Most of us have heard the statistics about how rich folks pay most of the country’s taxes, right? According to an article by Ari Fleischer titled “The Taxpaying Minority,” the top 1% of income earners pay 37% of the nation’s tax bill. The top 10% pay 40% and the bottom 40%, middle class pay less than 5%, and the bottom 40% of workers pay absolutely nothing. Heck, with the “earned” income tax Credit »”>credit the very bottom even gets paid by the federal government simply for the sake of existing.
If America is to continue to exist as an indepedent, relatively free country it is imperative that everyone pays some amount of taxes. When a large percentage of the population pays nothing into the system, but have a say in how that system operates, there is utter loss of accountability and responsibility. Why vote for fiscal responsibility if you are not paying for irresponsibility?
An unconstrained Democracy that fails to safeguard property rights will always tend to force a minority to pay the bills for the majority. Right now we have 60% of the population forcing 40% to pay the bills…why not make 1% pay for the other 99%?
Civilizations seem to have a fairly well-defined lifecycle. From initial growth there follows a period of properity up until citizens realize they can vote themselves gifts from the public treasury. British historian, Alexander Tyler, says “the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits…with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy.”
It’s a tried and true axiom of reality/economics that when something is free it loses value, i.e. if you get free healthcare you are less circumspect in your consumption of those resources. My friend’s father runs a manufacturing plant that had an odd thing happenwhen the company decided to give free healthcare to its employees, there was a sharp increase in people taking sick days and heading to the doctor. Crazy, right? Can you guess the solution? Not many people liked him, but when my friend’s father introduced a nominal co-pay there was a drastic reduction in the number of people getting sick. If only all diseases could be so easily cured!
We all derive benefit from living in a well-governed society. There is relative peace throughout the land, a refined legal system safeguards property and our lives, and an abundance of prosperity enables the majority of citizens to live better than medieval Lords. Of course the wealthier you are the more benefit you derive, so rich should pay the bulk of the bills. However, the middle class and even the poorest of us benefit. We must all pay our proportionate share or our civilization will lapse into dependent, complacent serfdom. I sincerely hope that America can get its act together and adjust its system of taxation to equitably distribute the burden.