Rice County Republicans

Well, the DFL is showing its true colors now …

Senate DFLers: Raise all income taxes through 2013
St. Paul, Minn. — (AP) – Senate Democrats want to raise every Minnesotan’s income taxes for four years to help erase one of the biggest deficits in state history.
The tax bill unveiled Tuesday would crank up all three current income tax rates and create a new top rate for the best-paid. The higher rates would be retroactive to the beginning of this year and expire at the end of 2013.

Hey, here’s a novel concept, how about eliminating some entitlements and subsidies instead? Hmmmmm?

And if you think death is permanent, you should see how permanent a temporary tax increase is.

No wonder “Going Galt” is the latest buzz-phrase … and this sums it up nicely,

The doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, serious small-business owners, top salespeople, and other professionals and entrepreneurs who make this country run work considerably harder than pretty much anyone else (including most of the chattering class, and all politicians). They are not robber barons, or trust-fund babies, or plutocrats, or even celebrities. They are mostly the meritocrats who worked hard in high school and got into the better colleges and grad schools, where they studied while others partied. They pushed through grueling hours and unpleasant “up or out” policies in their twenties and thirties at top law firms, banks, hospitals, and businesses to earn salaries in the solid six figures (or low seven) today — in their peak earning years. Their work ethic is prodigious, and, as Tigerhawk points out, in their spare time they sit on the boards of most of the complex charities and arts institutions that provide aid and pay for culture in America. No group of people contribute more to their community. And now the president, who followed a path sort of like that, and who claims that his wife’s former six-figure income was a result of precisely such qualifications and efforts, is demonizing them. More problematically, he is penalizing their success and giving them very clear incentives to ratchet back on productivity.
Ref: Who Are the “Working Affluent”?   [Lisa Schiffren]

So, is it really possible that high-value workers (not pop stars and athletes, but doctors, architects, scientists and engineers) will redefine success not as

Working like a dog to try to make the really big bucks

but instead will define it is

Living quite well thank you very much, but only working very part time?

Or (worse for everyone)

Hey, what’s Singapore doing these days for its “creative class” (and I don’t mean its artists, I mean the people who create prosperity).

Ref: Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hike Plan