In an administration of ignominious firsts aimed at "fundamentally transforming America," one tends to lose track of the new "lows." Still, a bill was recently proposed that should draw your attention. The brainchild of Democrat Senator Charles Schumer, the legislation is aimed specifically at Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin - who recently renounced his American citizenship rather than pay an estimated $67 million in taxes - and generally at the growing number of expatriates who find it disadvantageous to conduct business in the United States.
That "giant sucking sound" you hear is not the draining of American jobs as the result of NAFTA. Rather it is the veritable stampede of successful, and otherwise patriotic, business people seeking to exit the US rather than further subject themselves to a confiscatory tax structure and labyrinthine governmental rules. In other words, the cost of doing business under President Obama is no longer worth it for a growing number of Americans.
What to do about this trend is the question Senator Schumer seeks to address. You see, in order to continue living the parasitic high life on the taxpayers' dime there have to be taxpayers. His solution is to throw up the legislative equivalent of the Berlin Wall (i.e. nobody is allowed to leave the workers paradise). No more of this nonsense about, "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." Schumer is proposing a 30 percent capital gains tax rate for expatriates on all future investment (in the U.S.). For those who do not bow to his intimidation, the Senator would prevent them from "ever trying to step foot in the United States again."
Call me nostalgic, but I recall a day before our country's ill-conceived experiment with Obamism, when the wealthy of the world came to America to do business and to live because of the economic and political freedom our country offered. Now a U.S. senator is recommending we follow the example of North Korea, Cuba, and the former Soviet Bloc by building walls to keep citizens in. A smarter choice might be to create a business atmosphere favorable to those who actually create jobs. After all, it was the patron saint of the Democrat party, John F. Kennedy, who recognized "a rising tide lifts all boats."
Kevin Ritter
Marietta
