Taxes. Everyone hates paying them. The courts have repeatedly held that it is legal to avoid paying taxes but not to evade paying them. We max our deductibles at year end. Some of us try very hard to have that next child by the end of December.

Taxes. You pay taxes if your income exceeds your deductions. In other words, if your life is more profitable. The same holds true for companies of all sizes, from the mom and pop grocery all the way up to the giant corporation like GM or Microsoft.

Let’s phrase that differently. If your life is more successful, you pay taxes. If your business is more successful, you pay taxes. Your penalty, assessed by our government, for making money is to pay taxes.

Now, you and I just pay taxes and try to have something left at the end of the day. Businesses have other options. They can cut distributions to their owners or stockholders. They can raise prices for their goods and services. Taxing a businesses either hurts the owners, causes price increases, or both.

Barry Obama wants to both cut taxes and raise taxes. Nice trick.

For about 50% of American taxpayers, this will not mean a tax cut because they pay no income taxes to begin with. Their deductions and tax credits equal or exceed their income. They will get a check in the mail. A “rebate”. Oh, I don’t know what they will call it but it amounts to a gift for not paying taxes.

Some of the rest of us may see our taxes drop. That’s good.

But, as taxes increase on people and companies that are very successful, are very profitable, our costs will go up. These successful people and companies will have less money to spend on buying things, creating jobs, paying dividends that add to the value of our retirement plans. Prices will go up. Marginal plants and divisions of companies will close. The successful will do things to maximize their ability to avoid taxes, just like everyone else does. Higher taxes = more efforts to avoid.

Barry seems to have the curious notion that the profits of the successful are somehow stashed in mattresses and never used for anything. That’s why they are there to be taxed. He’s a silly man.

No one leaves money just laying around. Rich people, successful people and companies, became that way by using their profits to make more profits. Investing in growth, spending the money on living expenses, donating the money to worthy causes. Taking those profits in taxes means that the successful, profitable people and companies will not have as much money to spend on those things.

If you believe that Barry Obama knows how to spend our money better than you and I do, please vote for Barry. If you believe that letting the government punish, with higher taxes, the people and companies that are actually producing and succeeding in the economy is right, please vote for Barry.

But if you begrudge every penny the government takes from you, if you see the government wasting money, hard earned money that could have produced jobs and savings and a better future, then you must vote for the lesser of two evils. John McCain and Sarah Palin.