Success, Not Excess

If polls are correct, many Americans want wealthy Americans to pay more taxes. Why? First and foremost, self interest; we don't want to pay more taxes ourselves, something I'm not sure is completely realistic.* It's like with government budget cuts at any level, "don't cut things that benefit me, cut my neighbor's stuff." Secondly, many Americans, in my opinion, feel the system is now so controlled by wealthy interests, there has to be something done to try to smooth out the tremendous income disparity that has developed over the last thirty plus years. Does this mean Americans want to tear down the system and start over? No, not in my opinion. Does this mean Americans want to penalize success? Not most Americans, in my opinion, BUT all taxes are NOT created equally. Many of us think of income taxes deducted from our pay (federal, state and local), or paid in estimated amounts during the year, when we hear the word "taxes." The thing is, almost half of Americans don't pay ANY federal income taxes now (Social Security and Medicare are different). There are many reasons for that, including tax cuts and various deductions, but that's what statistics show. As I noted, not all taxes are created equally. This is not to pick on Mitt Romney, but he's in the news, and I have a sneaking suspicion his tax returns represent a pretty good segment of the tax returns for many very wealthy Americans. Romney has made millions in the last couple of years, but almost all of it was through investments, not through actual work. It is not without reason I have dubbed such over the years here, "the sit on their ass class." Most statistics show the majority of Americans are working harder than ever just to tread water, or to keep from going over the cliff. Now, does this mean I'm against investors? No, but this stuff has gotten ridiculous. Tax rates on this "unearned" income have also been cut substantially. As I've noted here many times, they make this money off of money; demanding higher profits (thus higher dividends) from companies who then slash labor costs through lower wages and benefits, jobs shipped overseas to low wage countries, job cuts or through all of the above, to provide greater income to the "sit on their ass class." AND they have gotten away with it! Why?

Unions are, and have been, in decline. Like magicians who get the audience to focus on one thing to distract attention from the "magic" they intend to perform, wealthy interests have gotten many Americans to believe they will be better off if unions are busted, and goods and services are provided by cheaper labor, thus cheaper prices. The thing is, this has created a race to the bottom. Folks, if this continues, YOU likely will be affected, if you haven't been already, even if you are not a union member, or if you are a small business owner (customers with less money!). As I've noted here before, you don't always have to agree with a particular union stance on an issue, but you had better think about where we would be if we didn't have unions to provide a floor under wages, benefits, and working conditions. Just recently, Newt Gingrich proposed dismantling child labor laws by saying children should be employed as janitors. Where does most of the income go from all of the job cutting, wage cutting? To the wealthiest Americans.

Just as an example of how misguided some Americans are, in 2008, then candidate Barack Obama was campaigning in a neighborhood in northern Ohio. He talked with one Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (with a name like that, he could have been part of my series, "The German Question"), who questioned the Democratic candidate about his tax policies, noting that he was going to buy a plumbing business that made about $275,000 a year. Obama noted that he wanted to "spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody," and the future president truthfully noted that anyone making over $250,000 a year would have their taxes go from 36% to 39%. Wurzelbacher became famous as a McCain supporter dubbed, "Joe the Plumber.** Media found court records indicating "Joe" made about 40 grand a year. So, 3% (the increase in taxes from 36% to 39%) of the approximate business income of $275,000 is $8250. If you made 40 grand a year and someone offered you a chance to make $275 grand, would you say, "No way! I'm not going to pay that extra $8,250! My mother didn't raise any fools!" This is how distorted the thinking is among many Americans, and the wealthy interests love it. Here was an average American standing up for them, but not for himself!

* Taxes have been cut so much, by both parties, it's no wonder the country is almost literally coming apart at the seams. Now, am I saying government is efficient? No, I'm not saying that. The argument over how to make government more efficient is a valid one, but this almost religious zeal of tax cuts for anything and everything may lead us to hear the claim how tax cuts might well cure the common cold. It's human nature to want to get things for the cheapest amount, including taxes, but we have to pay for things, including quality. Just a question: Is there a connection between the tax cut mania started by President Reagan and the overall decline of the country? I'm not saying there is, I'm just asking.

** Not to belittle "Joe," but to add some clarity here, Wurzelbacher was not entirely honest with Obama about buying the plumbing business, as discussion about such had taken place six years prior. Court records showed he made about $40,000 two years earlier, but that he owed about $1,200 in back income taxes to the State of Ohio. Further, he was not a licensed plumber.

WORD HISTORY:
Plumb-The origins of this word are uncertain, although some believe it is from a non Indo European language in the Mediterranean area, as both Latin and Greek have forms of the word. It traces back to Latin "plumbum," which meant "lead" (the metal), the plural of which was "plumba." Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "plombe," which meant "lead used on a line to weight the line for underwater sounding." English borrowed the word from French in the late 1200s. The profession "plumber" originally simply meant "worker in lead," and later, because lead was used in most water lines, it took on the modern meaning, "a worker who installs or repairs water lines."