The Lucky 300,000

By Jeff Harding

The Health Junta: Pelosi, Hoyer, Stark, Waxman, Rangel, Dingell

WASHINGTON — House Democrats Tuesday proposed new taxes on the wealthy to help fund an expansion of government health benefits. But the bill also includes a mechanism to peel back the tax increases if the revenue isn’t needed to fund the bill.

The bill would place a 5.4% surtax on individuals and families with annual gross income exceeding $1 million. Individuals and families with annual income between $350,000 and $500,000 would face a 1% surtax, and those making between $500,000 and $1 million a year would be hit with a 1.5% surtax.

Those surtaxes for the last two categories would jump to 2% and 3% by 2013, unless the director of the White House budget office determines that other provisions of the bill have resulted in savings to the government of more than $150 billion. Democrats say new programs for preventive care, for example, will achieve savings that aren’t counted upfront by the Congressional Budget Office.

I tried to calculate how many people there are in the $350,000 and up income category. It’s not easy to do, so I made a rough guess. I think there are about 300,000,extrapolating from the last available data (2006). The number of returns filed in 2006 showing adjusted gross incomes of $500,000 and up are about 100,000. There is no breakdown between $200,000 and $500,000, but the number of these returns is 815,000. I estimate that since there are only 74,000 returns between $500,000 and $1,000,000, income falls off steeply when you get to $350,000. Let’s say there were 250,000 returns filed for incomes between $350,000 and $500,000. That would total about 350,000 returns. However, income tax receipts are way down from 2006, so I would guess that today the number of returns in the high income category would be 25% less than 2006. That gets me to roughly 300,000 filers.

The Democrats plan to pay for the new national health care plan by taking money from our most productive citizens and giving it to everyone else. This isn’t even an attempt at fairness; it’s just a money grab. They want $544 billion over ten years. And they will get it.

I should note that the House Democrats estimate that the tax would fall on only 1.2% of all taxpayers. That would be about 1,000,000 filers based on the total number of returns filed in 2006. One of us is wrong.

These 300,000 families will be responsible for paying for our health care. Don’t weep, they are rich and can afford it. Since they obviously must have done something wrong to get all that money, what could be wrong with taking it away from them.

I just wish to thank these 300,000 families now for their generosity and willingness to pitch in and help the rest of us. I hope it doesn’t discourage you from creating more wealth, jobs, and products that we all enjoy.