Tax Increase on the Wealthy

This probably won't be a long post, but I had a thought occur to me and nag at me just as I was on my way to bed after reading this article: Obama won't back down on raising taxes for the rich.

Basically, the taxes were lowered with an idea that it would "trickle-down." Doesn't seem like a bad idea, does it? Except that trickling down certainly wasn't a condition of being given said tax breaks. And the WTF moment comes when you realize that around this time, corporations were being given tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. Then it becomes very easy to question the benevolence of the tax breaks.

The deficit getting out of control the way it is can be attributed to any number of reasons. Government spending? Sure. Decrease in the value of a dollar? Why not. But, here's a big reason for you: less people are working, and more people are under-employed. Keep in mind that taxes are based on a percentage of one's income, and 15% of, say, $30,000 is less than 15% of, say, $50,000. And for the unemployed (as opposed to under-employed), 15% of 0 is 0.

But, the rich are doing just fine. They are holding onto their money and making record profits, and the stock market has done well in the recent years.

Hmm... people are profiting, but it's not making its way down to the middle class or poor, and we have a growing deficit which it is getting increasingly difficult to keep up with.

Here's the deal, wealthy people: either employ more people and pay better wages so that they can share the tax burden, or pay higher taxes yourself. Pick one. The ball is in your court.

We'll just leave that part out...

Thought for the night: just as Jesus would probably be pissed at the stuff being done in his name, this nation's founders would be pissed about the stuff their names are being attached to.

I'm still pissed about the TEA Partiers and their blatant ignorance to history. The original Tea Party (you know, that one back in the 1700's) wasn't because of being taxed too much. It was because of a big corporate tax break - the East India Company wasn't being taxed at all while everyone else still had to pay taxes. The corporation controlled the government.

Does any of this sound familiar? Corporations buying politicians? Whining for more and more corporate tax breaks? People getting pissed?

The irony is just wacky.

Meanwhile, while the corporations get more, the average American is getting less. The income gap continues to widen - the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This isn't capitalism, it's greed!

And the ignorance isn't quite as complete as I wish it was. Ignorance in itself is forgivable, as the ignorant can be taught. However, there are instead active misinformation campaigns. The TEA Party of today kept trying to change Wikipedia to make history closer fit their view of things. Texas chooses to mostly leave Thomas Jefferson out of the curriculum because his views differ from their own as to what America is supposed to be.

History is being silenced. Just as many Christians shun the teachings of Jesus, many self-described patriots choose to shun the founders, only acknowledging the parts that fit their views. So the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 said that America was not in any sense founded on Christianity? That's fine, we'll leave that out of history lessons and make damned sure that "under god" stays in the pledge, and "in god we trust" stays on the currency. Corporate tax breaks were a big part of why we fought the Revolution? We'll just leave out that little detail and say it was because of taxes and tyranny.

If you care (and you damn well should), then it's your duty to make sure history is not silenced. Make no mistake, it is repeating itself. The only differences are in technology and in scale.

If I had a larger following and it didn't seem such a cliche, I'd be tempted to launch my own campaign to "take back the TEA Party," aimed at educating people as to what it was really about.

"You didn't build that"

This post was sparked in part by this article: "Drink less, work more," says heiress.

You see, that quote, "you didn't build that," that the Republicans are doing their damnedest to use against Obama is of course very much taken out of context. It doesn't mean they didn't build their businesses, it means they didn't get their on their own. The government does provide small business incentives, loans, grants and the like. Then there's the infrastructure that keeps your business in business. Then, if you aren't the only one working there, there's your employees. The construction workers who made your building, too. As for the grants, incentives, loans, infrastructure... guess where they come from? Taxes. Sure, no one likes to pay taxes... but then again, that shoplifter you just busted didn't want to pay your costs, either. Are you punishing the poor by busting that shoplifter? No. Just like we're not punishing the rich by asking they pay their share. They didn't get there on their own.

The simple fact is that no one does this work entirely by themselves. This would be particularly true of the mining heiress in the above linked article (though she isn't American, the point remains). She sure the hell didn't get there by herself - the key word is "heiress." And she's staying there on the backs of her workers, most of which she's never even met or seen the names of. It's especially easy for her to not know how hard it is to break through class barriers, because she was born to it.

Yes, it is possible for poor people to become rich. Very difficult, but possible. It's not about hating people for being rich. It's about people who are greedy. It's about people who don't want to pay their fair share, the same as the metaphorical shoplifter. Yet, many of the very rich are pushing for less environmental regulations and lowering their workers' minimum wages, all the while whining for more tax breaks. Make the rich richer and the poor poorer - but don't hate the rich, it's your own damn fault for being poor, right? Some of them have more in common with that shoplifter than they would care to admit.

Nanny-State Spreading...

So yeah, I've been on hiatus a bit lately. It tends to happen when one has a life (and job) outside the internet. That, and I've picked up on an addictive new hobby - home brewing. The sad thing is that I am not allowed to make any money off said hobby... but that's a different post altogether, and I'm already groaning at the subject material I'm wanting to cover in this post.

And I'm still waiting for my Black Dodge Challenger, dammit!

First, I'm going to pitch my bitch about the nanny-state laws. If you haven't heard about it already, mayor Bloomberg of New York wants to ban large drinks... that is, anything more than sixteen fluid ounces. That's smaller than a normal soda bottle, just a little larger than a soda can. To many, this may seem like more an annoyance (albeit a ridiculous one) rather than a cause for any real concern. But, I beg to differ. The thing one has to remember is precedents and the thing I mentioned in an earlier blog about a frog in a pan of water - turn up the heat slowly, and the frog just sits there unaware he is being slowly cooked alive. Similarly are our liberties being whittled away.

There are a lot of politicians out there who are making a lot of laws supposedly "for your own good." They attack the tobacco companies... sure, they had it coming and probably deserved it. They were lying about how harmful tobacco really is. Well, millions or billions of dollars in lawsuits later, along with surgeon general's warnings on the packaging, you would think it's more or less done with. Now people know that smoking is pretty damned bad for you. But, some choose to do so anyway. Now laws are made that target the smokers. Oh well, it's a bad habit anyway, and maybe we can get some more tax revenue from them... and more... and more... and more. Don't want to ban them, though... too much tax revenue. Which kinda shows, I think, that the politicians suffer from the same malady that the cigarette companies did - rather than stopping a bad practice, they'd rather keep the money coming it. Pretty much the same is done with alcohol, and the thing is that with tobacco and alcohol both, they are great targets of opportunity for weak politicians who need a dog to wag. Bust a few bars in sting operations for accidentally selling to underage people, everyone will compliment said politician for being tough on crime, and most who know better will be afraid to seem as though they might be defending the alcohol and tobacco industries in any way. Forget the fact that most people enjoy an occasional drink or even an occasional (if not more) smoke.

I'm not saying that there should be bans on alcohol or tobacco, just illustrating a point about political targets of opportunity. Politicians are using the alcohol and tobacco industries as a golden goose; forget the feigned enmity. Realistically, the same goes for porn.

Now, these set a precedent and illustrate a mentality that gives birth to a nanny state. I know that alcohol isn't good for my liver, yet I choose to enjoy it from time to time... whether it be a good beer, a nice wine, or a nice hard liquor. I think any fool now would also know that smoking isn't good for one's health also (and yes, I have had family members die from it). But, some still make the choice, as an adult, to smoke. Me, I think that's fine and peachy... whatever.

Of course, it didn't stop with alcohol and tobacco, did it? The trendy thing now is the "obesity epidemic." So, people who either have absolutely no sense of personal responsibility or just don't want to work for a living... actually, I suppose it's both. Anyway, they started suing fast food restaurants for the fact that they had become fat-asses. Makes me wonder what would happen if fast food restaurants were to start declining customers for being too fat. I hope that doesn't happen - I like my Taco Bell stuff, and I could stand to lose a few pounds. But, if I were in the mood to blame, I'd blame myself. Not that I lose any sleep over it, anyway.

Then there was the trans fats thing, in which New York, and I think San Francisco, decided to ban trans fats. Now, trans fats aren't great, no doubts there. And they were easy enough to replace with natural oils, like sunflower oil. The reason for so many people using them was simply that they gave a longer shelf life, stuff like that. However, I don't think that it was the business of the government at any level to ban them. Just put the news out there, and I think that the manufacturers would have transitioned away from them on their own.

Think I put too much trust into corporations? Well, consider the whole "pink slime" debacle (don't even get me started on that one). Consider that pretty much every major fast food restaurant has stopped using the stuff... on their own, without any laws being made. The lean beef trimmings (aka, "pink slime") was perfectly healthy and wholesome, but popular opinion was enough to sway them. Like it or not, capitalism is a form of democracy in itself. You vote with your money and withhold it from those you don't like. Couldn't be simpler.

Now we come back to the soft drinks. Hell, I like them. For lunch, I had a mustard Whopper from Burger King with a 32 oz coke. You should've seen my grin when I saw 64 oz drinks being offered at gas stations. Especially when one lives in a hot climate, they're nice to have. Yeah, they have lots of sugar and little in the way of health benefits, but so what? Last I checked, I was an adult, going on old fart. I make my own decisions, and have no desire to have a new mommy telling me what I can and can't have. One mom was more than enough, thanks much.

Of course, like other such nanny-state laws, this bad idea is spreading - Cambridge, MA considering banning large drinks and free refills.

Still not getting the big deal? Okay... first, consider the attacks on alcohol and tobacco. Next, consider the attacks on fast food. Now consider the attacks on drinks. The nanny-state bans/attacks are spreading. What's next on the chopping block?