only are they not going to participate in the program they’re quickly shoving down our throats, they also are making sure that they won’t be using their money to help fund it. So our taxes will be used to fund both.

If after this year, you still think that we have any semblance of a representative government of the people, then I have some carbon credits that I’d like to sell you. This new ruling class has positioned themselves to dictate just about every aspect of our lives from what we will drive, how much energy we will use, what kind of food we eat and how much of our money “we need” to keep, while exempting themselves from the life they demand that we lead.

In 1913, Woodrow Wilson started chipping away at the Constitution, in the 1930’s FDR took a sledgehammer to it and in 2009, this Government has brought in the steamroller. I can’t wait to hear the rationalization for all this!