SOCIALISM AND HOW IT DESTROYS SOCIETY
August 4th, 2010
Lunch with Saint Betty
Axed
Saint Betty and I were having our regular Saturday lunch at Antonio’s yesterday, and we were reminiscing about my older brother, David. Sadly, we lost David to illness several years ago; we were talking about the many ways he had touched our lives.
When I was a senior in high school, I considered joining the Peace Corps rather than going right to college as my parents expected me to do. I remember writing a letter to David to ask his advice (he was living in NYC at the time, the coolest place I could imagine other than maybe Haight-Asbury, hahaha), and was studying Anthropology at NYU. I will never forget his response. First he suggested I make two lists: The Pros (self satisfaction, travel, helping the less fortunate, etc) and The Cons (parental resistance, sleeping in a tent with no shower, all those missed Frat keg parties).
He also included an interesting story about a small primitive tribe living in a remote jungle somewhere. This tribe had only one axe which resided with the tribal chief and the use of which was a coveted privilege. The axe had been passed down for generations from one chief to the next and made the recipient a very powerful entity in the tribe. But there is only so much that can be done for an entire village with just one axe so the tribe, although seemingly content as it was a very peaceful tribe, had lived simply and had not progressed in centuries.
The Peace Corps decided to change that. They brought in crates of axes; one for every family! Such a simple thing, and now everyone could better their lives! Onward civilization!
Well the more aspiring folks got right to work with those axes and they labored to build beautiful big huts, and they filled them with fruits, nuts, and vegetables for their families. Others were not so industrious and continued living much as they and generations before them had lived; after all they had always been provided with what they needed, and they had gotten by just fine so far.
And you know what happened? The tribe started falling apart; some became jealous of their neighbors’ new “wealth,” and cried out, “That’s not fair! We deserve to have big houses and lots of food like they have!” They complained to the tribal chief, but the chief could do nothing because he had lost all his power when the crates full of axes arrived.
I don’t know what ever happened to that tribe; but the story left me with some interesting questions: Was the Peace Corps wrong to provide those axes? After all, every family got an identical axe and so each was provided with an equal opportunity to improve their lives. Why did some not take advantage of their windfall? Were they just lazy? And how could they possibly be jealous of what their neighbors had? Why didn’t they just pick up their own axes and build their own big huts and cut their own fruits and vegetables, instead of complaining and demanding that the others share what they had worked so hard for?
Sometimes, when I listen to the news these days, it seems like the same thing is now happening in our country that happened to that little tribe when they were presented with the axes.
We hear every day about the big greedy corporations who should be forced to pay their fair share. They make it sound as though a corporation is some kind of monstrous nonentity, completely lacking in consciousness and sucking up everything in its path. But isn’t a corporation really just a very large group of people working together at the same thing? Didn’t every corporation, no matter how big, start with the dreams and hard work of one individual? And isn’t that what this country is all about? The American Dream: If you just work hard enough, you can be and you can have whatever you want to be and to have. The sky is the limit, right?
I read an article by Decan McCullough published in his “Other People’s Money” column on the CBS News website on April 15, 2009. It said that an astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing “taxpayers” who pay no taxes or receive money back has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million!
It said that those numbers come from an analysis published by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. The article also said that the concern is that the majority (and the number of people paying no taxes is now a majority; keep in mind that those statistics are based on the individuals who actually file every year and does not include those citizens and non citizens living in our country who do not file) can say, “Let’s have more benefits, spend more,” if they’re not paying for it. It’s free!
Now, wait just a minute! When the government spends more it simply means more taxes. There is nothing free about that for people like me who are paying about 30% of what we earn now in taxes. The article continues by saying that it becomes tempting for the majority to vote for politicians promising more and more handouts, paid for by money forcibly extracted from an ever-shrinking number of their neighbors. What has happened here? Did someone hand out axes?
I went to Google and asked, “What percentage of our federal income is paid by the wealthy?” Wikipedia had the following answer: “Well, I’m not sure where you define wealthy…but the upper 50% of the wage earners pay 97% of all tax collections, and the lower ones only 3%. The upper of the upper pay a disproportionate share of that too, the Top 1% of earners equals 37% of taxes paid, the next bracket 2-5% accounts for another 20%. So about 57% paid by the top 5%.” It goes on to point out that many of the wealthier also have much of their income taxed (some would say double taxed) by the returns of those corporations they control/own.
Wow! That certainly puts a new light on things! If this is the case, why do we hear every day on the news that big corporations and the wealthy must be forced to pay their fair share? It sounds to Saint Betty and I like the wealthy in our country are already paying their share, and a whole lot more at that!
I asked Google another question: What percentage of CT income tax is paid by the wealthy? The Yankee Institute for Public Policy in its executive summary of a policy briefing dated May 20, 2009 provides some very interesting statistics. It claims that:
· The top 20 percent of Connecticut income earners – those who make more than $100,000 a year – already pay 80 percent of state income tax receipts.
· The top 6 percent of filers – those over $250,000 – pay half of all state income taxes.
· The top 1.3 percent of taxpayers – those earning more than $1 million – pay 35 percent of total income tax receipts, or more than $2.1 billion in 2007.
And get this! It says that the bottom 60 percent of Connecticut taxpayers – those with incomes under about $60,000 (and that sure includes me) – paid less than 10 percent of state income taxes, and the bottom 40 percent of all filers – those with incomes of less than $35,000 – effectively paid no state income taxes.
Now this information came from a quick Google search, but CBS News, Wikipedia, the Tax Policy Center, and the Yankee Institute for Public Policy sure sound legitimate to me. I need to continue to research and see what other information I find. It’s so easy! Just type in a question and get, well, thousands or sometimes even millions of answers!
Saint Betty and I paid our tab, which included taxes of course since we all pay sales tax and service fees every day (that’s in addition to our income tax of course): in fact everyone in our state pays exactly the same 6% whenever we buy something! If we don’t want to pay the tax, we don’t purchase the item. Simple as that! Now that sounds fair to me.
We included Jodi’s tip (she is of course our favorite waitress) which we always calculate on the total bill, including taxes. Jodi is a good mother, a patriotic citizen, and a darn hard worker. Saint Betty and I are happy to share what little we have with her just as she shares her energy and enthusiasm with us every Saturday. Jodi swings a hard axe too, that’s for sure.
Categories: Uncategorized
The Calculations broke down like that does show what is payed in on taxes just in consumers items.
Have lived in the Untited States of America for a tolal of 13 years.
Here in Europe we just have the tax included in the item so, when we see the price tax is already included.
Having the break down gives food for thoughts for us here in Ireland and Europe.
It is just listed on some receipts of big purchase as V.A.T.
On regular receipts for food and other items of consumers purchase it is not.
Good Read!