The Answer Isn’t More Taxes—It’s Competence

Washington’s dysfunction is no longer a surprise—it’s expected

Every few years, Congress reaches for the same tired headline: “tax the rich.” It’s always dressed up as reform—but it’s really just cover for dysfunction.

Let’s be clear: the wealthy already pay more than their share. The top 1% account for over 40% of all federal income tax revenue. If that’s not enough to run a functional government, the problem isn’t revenue—it’s governance.

Carried interest? Fine—close the loophole. But don’t pretend that taxing a narrow class of fund managers will fund trillions in new programs. Most high earners—particularly those above the $2.5M mark—don’t live on salary. Yes, you have professional athletes with massive payouts. And sure, some may route income through foundations or tax shelters—but I’d imagine most don’t. So fine—you tax the athletes. Congratulations. But let’s be honest: most high earners aren’t collecting paychecks. Rich people don’t need paychecks. Give me a break.

What’s the truth? They defer. They reinvest. They plan. Push too hard, and they’ll adjust. And when that happens, Congress will do what it always does: lower the threshold. $1M. $500K. $250K. That’s how tax creep works—gradually, but always downward.

Back in 1977, Congress unified estate and gift taxes, effectively turning wealth transfers into another channel for federal revenue. It was sold as a way to rein in dynastic wealth. This was before the Big Tech boom—before paper wealth became the main punching bag for the Left, who, let’s be honest, are increasingly economically illiterate.

They scream about inequality, but never mention that much of today’s wealth is tied up in securities. Not bank vaults. Not swimming pools of gold. Yet academics still line up to lament this “crisis,” as if the answer is to tear down every private fortune in sight. They can’t seem to grasp that we don’t have thousands of Scrooge McDucks sitting on vaults of liquid gold. It’s absurd.

And they ignore the reality: capitalism—especially in the last 25 years—has done more to lift people out of poverty in the developed world than any government program or redistributive tax scheme. What do these attacks on success really do? They justify the growth of a sprawling bureaucracy tasked with monitoring, auditing, and taxing family businesses, farms, long-held assets. Today, nothing moves without Washington taking a cut.

And remember the so-called “billionaire tax” floated during the Biden administration? It targeted households with a net worth of $100 million—yet it was somehow branded as a billionaire tax. That alone tells you the level of intellectual sloppiness we’re dealing with. The proposal would’ve taxed people based on net worth—a figure the IRS doesn’t track and can’t verify. It didn’t move forward, but it revealed something deeper: a growing appetite in Washington to go after perceived wealth, not actual income. It wasn’t about fairness. It was about optics and power.

Side note, beware when any politician says billionaire, what they're really talking about is anyone worth $30 million (known as UHNW) or more. I'm not kidding. We are dealing with peak incompetence here.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have proposed a permanent extension of the Trump tax cuts—along with expanded deductions and simplification. All good steps. But even within the GOP, the fault lines are clear. The SALT deduction fight is a perfect example: blue-state Republicans want to scrap the cap to please their donor base. Others rightly argue that it rewards high-tax states at the expense of fiscally responsible ones.

Here’s the bottom line: the federal government isn’t underfunded. It’s overextended. Until Congress demonstrates real fiscal competence, it has no business demanding more from productive Americans.

The answer isn’t another tax. The answer is a leaner, smarter, more accountable system. And if Congress can’t manage that with trillions already flowing in, then maybe they should feel the squeeze.

And let’s be honest: services won’t feel the squeeze anyway—because the U.S. government just prints more money to paper over its obligations. Pensions, programs, bureaucracies—it’s all backstopped by inflation and borrowed time.

So maybe the real answer isn’t waiting for Washington to fix itself. Maybe it’s time to give them less. Build more outside the system. Create real value—instead of recycling the same empty promises, election after election.