Wealthy's Charity Helps But Higher Taxes On Wealthy A Must To Ensure Fiscal Responsibility
Posted: Friday, December 31, 2010
by Egberto Willies
http://egbertowillies.com
Three professors (Robert Hockett of Cornell Law School, Daniel Markovits of Yale Law School, and Jacob Hacker a Yale political scientist) created the website GiveItBackForJobs.org. The premise is that the responsible wealthy would donate their windfall from the Bush tax cuts and the Obama extensions to the charities of their choice and thus stimulating the economy. Anyone using the website for that purpose should be commended. However, the institution of a website of this type is tantamount to using aspirin to attenuate the pain of a broken fibula.
The only gauge we have to measure societal progress is via income, wealth, and quality of life distribution over time. What has occurred post-Reagan full embrace of supply side economics is quantifiable and documented. The result has been a tax structure that allows for wealth accumulation by the top two percent. The result has been a regulatory climate that inhibits the individual from innovating as corporations have garnered more rights implicitly than that of the individual. The result has been a lowering of the quality of life as more in the family unit has had to work more hours simply to keep the same standard of living which affects the well-being of the family unit.
Having the wealthy decide on the redistribution of their government induced wealth windfall through charitable contributions is hardly good fiscal policy. Only a substantial increase in taxes on the wealthy will begin to mitigate the fiscal disaster we are in. While many will construe this as a “soak the rich” policy, this could not be further from the truth.
Many have been brainwashed into believing that the modest entitlements presented by Social Security, Medicare, and other programs are where the majority of our fiscal irresponsibility lies. I beg to differ. The reason to have a humane society is to “provide for the general welfare” of its citizens.
While many in the wealthy class has worked harder than most to attain that wealth, success is not earned in a vacuum. The success of the wealthy is dependent on a viable middle class to earn their wealth. Our current policies that allow corporations (mostly owned by the wealthy) to outsource manufacturing and labor are decimating the middle class. While the wealthy reaps the profits of overseas slave labor to satisfy the middle classes’ need for products and services, they do not reinvest in the middle class jobs or in a sufficient level of taxes to mitigate the support of the government that keeps them viable. Moreover, the wealthy extract yet another premium from low taxation by loaning the government the funds for deficit spending through bonds that the middle class ultimately pays back with interest to the wealthy; an obscene form of wealth transfer from the middle class to the wealthy.
Until the middle class takes responsibility to understand the immovable obstacles that inhibits the success of most by design, more will continue over the cliff of indentured servitude. One can only hope that sanity and clear thinking will eventually overcome the very effective Right Wing Echo chamber of talk radio and TV. It is the only hope the middle class has.
This Article has been viewed 2,293 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Hi Egberto, welcome to searchwarp! If, you've been around awhile, forgive me. It is me who has been away. My question is - what middle class? Very well said. Many blessings to you in 2011!Thanks Teresa. Happy New Year.
Mountains will have to move for this reality to occur. The train has already left the station, and it's going to be one bad bullet to stop. Until the church, which wields supreme power over the hearts and minds over a majority of Americans citizens decides that it is more important to "provide for the general welfare" of the population, over the riches that they receive from the rich and powerful to spread their message of God's unquestioned right to dominate the masses, things will not change.You hit it on the money. Unfortunatey the evangelical churches have ceased following the liberal stance of Jesus.
The theory is it's easier on the wealthy to shoulder the burden of high taxes. However, higher taxes on a single class "the wealthy" for example, does not demonstrate fiscal responsibility. It's the wealthy, or in most cases businesses and corporations that create jobs. Thus, if the government over taxes these entities they can't hire needed employees and often must raise prices to compensate.
Alowing businesses and corporations to keep the money means it gets used twice. Once when the corporation purchases raw materials or hires an new employee, and once again when the employee spends the money to purchase needed goods.
One way to help the middle class is to provide them with jobs so they can be self sufficient and meet their own needs--can you do that? Do you have an extra million dollars laying around that you'ld like to invest? Who do you work for? Or, who do you hope to work for when you graduate from college? Unless you're planning on gonig into business for yourself I'd be willing bet you'ld like to think one of those "wealthy corporations" needs a recent college graduate.Thanks for your thoughtful response. Unfortunately you have bought into the tenet that in todays world tax cuts or better tax deals to the wealthy create jobs. That is patently and provably false. 7 years of tax cuts under Bush did not create jobs of consequence. The reasons are verifiable and quantifiable. Human behavior is to maximize their income. Removing additional taxes from the wealthy did not help our economy because to maximize their wealth they had the wherwithal to invest overseas in foreign manufacturing at the expense of American jobs, American education, and American infrastructure.
The wealthy did not get there on their own. The middle class, the engine of our society made it possible for a few to maximize their wealth from what we are willing to purchase from them. Most times it is the middle class engineer, doctor, and scientist that invented what the owner of increasing capital has invested in.
My friend we are programmed to believe that the wealthy has some inate value above that of the middle class. The reality is much difference.
On your question, I own my own business and have made very high taxes for a long time. The last two years I have paid substantially less in taxes as the crash affected small technology companies much harder than larger companies. I understand economics, our economy, and the system that is pilfering the middle class. It is my goal to educate the masses so the the mathematically provable nonsense many listen to on Right Wing Talk Radio and Fox News is mitigated.My book at http://amzn.to/dt72c7 goes through in detail with complete examples and facts to illustrate the issue.HAPPY NEW YEAR my friend.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.