Do you like scary stories? How about this recent report from the United States Treasury, “Advancing Equity through Tax Reform: Effects of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 Revenue Proposals on Racial Wealth Inequality.”
That sleep-inducing mouthful of grade-A bureaucratese may seem anodyne, the sort of thing that requires a surgeon general’s warning. But even a cursory trip through this twelve pages of reader-proof gobbledegook will be enough to give any sentient being nightmares. For what this malodorous blueprint aims at is nothing less than the confiscation of your wealth and property.
Beginning with its title, this report bristles with loaded buzzwords —“equity,” “racial wealth inequality.” Behind those abstractions, however, is a malevolent plan to destroy middle-class prosperity by brandishing the chief shibboleth of the age: race.
Race! Ergo, we are going to demonize whites.
Race! Ergo, we are going to punish success.
Race! Ergo, we are going to fiddle with the tax code in order to figure out ways of penalizing those with wealth, most of whom turn out to be whites and Asians.
The first sentence gives the show away. “For generations, entrenched disparities in our society and economy, at times facilitated by the federal government, have made it harder for Americans of color to have access to opportunity.”
“Americans of color,” forsooth. I am an American of color — a pleasing pink, if you must know — and so, even if you are an albino, are you. To distinguish among citizens on the basis of skin color — preferring some hues to others — is not only invidious, it is un-American. It should also be illegal.
But here we have the Department of the Treasury telling us about how the Biden administration has plans to tax Americans differently depending on their race. It is disgusting.
It will also be very expensive. A central plank in their plan is to tax capital gains — most of which are currently taxed at 20 percent — as ordinary income, which might by 40 percent or more. Their reasoning is this: blacks as a group do not have capital gains because, as a group, they do not tend to own stocks and other assets that appreciate to the same extent that whites, Asians and other groups do — and not for lack of opportunity. This is what Al Gore calls an “inconvenient truth,” but it is a truth nonetheless.
Much more could be said about this, but for now I want simply to note the immorality of taxing capital gains at any rate.
What are capital gains? They work like this. You take, say, that $1,000 you have managed to accumulate after paying all the “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” the bureaucracy has already levied against you.
You then risk that sum by investing it in the engines of prosperity, i.e., various companies that make or service the economy. With luck, patience and wisdom, your $1,000 may, over time, turn into $2,000, $10,000 or even more. The difference between your original $1,000 and the sum for which you eventually sell your asset is your capital gain. Why should you be taxed on the result of your patience and willingness to risk your hard earned money? Why?
The two fundamental tenets of communist economics are the abolition of private property and the equalization of wealth.
The horrible people who now govern us toil daily to realize both goals. This latest tax plan is yet another big step towards the holy grail of the socialist/communist enterprise: universal immiseration (except, of course, for the nomenklatura).
The only difference between what Joe Biden’s myrmidons are proposing and what Lenin and Stalin imposed on their unhappy people is the disgusting (and, incidentally, racist) invocation of “people of color” to justify their confiscatory aims.
I have been thinking of investing in companies that make pitchforks and supply the world with tar and feathers. I know, I know: any proceeds I might realize will be taxed into insignificance. But the knowledge I was doing my bit to bring down this rotten regime is its own reward.
Winston Churchill was right. “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” We are hurtling towards that philosophy with increasing velocity. Is it too late to break free? Or has the ship called Penury achieved escape velocity?
I do not know the answer to those questions. All our livelihoods rest on the answers.
