Saturday, April 10, 2010
No Representation Without Taxation
Via Instapundit--I love this blog post, as it hits two of my favorite pet peeves: the alarming number of people who pay no income taxes in this country, and middle class entitlements. It lays out in common sense language the twin cancers that are sapping this country of its vitality. Be afraid, America. Be very afraid.
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4 comments:
Along with popularly elected Senators, hell yeah, those are two things we need to change.
Also something has got to be done about gerrymandering. That is the very reason the House is so polarized. Set aside districts, districts that travel miles along Interstate highways etc. It's bullshit and we shouldn't tolerate it.
The 47% statistic needs to be viewed in the context of wealth distribution in the USA. The 47% who have taxes withheld from their modest paychecks, and are refunded the full amount, still contribute via interest earned by the government on the witholding. Relatively speaking, it may not be much, but I'm sure it adds up. The "Be afraid" line is over the top.
"In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers)."
Source: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
The wealth distribution statistic needs to be viewed in the context of who creates jobs. For example, in 2008 Wal-mart created 2,100,00 jobs. If there are nearly 350,000,000 people in the U.S. that figure is just below 1% of the population.
So PW, just "why" does the 47% statistic "need"(s) to be viewed in the context of wealth distribution in the USA? Because you say so?
Why isn't it significant enough that we are nearing a MAJORITY of Americans who pay NOTHING to the contributing operations of their government? Isn't it enough that this majority could vote themselves a slate of sycophantic Congressmen who could even more dramatically redistribute wealth? Isn't this exactly what the ancient Greeks told us would happen in a "democracy"?
And the quote you included. Are you serious? The quote actually states that "...just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers)"--as if there were a finite amount of wealth to be had, and that somehow those in the 15% did not have the opportunity to MAKE wealth. That's the beautiful thing about wealth--it can be made, and it can be unmade.
At least in a market oriented capitalist system it can. But who knows how long we'll have that. I repeat. Be afraid, America.
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