Phil Mickelson made headlines this week for comments he made about “drastic changes” he may have to make in the wake of his federal and state tax rates going up. Mickelson hinted that he may be considering moving out of California or even retiring because of the out-of-control taxes he faces.
While his candor and honesty should be viewed as refreshing, Mickelson is already walking his comments back, releasing a statement that reads:
Finances and taxes are a personal matter, and I should not have made my opinions on them public. I apologize to those I have upset or insulted, and assure you I intend not to let it happen again.
“All right. I know I don't know anything at all about sports, but Phil Mickelson is pissing me off,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “I don't even understand this… He came out and he said, ‘Look, I'm thinking about moving from California, I'm thinking about maybe retiring because of the tax situation.’”
Considering 70 percent of Americans were impacted by the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, Mickelson is certainly not the only person feeling the pinch of a smaller paycheck, so it is unclear why he would need to apologize for his comments. Whether you make $20,000 a year or $200 million a year, an increase in your tax rate is going to affect your way of life.
“I don't care if you are a garbage collector or a banker; you probably have had this conversation too,” Glenn said. “So what is it that Phil is saying? ‘Something's got to change because this doesn't work for me.’”
The outrage over Michelson’s comments is particularly suspect considering his fellow golfer, Tiger Woods, admitted he made a very similar decision in the 1990s.
REPORTER: Slightly different topic here. Phil Mickelson made some comments regarding the higher taxes here in California, you being a resident now of Florida but from here any comment or any reaction to what he said?
WOODS: Well, I moved out of [California] back in, what, '96, you know, for that reason.
“He just admitted, California, that he left you because of your tax policy,” Stu said. “And he left you to go to Florida because they have zero state income tax. That's why he just told you. Mickelson's doing the same thing. How many people that you don't know of are doing this too?”
Liberals and progressives will always argue that higher taxes are necessary to fund the ever-growing government, and, until recently, many Americans did not seem to realize the impact higher taxes would have on their lives. Perhaps the most effective way to make people aware of how much money they give to the government each paycheck is to think about it in a different way.
“Please, America, think of this: Somebody like Phil is paying 60 percent [between state and federal taxes]. Don't look at this as money. Look at this as time,” Glenn said. “Ever heard the phrase ‘time is money’? 60 percent of my day is going to pay taxes. 60 percent of every idea that I have, every struggle in business, every tough day I have, 60 percent of that goes to the federal government.”
Take the sport of football, for example. The regular season in the NFL is 16 weeks long. So with a combined tax rate of about 60 percent, how many games does someone have to play before they start taking home any money? 60 percent of the season is about 9 or ten games, which pretty much means they play those first nine or 10 games for free (or, as progressives see it, for the good of the government).
“They are donating the first nine or 10 games to the government,” Glenn said.
There is no doubt that some level of government will always be necessary, and there needs to be a way to fund those services, but there needs to be a conversation at some point about how much is too much.
“It's not about the money,” Glenn said. “There's always more money to be made. It hurts businesses because at some point there's a tipping point, but the tipping point is not about the money.”
When you look at people who have changed the world – people like Nikola Telsa, George Westinghouse, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates – wealth proved to merely be a byproduct of the work they were doing. These people work because they love what they do. Out-of-control taxes do not bother these people because it takes away their hard-earned money, it frustrates them because it’s a penalty on the time they have put in.
“It's not about the money. You are taking 60 percent of my time. My time,” Glenn concluded. “And if you are not wealthy, every single dollar in tax increases, look at it as time, not money. Because time is money.”
