Beatles ‘I’ll Tax the Heat, I’ll Tax Your Feet’: Britain’s a Mess with Its Punishing Taxes, We’re Not Far Behind
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 27, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
Remember the song “Taxman” on the Beatles’ Revolver album? Feels like it could have been written in 2009 rather than 1966.
Prophetic.
Selected lyrics from “Taxman”:
Let me tell you how it will be;
There’s one for you, nineteen for me.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman…Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.(If you drive a car, car;) – I’ll tax the street;
(If you try to sit, sit;) – I’ll tax your seat;
(If you get too cold, cold;) – I’ll tax the heat;
(If you take a walk, walk;) – I’ll tax your feet.Taxman!
Taxes in the UK are climbing so high that even composer Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera) is deeply concerned that high earners will opt to leave the country, rather than give more and more of their hard-earned money to the government.
Excerpt from Webber’s manifesto:
Here’s the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That’s not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income of any developed country.
I write this article because I fear the inevitable exodus of the talent that can dig us out of the hole we find ourselves in. It is inevitable, given that other countries are bidding for entrepreneurs. The Government must modify its proposals.
How much will Obama’s cap-and-trade program cost Americans? It’s complicated, as is the whole cap-and-trade emissions trading system. For a breakdown on several groups’ calculations, read Malkin’s “Eco-fuzzy math: Debunking a cap-and-trade debunking.” Excerpt from it:
Just how much it will cost them has been a point of contention lately. Many congressional Republicans, including members of the GOP leadership, have claimed that the plan to limit carbon emissions through cap and trade would cost the average household more than $3,100 per year. According to an MIT study, between 2015 and 2050 cap and trade would annually raise an average of $366 billion in revenues (divided by 117 million households equals $3,128 per household, the Republicans reckon).
And that is only the direct cost to Americans; there is no way to really know how much it will cost indirectly when it hits manufacturers, food growers, and other US businesses. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the indirect cost could explode past that of the direct cost. I don’t know any families who have an extra $3,100 gathering dust to fund this voracious monster. One of the many taxation monsters that tea party participants said “NO” to.
It’s a horrible plan, to be launched at a horrible time during our nation’s recession. And it is based on the climate change/global warming myth, which has been debunked by thousands of the world’s leading scientists and climate experts. Cap and trade needs to stop before it starts robbing us all of our hard-earned cash and prosperity. This will only plunge America deeper into financial turmoil. Before Obama taxes us to death. It is estimated that the cost of cap-and-trade to Americans, at this point ballparked at $1.9 trillion, will exceed that the funding of the Vietnam War and NASA since its inception.
“I have always believed that America is strongest and freest and happiest when it is truest to the wisdom of its Founders.”
— Ronald Reagan
Socialism and the huge amount of taxes it needs to operate does not work. Just ask Britain. Just ask Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Related articles:
The Kansas Progress: Club for Growth: Cap and Trade is a Monster
The Weekly Standard: Andrew Lloyd Webber Fears Exodus of Talent from Taxed UK
InstaPundit.com: Going Galt Michael Caine
Steve LeMaster, Global Warming Skeptics: Something to ponder about cap and trade
Hot Air: The Peasant Plan
Peace and Freedom Promises: Government still spending like a drunk in a casino? Leads to anger….
Scott’s Slant on Politics: A False Messiah
Michelle Malkin: Confirmed: Deliberative democracy is a joke and Document drop: Porkulus One is a failure, so let’s do it again! and Americans shifting to the right (Snowe and Collins not listening) and Franken-fied: Make way for (another) clown; Update: Coleman statement added and Andrew Lloyd Webber: Going Galt in Britain? and Cap-and-trade, “reconciliation,” and the death of deliberation
Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-MI) , Big Hollywood: A Health Dirge Night: President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band
Jason Killian Meath, Big Hollywood: Obama’s Health Care ‘Money Pit’
EyeHackerBlog: Cap and Trade is Crap and Raid (your wallet) and Your stimulus dollars at work and Stop spending my money on porkulus road signs
Les Blumenthal, US News, Cleveland.com: Some fear cap-and-trade system for emissions will lead to financial ‘carbon bubble’
CleanBeta: Is Cap-and-Trade Just the Beginning?
Gateway Pundit: Al Gore’s Environmental Group Helping Design US Cap & Trade Program
Michelle Malkin: Taxaholics of the day: Denver moves to tax cooking oil
Vets On The Watch: Al Gore Refuses To Melt
Doug Powers, Michelle Malkin: Eco-hypocrite of the week
eransworld: How to get American’s to Swallow an Ugly Pill?
About the author
Comments