Who’s to decide how the rich should spend their money? I agree, the rich should be more altruistic, but asking for higher taxes is just a dumb way of doing it, and in the long run, will just harm other sectors of the country.

If I were rich, I certainly wouldn’t want my money going into a shoddy public education system (California spends some of the most money in terms of K-12 public education, and regularly ranks one of the lowest in the country),

The rich are not banks for inefficient governments to use as they see fit. One day, I hope to be rich, and I sure as hell hope the government keep their hands off of it.

Since when? Do you realize that the government is saying they OWN your money when they collect income taxes? Whether it’s a 1% tax or 99% tax, they own the fruits of your labor.

And apparently this editorial has written nothing about charities. Somehow paying taxes is an honorable thing to do, especially if you are rich. Somehow it goes over the head of the writer that the taxes are being spent on bureaucracies so substantial and inept that the money taxed is money lost in Washington.

Take, for example, Katrina. Apparently the patriotic tax payers of America should be proud to have funded FEMA. For it was FEMA who gave thousands of dollars to prisoners who said they were dislocated from the Katrina floods. It was FEMA who put out thousands of trailers out for these people, that ended up never being used. It was FEMA who kept the progress in New Orleans slowing when silly charities were trying to make progress.

Listen, if a list of Germans want to give money away they should. But they shouldn’t sign a petition to tax others who did not sign the petition. Those Germans would do well to create their own charity and help people out. Why they need the government is beyond me.