Wall Street Journal. Op-ed Contributor: Advice for the 'Poor Rich'

[mahatmakanejeeves]

He's a contributor, so what he says does not have to jibe with the Wall Street Journal.'s expected outlook.

Advice for the 'Poor Rich'

Everybody hates Todd Henderson.

In case you haven't heard, he's the University of Chicago law professor who unwisely blogged last week about his financial woes in a post headlined "We Are the Super Rich."

Mr. Henderson and his wife, an oncologist, make more than $250,000 a year, and apparently they're struggling to get by. If President Barack Obama gets his wicked way, and tax rates rise for those earning more than $250,000 a year, Mr. Henderson says it will mean real sacrifice in his family.

It's too easy to pelt Mr. Henderson with rotten eggs, as so many have now done. (He yanked the post, but way too late–and on the Internet, one's blunders never die.) But can we, instead, give him some useful advice?

Sure.
....

Stop blaming the government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, $265,000 is the average income of a household in the top 20% of the country, and $395,000 is the average for those in the top 10%. (The thresholds, of course, will be much lower). So you're near the top of the tree in the richest country in history. At the same time, contrary to what you seem to think, federal taxes are not extortionate by modern historical standards. According to the CBO, families in the top 20% pay average federal taxes of 25.1%. The figure in President Reagan's final year in office: 25.6%.

It's a great paper. You ignore it at your peril.

[JuniperLea]

1. Waaaaaa... we all have to live within our means...

If that means going from super rich to merely rich, I'd say the rich are still way ahead of the game... and it's time to stop gaming the game.

[JDPriestly]

2. I only see a black page.

Speaking of living within your means. For many of us that means choosing between subscribing to things like newspapers or cable TV or getting the internet. Guess which one we chose?

[wmbrew0206]

3. That is actually a very good article with advice for a lot of people, not just the "Poor Rich"

I would have loved to see the Administration start talking up taking vacations in America over the summer, instead going outside the country, maybe working with some of the Hollywood types that supported him in the campaign. The US has pretty much every thing you could want to do in the summer, besides snow ski, and keeping tourism dollars in the US would have been a nice boost to the economy.