Skip to main content

Pay your fair share

The current pitch from the Clinton/Kaine ticket is that those making more, doing well, and those with good incomes, should pay more. They should pay their fair share. Fair share sounds reasonable.  That is until you chalk up who will pay.

Most of us, at least those reading this, think of our personal situation as middling.  We are not rich, not poor, but getting by, some better than others. We think, let's get the million a year rich.  YES. These people drive luxury cars, take luxury vacations, and enjoy the benefits of household maids, gardeners, servants at parties, and the like. These are the folks that should pay more.  YES.

The only problem here is that these so-called "folks' have already taken care of their money.  It is gone, already exported to save havens, untouchable by the taxman. The stronger the hint that the money will be taxed, the more motivated they have become. There are agencies supporting their cause, offering remedies for shelter in the coming storm. Some are in Panama - haven't you heard?   The "let's get em" mantra we all support is null and void. That money is gone. The IRS can try to tax, but only try.  It makes good press.  Nothing will come.

Yet, money to support adventurous new programs must be found.  From where?  From us. From us with far less resources than a million per year.  It will be found from those in the 100-300K range.  A large pool of resources it may be. But not enough. We have more than the poor, a lot more.  Most are on salary, in most cases money they've worked hard to get. Bump them up to a 50% tax rate, and there is a bunch of dough, but more resentment.    More big loans will be needed. We will long for the days of only a twenty trillion of debt. 

Bottom line.  Don't count the on the truly rich to help, to contribute, and to make redistribution possible.  It is you and I that will. And we will at a far higher rate than you can imagine.

"Blame it on the rich" is a battle cry for votes. Even those rich, Buffet, Bloomberg, Cuban and more, make the cry, These sanctimonious rich have protected their cash.  They pay maybe 15%. in taxes.  Do you?

Bernie Sanders, the champion of the poor, upon seeing Aetna* pulling out of the Obama care exchanges, has signaled the need for a single payer plan, namely the federal government.  It may be possible if the government was just a little bit efficient.  It is not. It will never be.  If you believe otherwise, or believe it can be made to be so, this is more than delusional. Bernie, like so many others, believe the cash cow of the rich will continue to generate taxable money no matter what.

*http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/17/490202346/aetna-ceo-to-justice-department-block-our-deal-and-well-drop-out-of-exchanges

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Accepting Fake Information

Every day, we are all bombarded with information, especially on news channels.  One group claims it's false; another calls it the truth. How can we know when to accept it or alternatively how can we know it's false? There are several factors which influence acceptance of fake or false information. Here are the big four.  Some just don’t have the knowledge to discern fact/truth from fiction/fact/false*. Some fake information is cleverly disguised and simply appears to be correct. Some fake information is accepted because the person wants to believe it. Some fake information is accepted because there is no other information to the contrary. However, the acceptance of  information  of any kind become a kind of  truth , and this is a well studied topic. In the link below is an essay on “The Truth About Truth.” This shows simply that what is your point of view, different types of information are generally accepted, fake or not.   https://www.linkedin.com/posts/g-donald-allen-420b03

Your Brain Within Your Brain

  Your Bicameral Brain by Don Allen Have you ever gone to another room to get something, but when you got there you forgot what you were after? Have you ever experienced a flash of insight, but when you went to look it up online, you couldn’t even remember the keyword? You think you forgot it completely. How can it happen so fast? You worry your memory is failing. Are you merely absent-minded? You try to be amused. But maybe you didn’t forget.   Just maybe that flash of insight, clear and present for an instant, was never given in the verbal form, but another type of intelligence you possess, that you use, and that communicates only to you. We are trained to live in a verbal world, where words matter most. Aside from emotions, we are unable to conjure up other, nonverbal, forms of intelligence we primitively, pre-verbally, possess but don’t know how to use. Alas, we live in a world of words, stewing in the alphabet, sleeping under pages of paragraphs, almost ignoring one of

Is Artificial Intelligence Conscious?

  Is Artificial Intelligence Conscious? I truly like the study of consciousness, though it is safe to say no one really knows what it is. Some philosophers has avoided the problem by claiming consciousness simply doesn’t exist. It's the ultimate escape clause. However, the "therefore, it does not exist" argument also applies to "truth", "God", and even "reality" all quite beyond a consensus description for at least three millennia. For each issue or problem defying description or understanding, simply escape the problem by claiming it doesn’t exist. Problem solved or problem avoided? Alternately, as Daniel Dennett explains consciousness as an account of the various calculations occurring in the brain at close to the same time. However, he goes on to say that consciousness is so insignificant, especially compared to our exalted notions of it, that it might as well not exist [1] . Oh, well. Getting back to consciousness, most of us have view