Tag: Taxes

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One of the enduring mysteries of American Tax laws is why do the Rich need so much help.

Let me start with tax laws because this is where the Rich do their best to milk the rest of us. A tax bill is money owed the government for services provided. Now you may not like to pay taxes (who does?) but the political institutions that guide our communal living has determined this is the money a person owes. Citizens have an opportunity to change these laws by electing people of a similar mind in the frequent elections held in this country.

It is the price for living here in the USA — the greatest country on the face of the earth, right? But the Rich are constantly complaining that they need more money in order to juice the economy and if you give them more money it will actually help everyone else because the Rich will be spending money on their businesses. So since the election of Reagan in 1980, taxes have been routinely cut and tax breaks have been instituted to such a degree that many rich people and companies presently pay absolutely no income taxes.

How is this working for everyone else? Have the rich fulfilled their promise to make the rest of us rich with their selfless spending. Surely the Americans must have the richest poor people on the face of the earth. They must be swimming in luxury — great health care, cheap housing, good public education.

But this isn’t the story. Why hasn’t all this largess to the Rich had any effect? Hmm. Let me think about this. Perhaps they haven’t been juicing the American economy. How could this be? They claim to love this country so much, why hasn’t all this love and money translated into a more stable economic situation for everyone else. What could be wrong?

The Rich do have an answer. They just need even more tax cuts. They just haven’t been given enough money to juice the economy. This means everyone else will have to suck it up when cutting government funded programs for the poor and the middle class. The American taxpayer simply can’t afford to help everyone and it is vital that the Rich get even more money then, and only then, will the rich have enough money to spend the rest of us into prosperity.

Let’s try a little thought experiment. What if, instead of giving money to the rich, we gave it to poor and the middle class. They will buy groceries, cars, air conditioners, and a whole array of products that, you got it, will juice the economy. In fact, because there are more just plain folk than there are rich people, it might just juice the economy better and faster than giving money to the rich. I don’t know but I would like to give it a try. Giving to the rich hasn’t exactly worked as promised.

But the budget. We haven’t collected enough in taxes to pay for all this help. Right. Because we are giving the Rich so much back in tax reduction, we are going into debt and unable to afford actions that might help everyone else. Get out your handkerchiefs. Why is it that the only time the Republicans care about the budget deficit is when it involves expanding programs that help the poor. They don’t give a damn about the budget deficits when they are cutting taxes for the Rich which has exactly the same effect — budget deficits.

The whole premise of helping the rich in order to help the poor is so demented. It is a topsy turvy Alice through the looking glass view of living. Our most economically secure citizens — the people with the most money, the best healthcare, luxury vacations, personal airplanes and such — always need our help while we can’t help our least economically secure citizens who don’t have money, or healthcare, or even a safe place to lay their head at night. Helping the poor is always seen as bad while helping the rich is necessary. How does this make sense?

That this story keeps being told, with a straight face no less, is depressing. Years of low taxation and cuts in social services have shown, it to be patently false. But hey ho, I’ve got mine.

Until I don’t.

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Because government programs like SNAP and Medicaid are paid for by the government, the government qualifies and monitors the people. who receive these benefits in order to ensure they aren’t buying liquor and cigarettes. There are legitimate arguments on whether this type of costly monitoring is necessary, however, I am willing to go along with them because if some people, in order to maintain programs that help the poor, need this kind of information in order to have them, I am all in. Qualify and monitor. These are the type of compromises that make governing in a politically diverse country possible.

What is annoying is the same oversight is not given to people who receive tax breaks. They just get the money and can do whatever they want with it including buying liquor and cigarettes. Now the notion here is that these good people are going to spend the money they received in tax breaks in investing money in their businesses thus creating more jobs however they are under no obligation to prove this. They could be spending the money on call centers located overseas and spa vacations for all we know. But no one asks them to show how they are spending these breaks on creating jobs here in America.

Here in lies the problem I have with tax breaks. They are unmonitored and given without nary a thought on how these windfalls are actually spent. So what, you might ask. Even if the jobs are created for call centers located in India and European vacations — this money eventually gets put back into the economy for the good of all. Right?

Well, yes but then very same thing can be said for giving money to the poor. Buying liquor and cigarettes at the local convenience store juices the American economy too. In fact, giving money to the poor is more likely to juice the American economy because the poor stay locally while the rich might wander off to Tahiti or Bali to spend their money.

Some people would argue that tax breaks are allowing the rich to keep their money and they should do anything they want with it. I would argue that it isn’t their money. The American people have a tax rate, whether you like that tax rate or not — it is the law. The tax obligation is the amount owed before tax breaks are calculated. The tax breaks then become government benefits — like Medicaid or SNAP.

If government benefits for the poor need to rigorously monitored then the same idea applies to tax breaks for the rich. I would like to see more tangible evidence that the rich are using their money wisely.

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I was appalled to read that Mary Lou Retton, Olympic Gold Medal winner, doesn’t have health insurance and has to raise money for her hospital stay through an on-line fund raiser. She has a life-threatening pneumonia and is in critical condition. She has been in the hospital for over a week, so you can imagine the cost already and she isn’t out of the woods.

How does someone so well connected not have health insurance? This absolutely blew me away. If Retton is taking risks regarding health insurance, then the number of people who faces these choices must be much larger than I imagined. This doesn’t mean that they decide not to get health insurance either, they may decide for health insurance but what are they doing without. This is about life on the margins where the cost of health insurance might make people sacrifice other necessities of life — like not paying the mortgage, half dosing prescription medicine, skipping meals. But, then, there will be people who will argue that this is good, Retton will make better decisions in the future from the lessons she learned from not having health insurance.

Like delaying necessary treatment because she doesn’t have health insurance. I can’t imagine what I would do if I were sick and didn’t have health insurance. You don’t know if you will get off easy with $100 bill for a doctor’s visit and prescription or a $50,000 hospital stay. And even if you only have to pay $100, it may be $100 you don’t have, so what do you do? How is not taking care of your health beneficial to society?

Then when you are so sick you have to seek medical treatment, who pays the bills when the person involved is not America’s sweetheart? What happens to a person who is an asshole and people hate the person so much that they are angry at you for even thinking of helping the asshole. Though it pains me to say this — even assholes deserve healthcare and they probably won’t fare well in the Go Fund Me Route. So instead of contributing to every Go Fund Me asking for help with medical bills, our system is set up to treat everyone through a universal health care system.

That won’t happen because that is socialism and socialism is bad. I honestly don’t care how it is done either. If you can propose a way to do it through the markets and it is both affordable and universal, I am cool. But I haven’t heard one yet so there is that. The Republicans, who I would assume after bitching for 8 years about Obamacare, would have passed reform bills with these market solutions incorporated when they took over, but they didn’t so it looks very much like they don’t have anything. Which is unsurprising but nonetheless disappointing.

Until then I will continue to enjoy the best medical care in the world.