Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley last week proposed a budget that would raise taxes by $311 million.

From the Washington Post:

The Democrat outlined a $15.3 billion general fund budget plan that includes about $311 million in new revenue. About $182 million will come from capping income tax deductions and phasing out exemptions.

[...]

The governor’s plan would cap income tax deductions at 90 percent for incomes above $100,000 and 80 percent for incomes above $200,000.

It also would reduce exemptions from $2,400 to $1,200 per person for singles who make between $100,000 and $125,000 and couples who make between $150,000 and $175,000. Exemptions would be eliminated for singles who make more than $125,000 and couples with incomes above $175,000.

[...]

About $19 million will come from aligning the state’s cigarette tax with other tobacco products. Tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco is 15 percent of wholesale, which was comparable to the 36 cents per pack cigarette tax in 1999. The governor’s proposal would make it 66 percent of wholesale, which would make it comparable to the present $2 per pack cigarette tax.

The proposal also would require online sellers to begin collecting sales tax, which the governor projects would raise about $19 million, but there are questions about enforcement.

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During his recent rallies to galvanize support for his “American Jobs Act,” President Obama stated that he wanted to ensure that millionaires paid the same percentage of taxes as secretaries.  While this is a great soundbite, this statement is inflammatory and demonstrably false.  “Millionaires” in this country, which according to President Obama’s definition now includes small business owners and job creators along with the likes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, pay a significantly higher portion of their salary to federal income tax, and pay a disproportionate amount of the entire tax burden.

When President Obama states that high income earners are paying less tax then the middle class, he cites the example of Warren Buffett, a multi-billionaire who only pays 17.4% of his taxable income.  However, Mr. Buffett is an anomaly in the upper tax bracket, because most of his income is earned through capital gains, which is taxed at a relatively lower 15% rate (IRS, February 2011).  According to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those making over $1 million per year pay an average tax rate of 23.3%, while those making between $30-50,000 dollars pay an average tax rate of 7.2%.

Most people in the upper tax brackets are not receiving stock options as compensation, and are therefore subject to the same progressive tax structure as “secretaries.”

Under the current tax system, millionaires don’t just pay a higher tax rate; they also are responsible for a much higher percentage of income taxes paid.  Again, the most recent CBO statistics available demonstrate that the top 1% of wage earners contribute nearly 40% of all income taxes paid in this country.  The bottom 50% of America’s wage earners contribute only 3% of all income taxes.  Additionally, under the current tax structure created under the Bush tax cuts, lower income citizens received a new lower tax bracket as well as the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has enabled further reductions to their tax burden.

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American political fortunes have long been tied directly to the economy… so you would think that politicians would do a better job understanding how to improve the economy.  We know consumer demand is down – because consumers don’t have the money or home equity they used to have.  That alone is keeping the economy down.  Businesses, however, are said to have money but they are not spending or investing it.  Why? Because for them it’s the early 1920’s all over again.

Our so-called brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning President, for months, has exhorted American businesses to hire employees and invest – as if wishing for an economic recovery would make it so.  Recently, however, Democrat and mega-businessman Steve Wynn told the country – and Obama, if he was listening – why cash rich business is not hiring and investing.  According to Wynn, “this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime . . . those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President . . .”

President Calvin Coolidge used to say, “The chief business of the American people is business.”  Even so, business doesn’t invest just for fun – they invest for profit – and they don’t invest if they think the risk of not making an acceptable profit is too high.  I wrote “acceptable” because business weighs the fact that even if they make money, it will be taxed.  As such, a business must decide not only if it will be able to make a profit, but will the profit be so much that it would be worth the trouble/risk after taking taxes into consideration.  Keep in mind business knows that it carries all of the downside risk and that government will take a good portion of any upside.  If at some point the risk gets too high, business investment and spending is stalled.

Today, Steve Wynn, and much of American business, believes that the risk of not making a decent profit is too high for several reasons.  For instance, business doesn’t see sufficient consumer demand – so they don’t stock their shelves or expand production as they otherwise might.  Regulations and the threat of more regulations are so high that they hold back money to pay for future costs.  Taxes and the threat of higher taxes are also high – and that too causes business to hold back spending in order to pay those future taxes.  As a result, business investment and spending is stalled.

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I get tired constantly repeating myself to my fine friends who are on the Left side of the political spectrum when it comes to economic, fiscal, and business realities.  It’s not their fault.  I used to be the same way.  However, following up on a good article about economics for dummies, I thought I’d add some basic concepts that everyone should understand — regardless of political beliefs.

This stuff isn’t that hard to understand.  My old high school math teacher would just drill me over and over on something until I got it.

Risk, Reward, and Investment

A rich person makes all his income, more than $250,000 each year, from investment income only.

Investment involves taking a risk.  In exchange for that risk, an investor is rewarded.  The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Imagine two cups.  Under one is a dollar.  You bet one dollar and choose one cup.   The odds of picking the right cup are 1-1.  If you are right, you win one dollar.

Imagine ten cups.  Under one cup is ten dollars.  You bet one dollar but choose only one cup.  The risk of choosing the right cup has gone up to 9-1 against you.   Don’t you think you deserve a higher reward for choosing that one right cup?

If you don’t think so, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Investment works the same way.

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President Obama this Tuesday stated his case for increased taxes on “the rich” as part of his solution to balance the deficit. “Keep in mind,” he assured the American people, “that under a balanced approach, the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all.”

I have a very basic question that I am not sure anyone has pressed Mr. Obama to answer: Where did this figure of 250k, north of which one is considered by him to be among “the rich” even come from?  Its very roundness tells me that it was the result not of a detailed actuarial analysis but rather some sort of arbitrary caprice that only those completely isolated from any private sector experience can conjure up.  I almost get the feeling it was something as off-hand as: “Hey 250k sounds right to me.  Nice number.  So whattya think?”  Sure write it in there.

Consider: if you are living in Little Rock, Arkansas  and make $249,000 according to the president you are not “rich” and thus do not need to kick in more.  Yet if you live in, say, New York City and make $251,000 you are “rich” and so it’s time to ante up.  Is that how it works?  Again I ask:  what is so magical about $250,000?  Why is the cut-off  not $246,500 or $310,231?  Isn’t anyone curious about how this man creates economic policy?

Let’s look at it this way.  Someone in the New York metro area making $251,000 need only make $100,000  to garner the same standard of living in Little Rock, Arkansas.  For instance, a family of four searching for a two-bedroom apartment  in Manhattan can expect to pay anywhere from the low end of $2,100/mo in Harlem to $6,700/mo+ in Tribeca.  (That of course makes the two kiddies double up in one room).  In Little Rock you can find a comparable apartment for an average of $700/mo.  New York’s low end is three times Little Rock’s average.     (This standard of living discrpency, in fact, serves as an indictment of the unfairness of our entire messed up tax code but I digress.)

So again I ask where does this $250,000 level come from?

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Since the beginning of government, the ambition of those who spend money has rarely been matched by the ability of citizens to pay for government.  Modern day America, California or Greece are not exceptions to the rule, just examples of yesterday on a more grand scale today.  As perpetual as that problem is  - so too is the argument over the best way to raise tax revenue.  In simple terms, lower tax rates produce a more vibrant economy and higher revenues over time.  Higher tax rates do the exact opposite.  Heading into 2012, the Country cannot afford for Republicans to lose that economic argument.

The issue of taxes produces perhaps the greatest display between real politics and false economics.  Politicians throughout time have passed laws claiming to raise taxes.  In truth, politicians pass laws that raise tax rates.  That is a political process.  From there, the laws of economics take over.

In general, throughout all time, people adjust their behavior in reaction to political laws by acting in accordance with economic laws which are driven by human nature.  So if the penalty for speeding went up to $5000 per ticket – the number of people who speed would be reduced.  If the penalty for making income increases, i.e. taxes, rises – the amount of income actually made or reported will be reduced over time as well.

Today we are faced with astronomical deficits nationally and in many states.   The debt repayment obligation for California next year alone is larger than the budgets of 21 states.  What should governments do?  Should they politically raise tax rates? Or should they economically lower rates?  The answer is the latter and if Republicans (1) fail to make the argument why in 2011 and 2012, as this article implies they will, Grover Norquist, Tom Coburn duel over tax hikes , and (2) don’t stop simply saying NO to so-called tax increases, then Barack Obama will be reelected.

Consider this argument for cutting tax rates to raise revenue:

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The time is now and the moment is at hand.  We must deal with the run-away spending of our federal government before our compounding debt drives us all into forced servitude for generations to come.  There is little doubt that our growing indebtedness is a clear and present danger to our liberty.

The events in Tunisia and Egypt are warnings to us in the United States that prolonged unemployment, few opportunities for achievement and over taxation to support the excesses of government are the precursors to chaos.  We are seeing that for an educated people who have played by the rules and have the burning desire to prosper, such conditions are exactly what Thomas Jefferson described to the Virginian historian Samuel Kercheval in his July 12, 1816 letter, “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

Jefferson went on to describe the choice that the people must make between “Economy and liberty or profusion and servitude.” He continued with,

“If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the miss-managers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence.”

Jefferson’s conclusion read with the backdrop of recent events in Northern Africa should shock us all into reality, “Then begins, indeed the bellum omnium in omina.” His Latin phrase means “the war of all against all.” Our nation is on the brink and I will explain.

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Now this is a bold move. Going onto the airwaves of a state that just raised their taxes and trying to lure away their businesses. Bold:

For me this tactic brings two questions to mind.

Why don’t more states do this? I mean if you’re the governor of a state with relatively low business taxes why wouldn’t you advertise in near by states with higher business taxes? Sounds like a good idea doesn’t it?

Then again will this really work? Is an ad on the radio going to convince responsible business owners to leave their current state and move to another? Probably not.

I suspect the more likely scenario is that the businesses that are going to relocate outside of a high tax state like Illinois have already made that decision. In that case perhaps the real goal of an ad like this is to direct those businesses into a state like Jersey. In other words something like this is probably going to be successful in directing the tax weary defectors to the desired safe haven rather than creating any new defectors.

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The Jeopardy category of “Strange but True Facts About Minnesota Pro Athletes” just got a little thicker.  To the recent revelations that Vikings star quarterback Brett Favre is, ahem, an aspiring photographer, comes evidence that Twins star catcher Joe Mauer isn’t exactly a “hometown hero.”

That’s right, according to real estate tax records, Mauer has been a legal resident of Florida, not Minnesota, since 2006.  While some may view this as evidence that Mauer’s well-burnished image is a fraud, I suspect most will conclude just the opposite – that Mauer’s residency status only makes him even more All-American than anyone realized.

You see, Mauer moved his legal residency to Florida for the same reason that LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Shaquille O’Neal, and many other star athletes and celebrities have done so – to benefit from the fact that Florida has no personal income tax.

In fact, fittingly, Mauer bought himself a place on a street named Prosperity Way.

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When a bad plumber or electrician comes to your house you might pay a lot of money for an incomplete and potentially dangerous fix of the problem.

But a band aide on a bad pipe just means that a potentially disastrous leak is still very much in your future and that the money you just paid has been wasted. That’s what the debate about the Bush tax cuts sounds like to me.

Of course it’s a bad idea to raise taxes when the economy is still struggling and while almost ten percent of the workforce can’t find a job. Of course it’s a bad idea to further punish our citizens when so many have seen their home values plummet beneath the loan amount.

But underneath this debate is this leaky and destructive pipe: the income tax system is a monstrosity that only continues because Washington insiders make so much money off it and because Congress—both parties—love the power over the citizenry that comes with plum assignments to the tax committees.

There is a huge lucrative culture in Washingtonthat has grown up around the income tax code that turns a blind eye to the destructive effects and almost comical complexity of the 68,000 pages of regulations in the tax code. They love the system and we hate it.

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The 111^th Congress will soon pass into history and perhaps will best be remembered for having set the all time record for Congressional irresponsibility … even surpassing the machinations of the 107^th Congress, which enacted the so-called Bush tax cuts and, simultaneously, provided for their automatic expiration on December 31, 2010.  Apparently that Congress assumed, naively of course, that a more responsible group of lawmakers would fix the problem that they kicked down the road before the consequences of presenting individual Americans and the business community with the economic chaos the current legislated uncertainty has engendered.  Perhaps any assumption that any future Congress would behave rationally with the public interest as their north star was the most irresponsible action they took.

While the failure to deal with income and estate tax policy has gotten all the attention as the lame duck session of the 111^th Congress convened last week, it was hardly the only failure to do their job that our elected representatives either ducked or senselessly enacted in 2010.  Apparently the voters on November 2 agreed and fired a goodly portion of this ruling clique.  Whether the expectations of the electorate are met by the incoming 112^th Congress remains to be seen, but so far there appears to be no reason for exuberance.  Some GOP members of the new House majority are already defending the concept of earmarks as a Congressional prerogative and some Republican senators appear to take that position as well, originally including Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who finally came to his senses and announced that he would support a full earmark ban.  While it is true that earmarks are a tiny fraction of the federal budget, they have taken on symbolic significance to the voters who tend to see them as a reliable indicator of the lack of spending discipline.

In addition there appears to be little willingness to resolve some of the many disputes which paralyzed the 111^th Congress, many of which could be resolved in an hour if our lawmakers would stop trying to score political points or treat every issue as if failure to get 100 percent of what they want amounted to a complete abandonment of principle.

It is not easy with precision to discern all the messages voters send in an election, but a few things can be said with certainty about the most recent one:  the voters don’t want radical new policies based on far left ideology jammed down their collective throats; they want the government out of their private lives; and they want spending reined in before America goes the way of Greece or Ireland.

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I’m not serious , of course, but it is rather ironic that Raul Castro is cutting the tax burden on small business at the same time that Obama is pushing for higher tax rates on small business.

Reuters reports on the latest in supply-side communism.

Cuba unveiled on Friday a new tax code it said was friendlier for small business, signaling authorities are serious about building a larger private sector within the state-dominated economy. The new system, outlined in the Communist Party daily Granma, greatly increases tax deductions… The tax redesign comes as the government has begun slashing 500,000 workers from state payrolls and preparing to issue 250,000 self-employment licenses to create new jobs in President Raul Castro’s biggest reform since taking office in 2008.

Unfortunately, Obama seems to views tax issues through the prism of class warfare. This video explains why class warfare tax policy is misguided, and it includes the footage from the 2008 campaign where Obama basically said that he didn’t care whether his proposed tax increase on capital gains led to lower revenue.

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Economists and pundits, who contend that the Federal Reserve System has little room to maneuver in using monetary policy to jump-start our anemic economy, often have claimed that America is mired in a Keynesian “liquidity trap”, a situation in which the demand for money is unresponsive to changes in market interest rates.

After all, those commentators emphasize, the Fed has adopted a target for the federal funds rate (the interest rate charged on overnight interbank loans) of between zero and 0.25 percent. The implication is that further reductions in that rate will have little or no effect on the incentives of businesses to invest in new plant and equipment or of consumers to borrow in order to finance the additional spending necessary to raise GDP growth above the (recently downwardly revised) estimate of 1.6 percent during the second quarter of 2010.

But those commentators overlook or ignore the easily verified reasoning of John Maynard Keynes, who defined a liquidity trap in terms of long-term rather than short–term interest rates. The long-term (ten- or 30-year) rate on Treasury securities now runs at about three percent, meaning that the Fed still has arrows in its quiver. Unfortunately, however, those arrows, the use of which would demand the central bank engage in further “quantitative easing”, requires it to purchase more under-performing, “toxic” assets from banks and other financial institutions that lent money to homeowners who could not repay their mortgages. Engaging in such transactions places more bad debts on the Fed’s balance sheet, constrains its ability to conduct monetary policy in the future and raises the specter of higher rates of future price inflation.

In his recent speech at Wood’s Hole, Wyoming, Fed Chairman Bernanke was right to say that economic recovery cannot depend solely on the policies of the central bank over which he presides. But the fiscal discipline (spending and tax cuts) required to achieve that goal is incompatible with the vote motives of incumbent politicians or their challengers for political office.

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I guess Mexico ’s President Calderon forgot to mention what happens to illegal immigrants on his southern border when he came to Congress to scold us for “discriminatory” treatment in Arizona.

They are summarily raped or killed and commonly stripped of every meager possession they carry by soldiers and policemen. Arizona ’s new law is downright humane compared to Mexico ’s brutal treatment of illegal immigrants and his false indignation was the height of hypocrisy.

Neither he nor Mr. Obama nor a lot of other holier-than-thou liberals ever want to talk about the central issue—we’re having a hard enough time paying for our own schools, healthcare, roads, and law enforcement without having to pick up the tab for millions of people here illegally.

Yes, President Calderon, the good people of Arizona got so tired waiting for our national government to do its job, they took it on themselves. Yes, they have decided to discriminate– between tax paying citizens and illegal beneficiaries of our own hard work and tax dollars. They decided that the rule of law, ignored by our federal government, would be enforced by state and local government.

I don’t begrudge illegal immigrants doing what they have to do to take care of their families but I have a family, too, and immigration laws are supposed to protect us from unrestricted access to the infrastructure that comes out of my family’s pocket. Social costs, jobs, security of our borders against criminals and terrorists and the rule of law are all at stake here. Every citizen knows that a primary responsibility of our government is to protect and secure our borders for all these reasons. The concern by the public in Arizona and elsewhere is entirely legitimate but, as usual, the response from Washington is anything but.

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The Democrats are trying to cram through another special-interest piece of legislation, which they are calling (depending on the audience) either a tax-extenders bill or a stimulus bill. But they’ve been having trouble getting enough votes for this motley collection of welfare-state provisions and special-interest tax breaks, in part because of the public’s growing hostility to wasteful and corrupt Washington spending. The proposal finally has been approved by the House, but only after the leadership made some (mostly cosmetic) changes to  get the votes of a sufficient number of gullible “Blue Dog” Democrats.

The Blue Dogs claim to be fans of fiscal responsibility, but they look at the issue through a very distorted lens. As the Obamacare vote demonstrated, they will vote for big and bloated government so long as the new spending is “offset” – at least on paper – by big tax hikes. This is one of the reasons why Pelosi & Co included billions of dollars in corporate tax hikes in the tax-extenders/stimulus legislation.

What the Democrats (either the blue or pink variety) apparently don’t understand, though, is that corporations don’t pay taxes. Yes, companies often write checks to the IRS, but all corporate taxes are really a burden on workers, consumers, and shareholders. Moreover, in a world where jobs and investment can cross borders looking for better tax policy, a high corporate tax rate is a huge competitive liability for a nation. These are some of the main points in this video on corporate taxation.

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Being an American citizen is an honor in many ways, but it is a huge millstone around the neck for highly successful investors and entrepreneurs because of an oppressive and complex tax system. This is particularly true for those based in and/or competing in global markets.

Indeed, because the tax system (and regulatory system) is so onerous and because it is expected to get far worse in the future, a growing number of Americans are actually giving up citizenship and “voting with their feet.” The politicians view these people as “tax traitors” and are trying to erect higher barriers to hinder economic migration, particularly in the form of confiscatory “exit taxes” that are disturbingly reminiscent of the totalitarian practices of some of the world’s most unsavory regimes. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on this issue:

The number of American citizens and green-card holders severing their ties with the U.S. soared in the latter part of 2009, amid looming U.S. tax increases and a more aggressive posture by the Internal Revenue Service toward Americans living overseas. According to public records, just over 500 people world-wide renounced U.S. citizenship or permanent residency in the fourth quarter of 2009, the most recent period for which data are available. That is more people than have cut ties with the U.S. during all of 2007, and more than double the total expatriations in 2008.  …Others are giving up their U.S. nationality to avoid tax increases in the U.S., as the government struggles under huge budget deficits. The top marginal tax rate is set to rise to 39.6% from 35% at the end of this year. A proposal to tax fund manager pay at ordinary income rates, instead of the 15% capital gains rate, is gaining currency in Congress. “Everybody sees the tax rates are going up. At a certain point, it gets beyond people’s pain threshold,” said Anthony Tong, a tax partner at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong. Unlike most jurisdictions, the U.S. taxes the income of citizens and green-card holders no matter where in the world it is earned.

Perhaps the key sentence in this excerpt is the final one about the United States having a very misguided policy of what is known as “worldwide taxation.” This is the policy of taxing income earned in other nations, even though that income already is subject to all applicable taxes imposed by the governments of those other nations. This policy is a huge competitive disadvantage for American companies trying to compete in world markets (and Obama, not surprisingly, wants to make it more burdensome), but the impact on individual taxpayers is a key factor in the decision by so many U.S. taxpayers to escape the clutches of the IRS. Indeed, it may also be one of the reasons why some highly-talented foreigners – the kind of people who helped make Silicon Valley an engine of prosperity for the entire nation – no longer want American residency.

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On the issues that matter most, the president is always somewhere else.

Exhibit A)  For most Americans, the economy is the most pressing issue.  We just got last week’s jobs report, and it wasn’t good.  For the second week in a row, first-time jobless claims spiked.  The unemployment situation is getting worse, not better.  Home foreclosures have also just reached record highs.  And where has Obama been?  Focused on health care.

Exhibit B)  While Iran is working at breakneck speed on a nuclear weapon and is defiantly telling the U.S. where to go, Obama has been dusting off old Cold War treaties with Russia and holding meaningless nuclear summits to secure Canadian and Chilean nuclear material.  To recap:  Iran is over here, developing a nuke.  And Obama is over there, clinking glasses with the
Canadian prime minister.

Exhibit C)  Today is April 15th, the most dreaded day of the year.  Tax Day. If you are two seconds late with your tax return, the IRS begins compiling interest on what you may owe.  (Of course, many states are broke and handing out IOUs instead of tax refunds.  Try giving the IOU to the barista at Starbucks for that latte.)  Of course, nearly 50% of the American people pay
no federal income tax at all, so for them today is just another Thursday.

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Today is the deadline to file your federal taxes. Unfortunately, election day is seven months away. Enough said.

My all-time favorite former intern, Hiwa Alaghebandian, has just narrated a new Economics 101 video about the cost of the tax code for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. I won’t spoil the surprise by giving the details, but you if you’re not angry now, you will be after watching.

In the video, Ms. Alaghebandian notes that a study from 1996 (back when the tax code was not nearly as complex) estimated that a flat tax would reduce the compliance burden of the income tax by 94 percent. In my video on the flat tax, I mostly focused on how a single-rate, consumption-base system would boost growth and competitiveness, but simplicity also would be a remarkable achievment. Not only would real tax reform reduce compliance costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, it would also put a big dent in the corrupt practice of distorting economic choices with deductions, exemptions, credits, preferences, shelters, and other loopholes. That’s a profitable game for politicians and lobbyists, but the rest of us pay the price because the tax code is even more of a nightmare.

There is also an under-appreciated connection between simplicity and fairness. My colleague Will Wilkinson sagely observed that “…the more power the government has to pick winners and losers, the more power rich people will have relative to poor people.” The tax code is a good example. Many leftists want the tax system to penalize success with high tax rates. I’ve explained why this is economically misguided in a video on class-warfare tax policy, but it’s also worth pointing out that a simple and fair tax system like the flat tax makes it much more difficult for the well-connected to take advantage of complexity. Simply stated, the tax system should not punish the rich with high rates (notwithstanding the neurotic views of self-loathing trust-fund heirs), and it shouldn’t reward them with special deals.

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A Washington Post columnist reports on a group of limousine liberals who are lobbying to pay more taxes. Of course, there’s no law that prevents them from writing big checks to the government and voluntarily paying more, so what they’re really lobbying for is higher taxes on the vast majority of investors and entrepreneurs who don’t want more of their income confiscated by the clowns in Washington and squandered on corrupt and inefficient programs.

I debated one of these guilt-ridden, silver-spoon, trust-fund rich people on CNN last year and never got an answer when I asked him why he wanted to pull up the ladder of opportunity for the rest of us who would like to become rich some day. Here’s what the Post reported on the issue:

A group of liberals got together Tuesday and proved that they, too, can have a tax rebellion. But theirs is a little bit different: They want to pay more taxes. “I’m in favor of higher taxes on people like me,” declared Eric Schoenberg, who is sitting on an investment banking fortune. He complained about “my absurdly low tax rates.” “We’re calling on other wealthy taxpayers to join us,” said paper-mill heir Mike Lapham, “to send the message to Congress and President Obama that it’s time to roll back the tax cuts on upper-income taxpayers.” …”The Obama plan we don’t think goes far enough,” Lapham protested. … They are among 50 families with net assets of more than $1 million to take a “tax fairness” pledge — donating the amount they saved from Bush tax cuts to organizations fighting for the repeal of the Bush tax cuts. According to a study by Spectrem Group, 7.8 million households in the United States have assets of more than $1 million — so that leaves 7,799,950 millionaire households yet to take the pledge. …Of course, if millionaires really want to pay higher taxes, there’s nothing stopping them. The Treasury Department Web site even accepts contributions by credit card to pay the public debt. …His donation will, however, ease the sense of guilt that comes with great wealth, described poignantly by the millionaires: “In 1865, my great-great-grandfather Samuel Pruyn founded a paper mill on the banks of the Hudson River in Glens Falls, New York,” Lapham explained. Judy Pigott, an industrial heiress on the call, added her wish that her income, “mostly unearned income, be taxed at a rate that returns to the common good that I have received by a privilege.” Confessed Hollender, who now runs the Seventh Generation natural products company: “I grew up in Manhattan on Park Avenue in a 10-room apartment.”

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