[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 17 (Thursday, January 30, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1760-S1761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              INCOME TAXES

  Mr. KYL. Secondly, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a 
Wall Street Journal editorial dated Monday, January 27, which is 
entitled ``No More Than 30 Percent.'' This complements some comments I 
made yesterday regarding President Bush's tax plan and makes the point 
that most Americans, rich or poor, agree that the most any American 
should ever have to pay in income taxes is 30 percent. In fact, most 
people believe it should be no higher than 30 percent. So even though 
we have a lot of Americans who are extraordinarily wealthy, by far and 
away most Americans believe confiscatory taxation violates America's 
sense of fairness.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 27, 2003]

                            No More Than 30%

       The political class warriors can never seem to figure out 
     why their ``tax cuts for the rich'' mantra fails to sway the 
     American public. In the spirit of educating even our 
     opponents, we'd point them to a recent poll from Fox News.
       In addition to the usual questions about President Bush's 
     tax cut proposals, the poll asked voters what is the maximum 
     share of income that any American should pay in taxes. More 
     than half think it should be no

[[Page S1761]]

     more than 20%, and another quarter think it should be 
     somewhere between 20% and 30%. So nearly eight of every 10 
     Americans think that no one, not even Bill Gates, should pay 
     more than 30% to the government.
       Now, even we'll admit to the sin of thinking once in a 
     while that the world would be better off if a few people (Ted 
     Turner, say, or George Soros) were taxed at confiscatory 
     rates. So how to explain such a poll result? One answer is 
     that Americans put more faith in their aspirations than do 
     the envy specialists of Europe or Brookline, Mass. They 
     appreciate America's class mobility and expect, or at least 
     hope, that someday they too will be rich.
       But the more fundamental answer may be that confiscatory 
     taxation violates America's sense of fairness. Most Americans 
     simply believe it is wrong, unjust even, for the government 
     to take more than a third (or even a fifth) of the hard-
     earned income of even the very rich. It is, after all, their 
     money.
       Honesty compels us to concede, however, that the Fox poll 
     does give America's income redistributionists some reason to 
     hope. About 1% think the government is entitled to take 
     ``whatever'' it wants, presumably 100% if need be. This may 
     be a small socialist cadre, but they are clearly committed.

     

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