Ten percent for "the Big Guy"? Yeah, right; more like, "12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and[/or] 37%."

See what the "Big Guy" said on Twitter this morning:

Under President Biden’s leadership, we’ve made real progress towards a fairer tax system.

His budget will continue this progress by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.

And, no one earning less than $400,000 will see their taxes go up by one penny. pic.twitter.com/ejMbxdPuC4

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 20, 2023

As I'm sure many of us are painfully aware, that was a lie — I certainly don't make $400,000 a year, and I took a massive hit on Tuesday, which was a marked change from years past.

Oddly enough, income tax is eerily similar to the protection fee demanded by organized crime syndicates; for the Sicilian mafia, this extorted chunk of cash is known as "pizzo."  From an online encyclopedia:

A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments at regular intervals.

So long as you make your payments at regular intervals, nobody gets hurt, right?

What's worse is that my federal extortion payment was only the beginning: I also forfeited state income tax for the months I lived in Arizona, and now I'll spend the rest of the year paying a litany of other taxes.  See below:

List of Illegal taxes that we pay. Just STOP! pic.twitter.com/9sn1vWkZOW

— Kinetic 17 (@MaggieBower17) April 3, 2023

Shortly after President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December of 2017, I had a conversation with a left-wing family member, and it went exactly as you'd expect.

As an open borders, socialist/communist (adopted identities she wouldn't even be able to define), "educated" Democrat, of course she hated President Trump and everything he did; certainly, the new tax code was "unfair" because all the other teachers in her left-wing school said so, and instead of her usual refund, she actually owed money to the government.

First off, I tried to explain that when she would receive a "refund," it just meant that the federal government was using her money interest-free, and she was simply getting a portion of her own money back (and, given her circumstances, nothing more).  She didn't get it.

I then asked how much she made, and showed her that prior to the tax cuts, she was in the 25% tax bracket, but now, thanks to President Trump, she was paying only 22%.  Her response?  The predictable pivot of a leftist caught looking like an idiot: "Well, that still seems high."  I replied, "Well, yes, it should be zero percent, but all those government programs you love so much cost real money."  Again, the concept eluded her.  (Democrat voters remain hopelessly thick-headed.)

Since I don't make anywhere near the 37% tax bracket, I've never really done the math, but lying in bed the other night, I discovered that someone making $500,000 a year would have $185,000 shaved off the top immediately.  I was awake for hours.  (Leftists and the fallout of their stupid ideas literally keep me up at night!)  I should have known, though, because a few years back, my father-in-law (a retired orthopedic surgeon) calculated that he worked an average of four straight months out of every year just to cover his federal "pizzo" payment.  This is beyond criminal.

Make Americans Free Again!

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.