By Capt. Fogg
One casual observation I suspect of having some merit is that people
who complain a lot about some failing in others are covering up
something similar in themselves. Perhaps those who make such a constant
noise about large numbers of our countrymen being freeloaders while
covering themselves in self-adulation would give weight to the
conjecture. Are they really getting a raw deal?
One
certainly does hear more than enough fiction from the Republican
Party's candidates about welfare queens driving Cadillacs and the
stifling of initiative that comes from subsidized school lunches and
perhaps a bit less about subsidies for business interests and of course,
now we have that abominable new straw man, the 47%.
It's
an American habit, and not just a Conservative habit, to dismiss, and
often angrily dismiss any discussion of factual support for political
arguments and particularly examples of how our assertions fail to be
born out in other countries, so of course those who support Mr. Romney
for reasons known only to their subconscious minds, that 47% of
Americans do not make enough money at present to pay Federal Income Tax
are happy to frame that in terms of government dependency.
Of
course, as with most things you hear from Romney and Ryan, it's not
true at all, finely crafted as the rhetoric might be and as effective in
pushing that American middle class self pity hot button. As
Ezra Klein pointed
out in the Washington Post not long ago, the taxpayer supporting a
family on $40,000 a year may not pay Federal Income Tax, but he's paying
tax on every dollar he makes while the fortunate one ( excuse me, the
selfless job creator) making $4,000,000 is likely paying less than 35%
on the whole chalupa. As Klein says, it's phrased that way to make it
seem only fair to give a break to those heavily burdened 'job
creators.' What it's
not supposed to do is to remind you that
the $40,000 'freeloader' is paying payroll tax on every dime up to
around $100,000. So when you look at the total family tax bill, it
seems quite a different story. The numbers make liars out of a lot of
people and the burden is being shouldered by the rich and poor only it's
the poor and the struggling middle who can't pay their bills because of
it. Taxes aren't cutting into the caviar budget, they're making it
harder to buy the canned tuna and hamburger helper; harder to pay for
college, harder to pay those ridiculous medical bills and harder to buy
those new cars and appliances and houses that are the real job creators.
Not
47 percent
paying nothing, but everybody paying something, and most Americans
paying between 25 percent and 30 percent of their income. Where are the
freeloaders? Where are all those hordes of freeloaders eating up the
hard earned dollars of the job creating Galts? The taxpayer earning a
hundred grand pays more than the one making over a million and the
poverty stricken have to pay 20% of their miserable $25K all of which
they need to spend to stay alive. Is it difficult to refrain from bad
language and malediction when listening to such damaging lies? You bet.
So they're lying of course and as usual. The
total tax burden is far more equally distributed than the Republicans
want you to believe and one might make a case that the people crying
loudest about freeloaders are getting a better deal then they would like
to admit. Perhaps there's some hidden guilt involved, perhaps not.
There
is no more factual support for calling nearly half of us freeloaders
dependent upon government subsidy than there is for Ryan's 3 hour
marathon times and in reply to that cynical bumper sticker I saw
yesterday sneering "
4 more years? Are you out of your mind?"
Why no sir, I'm not and I'd remind you that neither intelligence nor
honesty are more equitably distributed in the world than money.
