Via Pantagraph.com

The talk coming out of Washington these days sounds like 20 years ago when “soaking the rich” was thought to solve budgetary problems. As a result, a 10 percent luxury tax was imposed in 1990 on high-end yachts, planes, etc. Democrats such as Sens. Dick Gebhardt and Ted Kennedy were saying back then the same thing Democrats are saying today: The super-rich need to pay “their fair share.”

So, what happened to the infamous luxury tax? The rich simply avoided the tax by buying yachts and planes elsewhere — not in the United States. By 1991, an estimated 25,000 blue-collar jobs were lost in the boat-building industry — not to mention job losses in the plane industry and elsewhere. Many companies went out of business.

Expected tax revenues fell far under projected levels. Congress recognized its folly and repealed the luxury tax in 1993 — but not until thousands of jobs were lost and could not easily be regained.

Democrats today still have not learned the lesson. Soaking the rich does not help budgetary problems. It only eliminates badly needed jobs.

If the financially successful in this country do not see a future for their companies due to a negative business climate orchestrated by Democrats, there will be no business expansion — and correspondingly there will be no jobs forthcoming.

So why do Democrats continue their “soak the rich” rhetoric when it doesn’t work? They still haven’t learned the truth found in the old saying: Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.