THE BLOG POST THAT FORCED MR. HENDERSON TO QUIT BLOGGING
September 22, 2010: According to Mr. Henderson, the rhetoric in Washington about taxes is about millionaires and the super rich, but the relevant dividing line between millionaires and the middle class is pegged at family income of $250,000. (Mr. Henderson is not a math professor, but last time he checked $250,000 is less than $1 million.) That makes him super rich and subject to a big tax hike if the president has his way.
Mr. Henderson is the president’s neighbor in Chicago, but they’ve never met. He wishes he could meet the President, because he would introduce him to his family and his lifestyle, one the President believes is capable of financing the vast expansion of government he is planning. A quick look at Mr. Henderson’s family budget, which he will happily share with the White House, will show the President that like many Americans, they are just getting by despite seeming to be rich. They aren’t.
Mr. Henderson, like the president before him, is a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and his wife, like the first lady before her, works at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she is a doctor who treats children with cancer. Thier combined income exceeds the $250,000 threshold for the super rich (but not by that much), and the president plans on raising my taxes. After all, they can afford it, and the world we are now living in has that familiar Marxian tone of those who need take and those who can afford it pay. The problem is, they can’t afford it. Here is why.
The problem with the president’s plan is that the super rich don’t pay taxes – they hide in the Cayman Islands or use fancy investment vehicles to shelter their income. We aren’t rich enough to afford this – Mr. Henderson uses Turbo Tax. But are rich enough to be hurt by the president’s plan. The next time the president comes home to Chicago, he has a standing invitation to come to Mr. Henderson’s house (two blocks from his) and judge for himself whether the Hendersons are as rich as he thinks….
[originally posted by
Todd Henderson on September 15, 2010].