The current debate about rich and poor — the 1 percent versus the 99 percent — is a bit misleading because the evidence usually is data about income, not wealth. Looking at wealth would make the comparison even starker.
There are some nice deals to be had in the income tax code these days, but most wealth accumulates and passes from generation to generation with no tax at all. Warren Buffett (who has selflessly taken on the role of all-purpose tape measure in these matters) is worth $45 billion or so. Do you think that all of that $45 billion, or even most of it, has appeared on any Form 1040 on its way to the cookie jar? Even at the special, low 15 percent rate the United States insanely confers on capital gains?
Unlikely. Much of that $45 billion is unrealized capital gains — increases in the value of Buffett’s stock that have never been cashed in, and therefore have never been taxed. I’m not saying that unrealized capital gains should be taxed (although it’s a thought). I’m just noting that you only pay income tax when an investment is liquidated, and very wealthy people don’t have to liquidate until they actually need to spend the money.
For most of the very rich, this time is never. When you die, any unrealized capital gains disappear for tax purposes. Your heirs, if and when they sell, pay taxes only on any increase in value since they got the money. And there is no estate tax at the moment on estates of $5.12 million or less.
The Federal Reserve released new numbers on Monday. Unsurprisingly, wealth distribution is even more skewed than income distribution. In 2010, the median family had assets (including their house but subtracting their mortgage) of $77,300. The top 10 percent had almost $1.2 million, or more than 15 times as much.
But the headlines — and rightly so — went to the dismal fact that household wealth has been sinking for all categories of Americans. As I said, the net worth of the median family in 2010 was $77,300. In 2007, the net worth of the median family was $126,400. That’s a drop of almost 40 percent in just three years. (All these numbers are corrected for inflation.)
Characteristically taking the longer view, the New York Times led with the fact that household savings were back to where they had been in the early 1990s, “erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity.”
Most of the lost household net worth of recent years is due to the drop in housing prices. This is comforting, in a way, because the price of land and things built on land — and what, ultimately, is not? — are different from the price of other goods and services.
Let me tell you about my favorite economist, an indulgence I allow myself every couple of decades. (The last time was 1989, pre-hyperlink, unfortunately.) He was an American named Henry George, who died in 1897 at the age of 58. If you took economics in college, there might have been one sentence about him in your textbook. He once ran for mayor of New York. (Fancy that. He lost.)
George would look at our present situation and ask: In what sense were we richer three or four years ago, when the exact same housing stock sold for up to twice as much? In what sense are we poorer now? Land is special because, as Realtors like to remind us, they aren’t making any more of it. This means that you can get rich owning land without doing anything productive with it. (Henry George: “You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon, or down a hole in the ground. …”) The natural increase in population will do the trick.
This is also true, to varying degrees, of other investments. It is true to some extent of any product that can’t be easily and quickly reproduced. It is somewhat true of houses, once they are built. (As Tolstoy didn’t write, “Cans of tuna fish are all alike, but every house is a house in its own way.”) But it is especially true of land.
My Bloomberg View colleague Clive Crook claimed recently to be a “supply-side liberal.” So was Henry George. He was as concerned about income equality as the most bleeding-heart liberal and as concerned about economic growth as the noisiest supply-side conservative.
George’s solution to everything was to eliminate all taxes on working, saving and investing, and to put the entire tax burden on unproductive land, which can’t escape the tax by moving. There are problems with this idea. But it’s provocative.
I don’t have room to do George justice, but take a look at his masterwork, “Progress and Poverty.” For an economics tract, it’s actually a fun read. And, yes, you’re responsible for it on the final exam.
Michael Kinsley is a Bloomberg View columnist.
Name any country where a stark wealth gap such as the one that continues to grow in the US has not directly undermined democracy. A wealth gap is what propelled Chavez into the presidency in Venezuela and what caused Castro to take up arms in the Cuba. Couple our increasing wealth disparity with unlimited campaign contributions and we have a politically dangerous mixture in the making. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire and new restrictions on campaign contributions would be steps in the right direction.
Yes this is a major problem that threatens our nation and the industrialized world. A fair and level playing field needs to be reestablished to insure that hard working people get a fair share of the wealth. Trickle down economics has been a disaster.
I know someone who is very wealthy. He’s lives in an average home and drives a medium-sized sedan that most Americans can afford. He spends his time at work trying to keep his business going and the dozens of citizens he hired on the job. His assets are considerable. He could live a lavish life style but chooses not too. He is actually consuming relatively little compared to his own wealth.
Mr. Kinsley would want to take down this person, a wealth and job creator, to benefit the “working class”. He wants to spread the wealth by taking what belongs to one and giving it to another. He doesn’t care if the one who is considered wealthy may have sacrificed his time and energy to get wealthy, not to mention the risks he may have taken with his personal assets. He also doesn’t seem to care that the beneficiary may have squandered his money, worked little to get ahead, was unmotivated, or did not try to save for a rainy day.
But, like many successful wealthy persons, isn’t this person I know not benefiting the working class by creating wealth and jobs for others? Folks, allowing people like my friend to succeed is how this country became prosperous and was able to raise the standard of living for everyone like no other nation of the world has been able to achieve. Mr. Kinsley seems to forget this or has little sense of history.
Mr. Kinsley has a sense of history, just not American history.
I’m old enough to remember when ours was the standard, not the apostate, view.
We’ve fallen very far, very fast.
Thank you for remembering and defending.
Your comment is a thoughtful one. I, perhaps like you, learned the parable of the ant and the grasshopper when I was a child. And I try to live a life like the ant. In fact the well-off friend you describe is similar to me.
But I differ with you on your approach to taxes and our responsibility to the community. Once the democratic process determines what amounts government needs to spend, the next question is, ‘who should pay for it?’ It seems to me those who are more fortunate and have benefited most from our country’s largess (like your friend and me) should pay more. Taxes should be based on ability to pay.
Although I’m probably not in the famous top 1%, I’m probably in the top 5% of incomes. And for the last ten years at least, my taxes have been going down, even while our country has faced some of our most challenging times ever. Tax rates on higher incomes are at an historic low – not to mention inheritance taxes, taxes on unearned investment income…
You confuse spending you don’t approve of with taxes you’re paying. If you want to cut or eliminate welfare transfer payments, go for it. Vote your principles. But once our state and our country decide what funding is needed, it’s time to contribute based on your ability to pay. It’s unpatriotic to do otherwise.
I recall how you count your income. Isn’t much of it unrealized gains in tax deferred accounts? You know, IRA’s and such, the last vestige the middle class has to protect and grown their retirement income. I recall that you indicated that now that you have yours we should tax it going forward for everyone else. Do I remember correctly?
I’m not against helping those who help themselves sufficiently. My point is that we should not be forced like we are to share our wealth with others. It doesn’t make much sense to me that if one works hard and is financially successful that he should be made to share his wealth through income. This attitude is very counterproductive in that it takes away the incentive to work and invest. America will decline and continue to do so unless we change the current course of the last two or three decades.
One thing I would suggest is that we get away from the coercive income tax system we have and abolish the IRS in favor of a consumption tax where people take personal control of how much tax they want to pay through their spending. Creating incentives to save and consume less would certainly be a good thing for everyone.
Your prescription for the economy is as unenlightened as your perspective on social policies.
What our economy needs now is more, not less spending. What businesses are lacking now is demand because of the pullback in consumer demand, a result of the great recession.
Creating incentives to further impede spending now would be the wrong medicine.
Perhaps you do not know that the wealthy in our country are paying the lowest tax rates in 50 years. Our tax policies favor the wealthy, they do not punish them.
The wealthy may be paying a lower tax rate, but so is everyone else. In fact over half of all adults pay zero amount of income tax. Also, over half of them – not counting pensioners – get some form of government relief. Still, with all this before you, you say the wealthy don’t pay enough tax!
Incidentally, what really caused the last national recession from which we are still reeling? It was primarily due to massive debt, both public and private. Mostly all other factors attributed to the the cause of the recession, including the housing bubble, was brought about by overspending. Therefore continued spending beyond our means is certainly not the way out of the current recession and the unhealthy state of the economy. In times past when a recession occurred the economy was usually healthy. All it needed then was some form of stimulus, like greater spending, to revive it. As many economist predicted back in 2008 when the recession occurred, stimulus money was not going to be the solution this time around. Some economists went even further by stating that this would make a bad situation even worse and extend the life of the recession. Four year later the government is 1.5 times in greater debt. People are still without work and even more dependent on the government for a living. And the economy doesn’t look significantly better.
No, the recession was caused by a few on wall street gambling in the form of credit default swaps.
The recession was not caused by public or private spending. You are completely wrong.You are also wrong on the stimulus. It was not large enough and 40 % went for tax cuts because the Republicans insisted on the cuts, but I do not wish to engage any further because we have been here before and you continue to believe and spout inaccuracies. You should know that public spending is the lowest that it has been since Eisenhower. The housing bubble was caused by the banks predatory lending practices from which they collected huge fees and then sold the mortgages, holding themselves harmless, in the form of securities which were the beginning of the credit default swap fiasco. The economists who predicted that the stimulus was not large enough are today proven correct. Even the naysayers are back pedaling now, however it has clearly been shown that the stimulus as inadequate as it was, did prevent the country from going off a cliff. Trickle down economics and tax cuts have NEVER been shown to be good for any but a privileged few. All one needs do is to look at Europe and Britain to see the disaster of their austerity policies.Perhaps someone else has the energy to address this with you. I do not.
Yes, I should have listened to my better instincts and mentioned the excesses on Wall Street. As usual they were there as they have always been. While a contributing factor to the recession they were not collectively a major one compared to the housing bust and overspending. But liberals like our President who refuse to take blame for anything like to repeat this mantra while engaging in class warfare for political reasons. The irony of it all is that the President’s own Justice Department has been largely AWOL in bringing the Wall Street offenders to justice as compared to the previous administration!
And the inequality gap just keeps getting larger and larger, an inconvenient fact that the Conservatives ignore. Class warfare is another empty talking point of the Republicans. It is one of their dishonest tricks. It does not surprise me that you employ it.
I have no problem with wealthy people. Overall in this country they have made us all wealthier. Also, class warfare is not the Republican talking point. It’s the President and his political supporters who keep carping about “the rich getting richer” in order to gain political support. As far as I’m concerned making some people less rich is not the way to make others richer. It will only drive them and their investments away.
Boy, you are even more confused then I thought.
I don’t see anyone advocating to “take down” your friend. I do know plenty of people who would wonder why his tax rate should be 15% on much of his income, when most of us pay a whole lot more.
Why do you assume that the ultra-wealthy tend to have stellar personal characteristics which somehow justify special tax breaks, while anyone who questions this is probably just a lazy so-and-so?
I’m not making any presumptions about anyone. I’m just saying the government’s only responsibility is our personal safety and essential welfare. In the past 40 to 50 years it has far exceeded this responsibility. Also, income is being taxed thus essentially taking incentive to work and take investment risks away. We need to abolish the current income tax system with a less coercive system that taxes personal spending instead. By doing this we will give people incentive to save and create less wasteful spending. Thus if one spends one pays taxes. If one doesn’t spend as much he pays less taxes. In effect he exercises personal control over how much he pays taxes. That is why taxation based on personal consumption is less coercive than the current income based tax.
Do you, yourself, work as little as possible to avoid paying more income tax?
If someone taking in a million dollars a year has to pay 35% instead of 15% (their current rate on capital gains) do you figure they’ll throw up their hands and work less or not at all? Certainly, hoping that if we give millionaires special tax breaks the money will magically trickle down upon the rest of us has not happened, despite many years of continuing that failed experiment.
In what way would it improve America for people to spend less in order to avoid taxes on spending? Seems like that would reduce the amount of money spent in our local communities. If the place you work for is taking in less money, wouldn’t that make them more likely to lay you off?
There are circumstances where that is true. Personal Example: I have multiple streams of income… My regular job, real estate, my home based job. A couple years ago I stopped the home based business because from that job I was paying in more in taxes than I was taking home. EE & ER social security taxes for starters. I may not have learned my lesson though. I am back at it….
What you don’t seem to understand is that as a nation we are broke, and in spite of this we are continuing to borough from our children’s future. At some point – and we are near that point right now judging from what is going on in some European nations today – we will no longer have the ability to borrow and service our debt. In fact the current government debt is now beginning to exceed our annual GDP, the total worth or our national production in one year. Besides that, household debt while having eased off a bit is still historically high. Certainly the remedy to our ailing economy at this point calls for belt tightening before it’s too late.
America is not broke. Not if we can still afford perpetual wars and decreasing our revenues by giving special tax breaks to millionaires.
Austerity programs have turned out to destroy national economies, not rebuild them. For instance,
“… in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European capitals. The doctrine asserted that the direct negative effects of spending cuts on employment would be offset by changes in “confidence,” that savage spending cuts would lead to a surge in consumer and business spending, while nations failing to make such cuts would see capital flight and soaring interest rates… The confidence fairy has failed to show up: none of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge. Instead, the depressing effects of fiscal austerity have been reinforced by falling private spending. ” [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/opinion/krugman-pain-without-gain.html?_r=1&hp]
“…the big cuts [in the US] have come at the state and local level. These state and local cuts have led to a sharp fall in both government employment and government spending on goods and services, exerting a powerful drag on the economy as a whole… This policy malpractice is doing double damage to America. On one side, it’s helping lose the future — because that’s what happens when you neglect education and public investment. At the same time, it’s hurting us right now, by helping keep growth low and unemployment high.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/opinion/krugman-states-of-depression.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“It has been obvious all along, to anyone paying attention, that the politicians shouting loudest about deficits are actually using deficit hysteria as a cover story for their real agenda, which is top-down class warfare… [As the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reports], According to an ‘intermediate debt scenario,’ the budget proposals of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney would all lead to much higher debt a decade from now than the proposals in the 2013 Obama budget… the Republicans screaming about the evils of deficits would not, in fact, reduce the deficit — and, in fact, would do the opposite. What, then, would their policies accomplish? The answer is that they would achieve a major redistribution of income away from working-class Americans toward the very, very rich.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/opinion/krugman-four-fiscal-phonies.html?_r=2&ref=opinion]
Thank you.
Difference solutions for different times and circumstances. If you look to failed solutions applied in the past, then you should at least explain how the situation in those times compared to the current situation. Austerity is not always the solution for an economic downturn, but it certainly is the right one for now. Certain Europeans refuse to understand that right now. That’s why Wall Street is having jitters these past few months.
It’s all very simple: we’re broke right now. We can’t act like the compulsive gambler who not only puts down all what he owns on the table but goes crosses the street to the nearest bank to get a loan for more chips, only to lose it all. America is broke!
WRONG.
“Austerity is not always the solution for an economic downturn, but it certainly is the right one for now. Certain Europeans refuse to understand that right now.”
The ones who don’t understand the glories of austerity are likely the ones who realize that, as I noted above, “none of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge. Instead, the depressing effects of fiscal austerity have been reinforced by falling private spending. ”
Falling private spending means that less and less money is being used to purchase goods and services in local communities. When fewer people are buying whatever the business you work for is selling, YOU are at risk of being laid off.
If and when you get laid off, you are no longer spending money in your community (because austerity measures include slashing unemployment compensation, cutting money spent on medical treatment for poor people like you, lack of help when your home goes into foreclosure, and so on). Private spending continues to fall, and your neighbors get laid off…
The European version of austerity is their problem. They are doing three things. Cutting wages, Increasing taxes and cutting spending (so they can pay debt).
They should be cutting spending and instead of cutting wages (leave them alone) should be cutting public services and increasing the retirement age. They also should not be increasing taxes.
Their “austerity” was a compromise from which no good can come.
“none of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge.”
This is exactly the result of not having a true austerity program like Germany wanted late last year.
Are you aware that “cutting public services” = cutting middle class JOBS?
Increasing the retirment age may sound plausible if you think only about people who have desk jobs. Millions of American jobs involve physical labor. People’s bodies get worn out–yet they can’t retire. Or they have to start getting Social Security early, which means that through old age they will always get a fraction of what they would have received, had they been able to retire at 65 or 66.
As for Germany, “It has become clear that one of the main forces behind the insistence on austerity as the answer to Europe’s problems is the belief among many German opinion leaders that their own experience in the last decade shows the way… [However], Germany got out of its turn-of-the-millennium doldrums by moving into a huge trade surplus, which is not possible for everyone now… Germany believes that its successful adjustment was the result of its own virtue, but in reality it was successful in large part because of an inflationary boom in the rest of Europe….” [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/german-adjustment/]
Cutting public services IE increasing retirement age… vacation time that sort of thing.
“Germany believes that its successful adjustment was the result of its
own virtue, but in reality it was successful in large part because of an
inflationary boom in the rest of Europe….”
IE: Germany did so well because they managed themselves well against inflation and others did not do so well…. hmmmm typical Krugman thinking.
You are absolutely correct, and as Krugman points out Germany is doing well mainly because the rest of Europe is buying from them. If Europe cannot keep up the demand then Germany and its banks will be in trouble.
The European governments in serious financial trouble are exactly those that simply offered entitlements they could not possibly meet. In other words, they promised too much. If they don’t take sufficient measures to reduce their spending, they will not be able to meet their current financial obligations, much less their future ones. Austerity is the only way out of their malaise if they wish to avert civil war. Let’s hope it’s not too late to convince their people for the need to further reduce spending. So far their reductions have been relatively small and lenders are getting more reluctant to lend them money through bond purchasing.
Austerity cripples societies. The confidence fairy (to use Krugman’s phrase) is not impressed by austerity.
Don’t buy into Krugman so much. (and before you go ballistic I know who he is.) Remember he makes money doing what he does.
You are absolutely right in your assessment of the situation in those countries in Europe. Regrettably people are looting and burning and threatening civil war if the government further cuts back on entitlements. My understanding is that these cutbacks have been very minimal so far. People there have the mentality the government owes them their just due. The truth of the matter is that their governments simply do not have the ability for fulfill their promises.
I don’t know if you have been keeping up with the news lately. If you had you would be aware that Greece, Italy, Portugal and others are facing a crisis situation on account of massive government borrowing to keeping up with their entitlement programs and their obligations to pay back the money borrowed through bonds with interest. Because these countries are defaulting from time to time and not taking sufficient measures to reduce their entitlement programs, lenders are reluctant to extent any more credit. Thus these government have no choice but to offer higher interest rates on newly issued bonds to attract new investors or bond purchasers. Being saddled with higher interest rates means that these government will need to dish out more and more money each year just to service their debt until their are sufficient financial resources to meet their long term obligations. That is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future. The only way out of this dilemma is for them to impose greater austerity measures. But the politicians are reluctant to impose them on account of massive riots and the looming threat of civil war. The United States will soon face a similar situation unless proper measures are taken to reduce spending. Our debt right now compared to our GDP is close to theirs, that is, about 100%.
Wrong.
Did you notice that austerity measures are FAILING? This is because they were the wrong thing to do.
“What we’re basically looking at, then, is a balance of payments problem, in which capital flooded south after the creation of the euro, leading to overvaluation in southern Europe…
false diagnoses lead to policies that don’t address the real problem. You can slash the welfare state all you want (and the right wants to slash it down to bathtub-drowning size), but this has very little to do with export competitiveness. You can pursue crippling fiscal austerity, but this improves the external balance only by driving down the economy and hence import demand, with maybe, maybe, a gradual “internal devaluation” caused by high unemployment…” [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/european-crisis-realities/]
Austerity is not the solution because social programs are not the problem. That’s propaganda started and well-funded by American billionaires who cannot bear the notion of losing their special tax breaks to help out desperately poor Americans.
and the propaganda of the Republican Party who is using this recession to further their intention of ‘starving the beast’, that is all government funded social programs…
Yes, indeed–that’s precisely why they engineered a large debt in the US. They got us into horrifically expensive wars while actually reducing revenue (tax breaks for the ultra-rich), specifically in order to have a “reason” to cut social spending. Talk about entitlements–the ultra wealthy feel “entitled” to damage America’s fiscal health in order to advance the agenda you accurately described.
I am not saying that they started the wars to break the bank, but the Republicans do not ever vote to pay for what they spend. On the other hand President Obama has carefully and consistently paid for every program that he has proposed and sponsored. That includes every penny of the stimulus and the Affordable Health Care Act. People forget or ignore that fact.
Agreed. (Though I myself am a bit cynical about the wars!)
The fact of the matter is that welfare programs in the troubled European economies have remained relatively unscathed while the governments’ ability to meet obligations continues to decline. The only thing crippling about the ever slight austerity programs that have been implemented so far is the refusal of people with bloated entitlement mentality to accept any mild reduction in their benefits for all concerned. The troubled European nations coddled the masses for too long, and the masses are now rioting and threatening civil war over the need to cut back on entitlements. Spare the rod and spoil the child. People need to start fending for themselves and depending less on handouts.
“If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their
currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until
their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied.”
Thomas Jefferson
{ He could live a lavish life style but chooses not too. He is actually consuming relatively little compared to his own wealth }}
Mr. Kinsley is the problem Not the solution!He is an excellent example of the Failed Trickle Down Theory!Mr . Kinsley not only has no intent to, but couldn’t possibly return to the economy all what he took from it, where as the common man returns all or most of his product that he produces, in demand for substinance.
Mr. Kinsley is a prime example of the Paradox of Thift, It may be good for Mr. Kingsley to save his money rather than consume it, as the investments may yeild even larger wealth but if everyone where a Mr. Kinsley, no one would be buying goods and services and the investments would go broke.
Which leads us to where we are today!
What we are feeling now has more to do with the demand-siders that believe if you pass out enough government money for people to spend then business will hire more. It won’t, of course, and should Obama get re-elected and we continue this course it will be 20 years before we get out of this. If ever.
If the wealth gap is the problem (and it is) why do you want to tax income? Tax wealth to heal the middle class and the economy.
My Tax Reform Dare
(if you enjoy real tax reform)
The 2-4-8 Tax Blend is a powerful and resilient way to tax because it adds a
VAT ($10 trillion sales base) and net wealth tax ($53 trillion individual base)
to the income tax ($13 trillion individual and corporate base). The
Bowles-Simpson Commission was not permitted to consider these tax bases and
congress apparently does not think the economy is important enough to even
study the options. The tax blend is simple, efficient and so fair that it does
not give a partisan advantage to either Democrats or Republicans. It is
balanced to help everyone prosper and to pay more taxes only as they do.
For Business: 8% corporate rate and 4% VAT – (“tax perfection” with no
downside)
For Individuals: 8% individual rate and 2% net wealth – [excluding $15,000
savings and all retirement funds]
It produces $500 billion more in revenue [about 18.5% of GDP] with no need for
payroll, estate, and capital gains taxes or deferral of foreign income. This
simple tax code creates an economic ecosystem of sustainable growth and
investment freedom. With no (Democratic) government stimulus or (Republican)
tax expenditures, a typical family would save or spend $640 more per month,
business would add jobs to meet the increased demand and owners would reap
handsome profit the old fashion way – by keeping 92% of income.
After six months of writing blogs and comments; no person has identified a
legal, logical or economic flaw outlining why the 2-4-8 Tax Blend would not
produce sustainable economic recovery. If anyone can demonstrate why this tax
reform will not work I will take down my web at http://www.TaxNetWealth.com. Please
note that I do not consider making it too easy to tax or fears of runaway
congressional spending as valid objections to any tax plan.
Eugene Patrick Devany, JD, MPA
But they’re job creators and they need tax breaks because otherwise….zzzzzzzz
When will the sheep realize the problem is
not the rich. The problem is the vultures
we elect. The solution is simple, change the
tax laws. Isn’t it quite amazing that quite a
few of our wonderful politicians in D.C. had their
net worth RISE during this last recession? The vultures
only want more to spend and spend on what? To make
people become more dependant on them? If the rich
who are whining feel they should be paying more why
aren’t they writing a check to the govt, they have that
ability to do that. They invest and make money, good luck
to them. They leave it to their family, good for them,
I whined about them at one time and stopped whining
and worked and saved. Now I intend leaving what I have
to my family…not yours, not my neighbor’s, not to some
person who won’t help themself. Change the tax code so
EVERYONE has skin in the game and no exemptions and
you will hear the whiners still yell that they are getting screwed,
that the rich should pay for them. Instead of screaming about
taxing the rich, the sheep should be screaming about less taxes.
That won’t happen because they may have to work for a change.
You seem to be suggesting that people who work at minimum-wage jobs, and thus earn so little money that they are not required to pay taxes, somehow lack “skin in the game.” Seems to me they have skin, muscle, bone, blood, and vital organs in the game already.