Jealousy And Self-Entitlement Are Not Reasons To Raise Taxes

My comment to The Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, "Romney's Fair Share: The candidate's tax return is an argument for tax reform."

Mitt Romney did not forcibly take one dollar from me or anyone else in making his income and wealth. I am sure he is also paying more in taxes than the value of government services he is getting.

He went to college and has two advanced degrees. Most top 1 percenters have college degrees and many have graduate degrees, as opposed to most of the bottom 1 percenters who do not have college or high school degrees. He worked in a very competitive field at a job where the hours are long, no stopping at 40 hour workweeks in consulting, no overtime pay and no guaranteed weekends and holidays off, and the work and bosses are very demanding.

He is paying his legal amount of taxes.

He is what American opportunity is all about; get educated, learn skills, work hard, excel in a competitive industry, make money.

Am I jealous? Yes, somewhat.

Do I wish I had his income or wealth? Yes.

Is his money invested and helping our economy grow? Yes.

Nothing he does or has done has made the rest of us poor.

Our politicians and their hands in the til, our failed education policy and government run educational system, our overly generous benefits for union and government workers, our government regulations that stifle entrepreneurship and business formations and the lack of skills, motivation, discipline and drive in many of today's workers have made many of us poorer than we ought to be

President Obama and many of the 99 percenters have an attitude that they are entitled and that society owes them something. Nobody automatically owes anybody anything.

Nothing done by Romney or in the way he made his money justifies the government, you or me taking more of his wealth or income than he already legally pays.

The government will waste the extra money on a failed education system, on more generous government worker benefits, on political paybacks disguised as subsidies, on incentives not to work, etc.

Jealousy and self-entitlement are not reasons to raise Romney's or any other wealthy person's taxes.