What a Load of Crap!

Calpundit is a fairly bright and articulate guy, whom I generally disagree with. I don't tend to disagree with him in the sense that I think he's a raving looney, as he's clearly not. But this is a complete load of crap.

First, shall we start getting into cutting up a person's net worth by who is most responsible for them achieving it? Why stop with the country? What about Bill Gates' parents who raised him and gave him the genetic part of his abilities? What about the teachers (public or otherwise) who taught him things? What about the authors whose books he read, and his business partners, and his investors and his customers? What about he himself? Even if we could get into determining what part of a person's inherent abilities, education/schooling, influence of friends and associates and so forth contributed to that person's wealth, why would we want to tax them according to that?

And then, let's apply Kevin's reasoning to the other end of the scale. I have a brother who is impoverished. He has no job and has never had one, except for short stints. He has no savings or other resources to draw upon, other than his family. Yet he has a car, a place to live, a TV, food, access to medical care at the emergency room, and is in many ways better off than an indigent person in Pakistan. Should he therefore be required to pay a large percentage of his income in taxes, presuming he ever gets one, because he has more than he would if he were born in Pakistan? If not, then why should Bill Gates have to do so? If so, then hasn't Kevin's point been totally negated, in that my brother is not wealthy in any way, shape or form? By the way, he gets neither unemployment nor any other form of money from the government. By Kevin's logic, should not Bill Gates be sending my brother a check?

I will grant Kevin's proposition in one way: Mr. Gates should not be paying taxes to Pakistan's government, as he earns his money in the US. Therefore, such taxes as he is required to pay should go to the American government.