I read an article the other day talking about the usual tax statistics: top 1% of society pays 37% of taxes, top 10% pay 71%, and bottom 40% pay nothing. With the "earned" income credit many on the bottom actually are paid by the federal government for gracing this nation with the benefits of their citizenship.
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?
Enabling people to vote to stick others with a tax bill will always lead in the direction of forcing the minority to pay for the majority. Right now we have 40% of the population being forced to pay for the other 60%. Even that is not enough - political candidates make careers out of promising the next income band that they will stick their bills to the next bracket.
As English historian, Alexander Tyler, stated in his analysis of the decline of Greek civilization, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by dictatorship."
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!
I hope America can get its act together and fix one of the only safeguards to ensuring our Democracy doesn't devolve into apathetic, dependent, serfdom. The rich should pay more taxes since they derive greater benefit from government, but the middle class and poor also derive benefits for which they must pay their proportionate share. Pandering to these majority voting blocks by promising to stick it to the rich even more sounds great from a podium, but has only one inevitable outcome.
About the Author:
Rob Viglione is a author, investment fund manager, and real estate broker. A former military officer, he is passionate about promoting a free society in America. You can see more of his work on The Freedom Factory.
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