TAXES?!

A recent report indicated that the federal government will increase taxes on dividends and long-term capital gains from their favorable 15% rate to the new ordinary income rate of 39.6%. This also comes with the stipulation that the rate will eventually head to over 44% within the next two years. Why is this egregious? Because it taxes people for saving money.

Any interest income earned from savings accounts is considered a dividend by the IRS and is subject to dividend tax requirements. Coupled with increasing the tax on savings, the government is choking investments by hammering smart investors who put their money into companies that grow, produce income, and contribute to our economy.

This tax will be used to backstop losses from saving homeowners who are underwater.

So let me get this straight: we are taxed for spending, taxed for investing, taxed for saving, and taxed for breathing (just kidding, but I hear an air tax is in the works). In what world does this make sense? Why should we do anything but hide our earnings in a hole in the ground and demand that we always be paid in cash?

Ah, but the benevolent federal government is coming to the rescue! Saving people who bought homes they never could afford, bankrupting companies who adhered the to very lending practices the government wrote, cutting rates on lenders who are owed money for the public's spending sprees, and all the while the government has the audacity to suggest that they are not the problem but the solution.

I understand there are victims out there. People who were truly taken advantage of in the days of loose money. But who created that environment? Who demanded that every American have a home (a reckless and irresponsible policy)? Who pressured the Fed to keep rates low to induce cheap money? Who subsidized the worst-run companies in the country (Fannie and Freddie) with the sole intent to cheapen the dollar and get people in homes they had no business buying?!

I cannot believe the sheer audacity of our government. They sit on their perches and wag their fingers at "fat-cat" bankers for creating the mess when the bankers simply played by the rules that congress created! The bankers have shareholders to answer to for their stupidity and greed, but what about congress? Why are we not demanding an audit of their arrogance?

Taxing one person's savings and investments to pay for anther's foolishness is not "redistributing income." It's theft.