Success!

Via TBogg, a somewhat popular blogger", a little bit of Fox Business chatter:

CAVUTO: Throw in a Fox News alert for you. It is being called the mother of all tax hikes. Democrats unveiling a trillion-dollar tax plan today, it includes a 4 percent surtax on people earning $150,000 a year. Now remember when a million bucks was considered rich only last year at this time? So are these tax hikes going to stop people from striving for success?

I love the idea that high taxes in the upper income brackets stops people from 'striving for success'.

As if 'success' is measured strictly by take-home pay. As if people in those upper income brackets are strictly paid in W2 wages. As if people look at the tax charts and say "well, I'm not going to put in that extra 8% effort, because I will only receive an extra 6% in pay". As if most people making $150K and up these days are doing piecework. As if salary increases smoothly and in proportion to effort expended, and isn't increased in steps, the size of which are generally unpredictable more than a couple of months from the time when scheduled pay increases happen (if they're scheduled at all). As if raises are linked only to individual effort and do not depend on overall team/division/company performance, which is affected by the market the company works in, the economy in general, the whims of customer taste, etc.. As if the worker chooses he'll get paid more for his efforts, and that decision isn't made by his employer for reasons which are often beyond the worker's control. As if salaries aren't effectively capped by job title so that no matter how hard you work at most jobs, you're never going to earn more than your supervisor.

People strive for success because people enjoy succeeding; and everybody defines "success" in their own way. I build software because I like doing it. The fact that the job pays well (and my salary keeps going up year after year) is like some kind of fantastic bonus.

3 thoughts on “Success!

  1. Ugh

    I would add that people on the right seem to have a cartoon sense of how the economy works, especially when it comes to taxes. As if, as you say, the investment bankers are going to stop working because their net after-tax bonus is going to be $2.8 million instead of $3.0 million. Hell, they ignore that people might actually work harder after a tax increase because they want to net $X dollars after tax in order to maintain their lifestyle.

    Buffoons.

Comments are closed.