Let me ask you something: If you were just audited by the IRS and faced a huge tax bill or your furnace and hot water heater both blew up at exactly the same time, would you be in a mood to spend any time soon?
Probably not.
It's human nature to horde cash when you know soon you'll be doling out a lot of cash and not on things you planned, but things you can't avoid, so you really can't avoid not shopping and not buying and not going crazy this Christmas.
That's not to say you won't spend. You just won't spend as much.
Which gets me back to the rich or should I say, the richer. Because within little more than a year, some sooner, they'll be paying more in taxes — a lot more.
The top rate will go back up to nearly 40 percent and if health care goes through, another 5 percent on top of that to pay for the darn thing. That's a new top rate of 45 percent, and I'm leaving out higher state taxes and surtaxes and top of surtaxes.
So, knowing you'll be paying at least a third more in taxes, would you buy a third more of anything or even a tenth more or a twentieth more?
Of course not. You're too busy cocooning ahead of the tax man coming.
So you hunker down and you're feeling down precisely because you're hunkering down. And you just shut down and the economy just shuts down too.
Because that's the thing about the rich: Their numbers are small, but their cash is contagious.
They spend; we spend. They feel giddy and buy; retailers feel giddy and sell. Until the merry go round stops and the ride isn't fun. And Washington isn't getting it and the rich they love to bash have bashed back, without saying a thing or spending anything.
— Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com
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