Fair Share of Taxes

Equal is Equal, Period

The disgusting class warfare that continues to rage in this country - waged by Democrats, and applauded by Liberals - is based upon a lie that should be self-evident to even the most politically unaware of our citizens. Yet all it takes is to read the comments after any article dealing with taxation in America, and it is clear that too many people want to be subsidized by those whom they envy and despise, simply because they themselves have not achieved the same level of success.

We constantly hear the cries of these people demanding that "the rich pay their fair share" of taxes. While that is an annoying and misguided complaint, it is more annoying that the plaintiffs engage in it without the slightest idea of why, other than that they have heard their politicians make the same argument.

Percentages do not lie, however, nor do they discriminate. Therefore, even if the burger-flipper pays the same percentage as the corporate CEO, the actual amount of the remittances is enormously disparate. For the sake of simplicity, we'll use a ten percent federal tax rate, where person A has an annual income of $100,000 and person B has an income of $1,000,000. Person A has a tax liability of $10,000, whereas person B has a tax liability equal to person A's entire income, or $100,000.

There is an incredible irony in our tax codes and the expectations of the alleged champions of the poor. While we are incessantly bombarded from the Left regarding "fairness for all", those same people somehow think that it is perfectly fair for person A to have a ten percent tax liability while saddling person B with a fifty percent burden. When depicted in simple language, the injustice is stark.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont

For example, how is taking one tenth of one person's earnings and one half of another's considered "fair? Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-described Socialist from Vermont, thinks that person B "has enough". Envy, sinful though it may be, is still the prerogative of the individual. But when that individual has the power of confiscation of others' property, it is a dangerous emotion.

What if that individual, in this case Bernie Sanders, should decide that person A also has enough? Who is to say that the person earning half of person A - or $50,000 annually - won't demand some of what person A earns?

The arrogance of our elected officials, Sanders included, in claiming that the government can't afford to allow the people to keep what they earn is stunning and frightening. It has actually gotten to the point where the federal government believes that all money is theirs, and we get some only through the grace of their magnanimity. What is truly frightening in that mindset is the fact that the federal government is insatiable in its need for more and more money.

They show virtually no fiscal restraint, believing that theirs is an endless supply of constituents' cash. Sadly, we have allowed that seed to germinate through passivity, or worse, active participation by an equally envious portion of the population. Those who have succumbed to the seductive notion of a Nanny State, and become conditioned to accept reliance and dependence, have aided and abetted the theft of a nation.

Worse yet, the philosophy of confiscatory Socialism - here in America - has comfortably emerged unashamed from the shadows, parading around like a proud peacock courting a mate. Once there was a time when the proponents of such policy were careful in how they chose to present the ideas, delicately avoiding the overt endorsement of anything Socialist or Communist.

No longer can that be said. Today, we have Bernie Sanders, a member of the United States Senate, proudly wearing the badge of Socialist, and unabashedly expounding on what he considers to be the virtues of such a system. Generation Y, having been subjected to two decades of deprivation of proper education and a healthy dose of counter indoctrination, proudly and ignorantly wear Che Guevara tee shirts and listen to a White House member extol the merits of Mao Tse Tung.

Is it any wonder that the pitchfork-and-torch-bearing mobs rally for the heads of the successful?

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