Going Galt? Oh, Please Do!

I'm with Hilzoy. Really. Know any "successful" people who are so upset that they will have to pay taxes on their income over $250,000 who claim that they are going to "go Galt"? Tell them I will help them pack.

Okay, needlessly snarky, but I want repeat what Hilzoy and so many others have rightly pointed out.

First, if you make $300,000 in a year, you will pay the higher tax rate on the last $50,000, not on all off it. That's what a marginal tax rate IS. If it is so important to you that you not pay an extra couple percentage points on that $50,000 that you are going to try not to earn it, well, fine. Don't earn it.

Second, if you really plan on "going Galt" please remember that John Galt in Ayn Rand's book didn't try to keep his income lower while whining about taxes. He withdrew his creative and productive energies from society and LEFT. Untimately he went started a society full of like-minded people where everyone was proud of being selfish. In this magic land apparently no one got old without sufficient savings, because proudly selfish people apparently never manipulated the stock market or stole the pension funds of other proudly selfish people. No one ever developed a disability that prevented them from earning their own support, and no one had a baby and then lost the means of supporting that baby. None of this happened because all the people who went there were successful, creative, non-whining types to whom nothing bad ever happens.

So, please, if you agree with this STOP WHINING AND GO.

Really.

I will help you pack.

Of course I will expect you to pay me for my time.