Unkind tax talk

Eventually, the talk will come back to taxes. Reading through pages of campaign speeches from both the primary and general election season of 2008, I find recurring themes, articulated and implied, that will be employed to support proposed tax increases. I would encourage everyone to question whether these assertions are true.

**** Politicians demonize the rich by suggesting that the rich don’t work for their money. You constantly hear the “rich” and the “working people” in speeches as if the former just has money while the latter works to acquire it. In the past, it was usually working class, but it has morphed into working people. My life experience suggests that the wealthy work just as hard, if not harder,than anyone else. Many take significant risks with their own funds in the pursuit of their success.

There seems to be a widespread belief that the rich don’t work for their money. But almost all of the wealthy people I know started working at the minimum wage, had some post high school education, are literate, have reasonably good social skills and a sound work ethic. Most all of them entered the working world and some into their marriages at earnings levels in the poverty range. They acquired their wealth over time and they built their fortunes over their own working life. There is some wealth that seems to travel from generation to generation but no one is more adept at that than politicians.

**** The rich don’t need their money. This suggestion is made surprisingly very overtly.

Democrats are always saying that Republicans want to give tax cuts to people who don’t need them. While need is a legitimate calculation in the dispersion of revenue (for the recipient), it is hardly relevant in determining the contributor’s tax rate . Who can possibly determine when, if and how much of any persons money is needed by its owner. That would be impossible in real time, much less looking into the future. And how does that translate into a justification for taking it from them. This is a calculus employed by those who steal from their employers and insurers as well as those that rob banks. ( This scenario does not even entertain a more interesting question, whether those individuals who don’t need their money would put it toward more productive uses than the government).

Isn’t it a bit arrogant? - deciding how much of people’s earnings they should be allowed to keep based on the beneficiaries perception of the providers need.

**** The private accumulation of wealth is somehow bad for the economy. I am not threatened by accumulated wealth and neither are you. Would society be better served by transferring Bill Gate’s wealth in large part to the government? I don’t know anyone who has less wealth because Mr. Gates has much.

There are very few things that I am absolutely sure about, but one is – Those of us who pay federal taxes in the ten or fifteen percent bracket or pay no tax at all are not the helpless victims of those who pay 25 or 28 or 35 percent (or those who will likely pay 39.6 percent soon). We could all stand to be a little less angry and perhaps a bit more grateful.