Apparently Bill O'Reilly is terribly upset that President Obama might want to raise his taxes on capital gains, so much so that he actually threatened that he and his ilk of fellow investors who potentially could be taxed higher on their "sweat equity" might "pack it in" during his "Talking Points Memo" on this Monday's The O'Reilly Factor.

O'REILLY: Here's the unintended consequence of Mr. Obama's revenue enhancing plan, and I must tell you, I want the feds to get more revenue. I don't want to starve them, as some people do. We need a robust military, a good transportation system and protections all over the place. But if you tax achievement, some of the achievers are going to pack it in.

I'm not quite sure just where O'Reilly and his buddies are going to "pack it in" to, but let me be the first to say that if it means you not being on the air any more at Fox, please go... and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out to wherever in the hell you plan on going.

And apparently O'Reilly has absolutely no idea what the term "sweat equity" means. I would recommend him spending a little time watching either HGTV or the DIY networks if he would like to get a clue on what that term actually means.

UPDATED: Steve Benen explains:

In Ronald Reagan’s first term, for example, the top rate was — you guessed it — 50%. Did Reagan’s “oppressive” tax rates prevent robust economic growth? Did “the achievers” decide to “pack it in”? No and no. For nearly all of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, the top rate was 91%. That’s not a typo. Did this Republican president’s “oppressive” tax policy prevent the U.S. economy from growing in the 1950s? Apparently not. That said, if O’Reilly is contemplating retirement to avoid helping America pay its bills, I’m not inclined to discourage him

Hullabaloo

That's the best reason I've yet heard for raising taxes on these creeps. What's funny is that O'Reilly is under the illusion that he's one of the big job creators in our culture who can't be asked to give up even one penny of his massive income lest he lose all reason to wake up in the morning. Well sorry -- he's one of the entertainers, not one of the producers. He may be irreplaceable to curmudgeonly old FOX News, but it won't make a bit of difference to the economy. So, buh bye. But that's not why I say he's a moron. He's a moron because he doesn't know how marginal tax rates work and when you make the ridiculous sums of money he makes, you really ought to. On the other hand, if he's so dumb that he thinks Obama is actually proposing a 50% tax rate and then whines publicly to a country full of poor people about it, then maybe we should just take his money

.