What Is “Our Fair Share?”
“The rich,” our president tells us, should be willing to pay “their fair share.” But he never tells us what a “fair share” is. Nor does he level with us about who he considers the ‘”Rich.” Oh, he goes on endlessly about “Millionaires and Billionaires,” all of whom should ante up, according to our class warfare waging chief executive. But there really aren’t enough of them to pay for all the spending the Obama Administration thinks necessary for ours to be a fundamentally fair society. So the so called rich end up being individuals making more than $200,000 and couples making in excess of $250,000 – not exactly. There will be some millionaires and billionaire in this group, but there will be a whole lot more ordinary folks, nurses and accountants; insurance agents and small businessmen. These are the people who are struggling to pay their mortgages, come up with tuition for their kids college education, and take a modest vacation once a year. They haven’t played golf 72 times over the last two years, their wives probably haven’t been on safari recently, or on an expensive vacation in Spain. The Obamas won’t be running into too many of this crowd on Martha’s Vineyard next month – because these “rich” folk can’t afford to do any of those things and continue to pay their fair share to the multiple governments now picking their pockets.
We are not an under-taxed people, we’re an over governed people. To pay for all our government, most of us are paying (in addition to federal income tax), state tax, sales tax, school tax, local tax. There are taxes built into almost everything we use – as businesses and corporations pass the taxes they pay on to us in higher prices. Not to mention the increase in the price of the goods and services we buy caused by the cost of complying with massive administrative regulations imposed by federal, state, and sometimes even city governments. We pay dearly for the leviathan government has become.
As if this wasn’t enough, when folks manage to work hard over the course of a lifetime, hoping to leave a legacy to their loved ones, that legacy is taxed again before being passed to the intended beneficiaries.
But that’s not enough for the insatiable appetite of government. Money, after all, is power. It enables politicians to reward friends and supporters, and to pay whole constituencies of supporters – their “base” voters.
The progressive tax code allows there to be net payers and net beneficiaries of the tax system. After all, according to the National Taxpayers Union, in 2008 the top 5% of income earners (those making over $158,600 per year) are paying close to 59% of all federal taxes.
Not fair enough for the president, though. He wants MORE from these rich folks – why some of them probably fly in corporate jets! Can you imagine that, what greedy, selfish scum to want to keep the rest of their money – they should pay their fair share.
The bottom 50% of wage earners paid only 2.7% of total income tax. Essentially this group pays almost nothing to the commonweal – they receive the benefits of a system for which others are paying.
This is a recipe for disaster – when close to half the population pays nothing to support the government, these people have no incentive to restrain federal spending. It’s not their money (literally), but they do receive the benefit of other people’s money. This group will continue to vote in the party that gives out the most goodies to them. The Democrat Party has stayed in business for a lot of years, and now holds the White House, because of the solid voting blocks of dependent populations. And it’s in the Democrat Party’s interest to keep that block dependent. Small wonder that inner city schools remain failure factories, and why poverty remains rampant among key democrat constituencies. The party of the poor has a vested interest in having lot of poor people to support them.
Mr. President, the rich are ALREADY paying their fair share – have been for years. You can play the envy card all you want – it may even work in your base (and in Hollywood, where they’re too stupid to realize that you’re picking their pockets empty too).
It’s the lower 50% that isn’t paying their “fair share.” EVERY American should be paying something – at least a tenth (tithe) of their income. If everyone paid taxes, then maybe our representatives would think twice before asking for more, and more, and more – to feed its insatiable appetite for spending
