“It’s Time the Poor Started Paying Their Fair Share”
21st April 2011
Freeberg stops the train for a moment.
In fact, is anybody in America in danger of starving to death because their salaries & wages are too much on the skimpy side? Any kids with swollen bellies in American cities, desperately trying to catch rats & pigeons so their starving bodies can get some protein?
I shouldn’t be able to find any poor people with big teevee sets, right? Certainly, no poor people with teevee sets bigger than those owned by some of the “wealthy” taxpayers who subsidize them? Does my social studies teacher’s argument still hold water if the waitress’ kid wears $300 sneakers to school? What if the waitress has a $500 tattoo?
My point is that when some of them are…and that is undoubtedly the case…we are no longer talking about money required for survival. The necessities of survival have, in one way or another, been provided, thus freeing up the cash for these non-staple items. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with that either. Other than this: Don’t characterize it as a discussion about what’s needed to survive, when that is not what we’re really talking about.
Also, 45% is awfully close to 50%. If half of us are not paying any income tax at all, and the matter being referred to the electorate is “should we provide more alms,” then the “we” in that question has lost all practical meaning. If it’s a minority among the electorate doing the providing the question becomes more like one of “should we make those guys over there give us more stuff?”
April 26th, 2011 at 13:34
There is no such thing as a “fair share” for the rich. If the liberals instituted a tax policy in which “the rich” paid 100% of their income every year, there would *still* be someone wailing that “the rich” weren’t paying their “fair share” of taxes. What a “fair share” for the rich translates to is “I had to wait in line for my hip, trendy, and expensive and I don’t like it! The Government should Do Something About It!”