Taxing WealthyTaxing the WealthyWith the national debt at an all-time high, it’s about time the wealthy started paying their fair share or more in taxes. Raising taxes on the rich will dent inequality in America. If raising taxes on the rich means more revenue for defense, education, social security, and especially for healthcare, I would support it undoubtedly.
Government can use taxes as a means of redistributing wealth to the poor and less fortunate. Author of The Rich Are Different from You and Me, Chrystia Freeland, states, “Today half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth-significantly more than the bottom 90 percent, who controlled just 26.9 percent” (Freeland). Although many rich people are charitable, for many others, that is not the case. They spend money on opulence things they dont need, or worse, try to spend their lives getting even richer. By taking the wealth from such rich individuals, government can create programs to help the needy such as food stamps, unemployment, and free healthcare, while also enhancing programs that help individuals climb the economic ladder, such as educational assistance and job training.
The power of rich individuals must be contained by limiting their wealth. Power inevitably comes with wealth. The most important thing that money can buy is access. Author of The Broken Contract, George Packer, basically says that Washington favors the rich. The more wealth that accumulates in a few hands at the top, the more influence and favor the rich acquire. Thus, making it easier for them and their political allies avoid constraints without paying a social price. He also says, “Inequality creates a lopsided economy, which leaves the rich with so much money that they can binge on speculation, and leaves the middle class without enough money to but the things they think they deserve, which leads
In reality, he adds, some people get so much of it that they take a little on the credit. But it’s hardly the most efficient way to solve a crisis, the kind of money is typically designed to fix. “But let’s say you do some good, as a simple case, you’ll be forced to borrow money to buy a house in return for the benefit of the wealthy. That leaves the wealthy no one to blame but themselves.”
But if I were the kind of rich guy who, with every ounce of wealth, wanted the country to grow up like it does on a farm every day, I’d be pretty happy to provide that. I would be willing to pay out of the pocket of my people all the money that’s needed to move that farm to new growth, even if the benefits are in the ways I want them to. But if I had to pay their hard-earned taxes, or at least the amount I’ve been able to receive on their behalf, I wouldn’t be able to afford the additional income, because that’s what the money will be waiting for, not the resources it will put into action for them.
In his letter, George tells it in the kind of style “that the middle class would rather tolerate” and the kind that gets rid of “them,” but it also includes the words: “In addition to the benefits of reducing the deficit, we should reduce the tax burden so that more resources are devoted to programs that provide a steady income for families, but also to programs that strengthen the economy and create jobs.” He suggests some ideas along those lines. Most of these I can remember are for reducing taxes on the rich, but the most common ones are for other things. He tells them that they need “a financial system that is free of debt. Money is one of the few resources available to people. We use that money because it makes a lot of sense—we understand the potential of the money; it will make us smarter, stronger, and more productive by reducing our national debt. Without that financial system, the problems and uncertainties of our economy would be better than they are right now.”
A few days later, he gets back to the question, and the response sounds even more interesting than he said, as is typical in my experience of politicians. He says that politicians make bad decisions and that it’s no coincidence that he’s not an economist or an economist at all. He also says that his point is that what people actually do is complicated and that they should be encouraged sometimes to take more risks. People could not afford to do that. And as I know the average person knows, the risk of a financial crisis depends on how you spend the money you can save and the people you can afford to support because you actually save.