Bad Ideas from Scott Adams

A year and a half ago or so -- I don't know, does that really matter? Jeez, lay off -- the Wall Street Journal was kind enough to share with us all some thoughtful ideas from Scott Adams on how to tax the wealthy. He offers his "bad ideas" (his words) as an incentive for us to all think more about them, "them" being the wealthy, or, more specifically, their taxation. I suggest this solves the wrong problem. The problem is not how to tax the wealthy -- that's easy -- the problem is how to get them to stop whining.  Anyway, here's a summary of his ideas:

• Let the rich ride in car pool lanes and park in handicapped spaces;
• Make people applying for social services write personal thank you notes to the wealthy;
• Treat the wealthy as venture capitalists that are investing in specific governmental programs like social security and medicare. [NB: He suggests -- really, he does -- that this would cause the wealthy to seek improvements in these programs; I suggest that would lead instead to their current approach which is to try to kill these programs because they, the rich, don't need those programs. Anyway, I am not so sure I want the rich, who despite their wealth don't usually know too much, to be substituting their skills for experts, ya know, like doctors involved in medicare medical decisions, but that's just me.]
• Make the un-rich take a cut in pay or governmental services to make them share the pain of the rich paying more in taxes. [NB: I suggest an alternative -- deny the rich who do not want to pay taxes the use of their homes, cars, most personal property, savings, investments, or incomes for three months a year. Also raise the highest marginal rate very high. Despite the tax increase I promise a lot of taxes would quickly be paid. Anyway, that's a lot better and fairer way to share the pain.]
• Give the rich an extra vote for paying higher taxes. [Actually, amazingly, I'd agree with that if we also outlaw any political donations by the rich or their proxies (we could also amend the Constitution and limit everyone's contribution limits to, like, $100 [by "everyone" I mean, of course, every natural person; no other contributions would be allowed]). My point here is, of course, that through their spending on elections the rich are affecting a lot more than two votes. But anyway ....]