Taxes, Wealth Disparity, War, and Debt

[liberalmike27]

The wealth inheritance tax is one of the taxes that brings a small amount of adjustment to the natural effect of compounding on the wealth and wages of all classes. I say small because the result is very minimal to those on which the taxes are applied. Even if the dream of all classes progressing evenly in earnings were true, which it isn't, eventually the difference between the most compensated, and the least compensated becomes far too massive. This tax is an equalizer that is desperately needed, and if anything the rate needs to be further increased on the wealthiest in society.

You would think the wealthy would have some interest in maintaining the civility in our society, and not importing the levels of despair found in third world countries, which almost always brings with it excess violence. But I suppose they think that as long as the poor are "fighting amongst themselves," and killing one another, that they have no worries. But in this world, and with the events of 9/11 a group from across the world, have shown how vulnerable some of the very wealthiest in our society are to attack by a relatively few inhabitants of this poor country, Afghanistan, with Bin Laden's money to back them.

Desperation is a funny thing, and it drives the impoverished to do things they never thought themselves capable of doing. I don't think it will be very long before people who have been reduced to poverty, and attacked by the greed of the wealthy, and their focus only on profits above all human capital, will come to realize who the perpetrators of their misery are. I wonder if more violence will be directed against those who bring misery to the poor and middle class in our country once this realization comes to the forefront, as it surely will. It isn't as if these people are hard to find, as they are all in the same neighborhoods usually, the ones with the ten million dollar houses, and they come and go from these same houses all the time. I personally don't advocate violence against these modern-day Robber Barons, but I suspect should we continue on the same course we’ve been on for nearly 40 years now, people will begin to "connect the dots" and bring misfortune back to those whose only interest has been in extending the number of zeros in their personal bank accounts.

Wealth disparity is a serious problem in our country, and it seems only to be worsening. The Bush Administration only seemed interested in escalating the war against the poor, and eventually once the foundation is knocked from under them, the middle class, and destabilizing their very own existence, by exacerbating this disparity. The Borrow-and-Spend policies being used, along with the tax-cutting for the wealthiest, has already been tried during the Reagan Administration, and it failed miserably, even requiring the next Republican president to raise taxes to correct for it, even then leaving us with a 4 Trillion dollar debt. And Reagan raised regressive taxes to replace the healthy tax cuts given to the rich. The Bush administration, and a very republican controlled administration has left us with a 9 Trillion dollar debt, and tax cuts for the rich, and two extraordinarily expensive wars. We pay hundreds of billions in interest each year, to the richest people in the world, who hold our treasury bills and bonds. Sadly, had we collected enough money to cover the bills all along, we’d have these hundreds of billions to actually build roads, bridges, or repair ancient water systems, that seem to be springing leaks on a regular basis.

This sinister policy they’ve employed has brought us to a place where we are deeply in debt, and at some point, sensible democrats are going to have to raise taxes. Hopefully, it will be directly on those who have quadrupled their incomes since 1970. It would be a tragic mistake to continue raising taxes on poor and middle class people, already stressed into non-spending behaviors. These poor decisions to levy backward, regressive taxes have severely hampered our population’s ability to spend, and thus our economic safety. That has led to an ever increasing number of unemployed, and the need for a government stimulus plan.

[liberalmike27]

1. It isn't about redistribution

It's always been about "maldistribution."