OK, let me get this straight.  In the Ayn Randian world of conservatives, there are “makers” (the rich, the top 2%, the “job creators,” whatever you want to call them) and there are the “takers” (that would be all of the rest of us).

Good so far?

Now the takers are lazy and shiftless and corrupt and untrustworthy, while the makers are strong and industrious and honest and true.  And the makers must be supported and coddled at all costs – mostly by the takers.  

Wait!  That’s not right.  I’ve read Ayn Rand – all of her major works, a play and a book of previously unpublished writings that included passages edited out of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.”  (Hard to believe she edited anything out of these books, but there it is.)

My take-away from all this reading is that the makers are unstoppable.  They’re more resilient than antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea.  In “Atlas Shrugged” Dagny Taggart kept her railroad going through hundreds of pages of defections of makers from her team.  By the time John Galt coaxed her to his Valhalla of supermen she was practically running everything (with the help of at least a few takers despite their worthlessness).  In “The Fountainhead” Howard Roark was slammed down again and again and again (far more times than were necessary to make the point) and came back every time.  He was the Energizer Bunny.  He was a Timex watch.  He took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’.

Yet the Randians in Congress seem to have missed that point (along with many others).  They are totally on board with the uselessness of the masses, but they’ve lost faith in the supermen and women.  In their interpretation, the makers can be paralyzed by a 4.6% tax increase.  Not only will a 4.6% increase freeze them, it will convince them that they can have no certainty that tax rates will not shoot into the stratosphere in the future.  As a result, they will curl up into fetal positions in their well-appointed bedrooms and remain there until the terrifying prospect of giving up an extra $4.60 out of every $100 they “create” disappears.

Please, please, please tell me what titan of enterprise or corner shop owner now or in the history of the world would give up making $60 dollars because he wanted to make $65.

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?

No.  Because it will never happen and it has rarely ever happened.  For real makers the $60 will always win out.  And it should.  Sixty years ago, makers went out and made a lot – a LOT – when their take-home could have been as little as $30 on that $100.  Makers make.  Otherwise, they aren’t makers, they’re – well, you know.

And no, Chicken Little, 4.6% isn’t the first step to 100%.  Look at me.  Look at me.  Breathe.  Breathe. It’s the only step to 39.6%.  That’s all.

Got it?  Good.  Now go out and build a slightly smaller empire than you would have last year.