New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It’s so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being “rich”, or what tax rate is “too much.” But I’ve done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.
Depending on where you sit on the ideological fence, the rich are either the reason this country is great…or parasites that suck the life blood from the middle class as they exploit them for their own benefit. Of course, the reality is a fair bit more complex. F’rinstance, just what exactly IS rich? The answer depends on your perspective, of course, but for the purposes of this argument, it seems like $250,000 per year has become something of a yardstick. Honestly, $250k/year is a pretty healthy income, regardless of your socio-economic class. There are those, and I would include myself among them, who would hold that if you can’t survive on $250k/year, then you need to get a grip on (never mind re-examine) reality.
Regardless of whether or not you like Bill Maher, it seems difficult to argue with his premise. If you make more than $250k/year, and you’re complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then yes, you really ARE by definition a greedy asshole. If your annual income is north of $250k/year, and you honestly see yourself as poor and oppressed, I’d only ask one thing of you: TAKE A GOOD LOOK AROUND YOU. If you possessed even the barest shred of honesty and decency, you’d recognize just how fortunate you are…and you’d admit that you’re not sharing in the astonishing degree of suffering occurring in this country.
Of course, this isn’t going to stop oligarch-wannabes like Ben Stein from playing the “higher taxes are a way to punish me for being successful” card. The effective tax rates for the wealthy (those making above $250k/year) have dropped tremendously over the past 50 years or so. Time was when the top earners were taxed at something like 97% of their income; now it’s 33%. Yes, that’s right; you can look at those numbers and draw only one logical conclusion: the tax burden has been shifted on to the middle class. Hey, it’s not like the federal government started making do with less, so to ask the wealthy to suck it up and pay an additional 3.6%? Cry me a freakin’ river, willya? Get over yourselves, already.
Wealth is not a birthright, regardless of what some might think. I’m not going to belittle hard work that leads to financial success, because that really is what so much of this country’s success is built upon. Let’s not forget, though, that much of the “old money” wealth that’s passed from generation to generation was made because of lax labor, civil rights, and environmental laws and regulations. Exploitation of the middle class and working poor may be why so many enjoy such lavish standards of living now, but that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate the continuation of such an inequitable system.
Capitalism may be a meritocracy, but that doesn’t justify the continuation of a system that exploits the labors of the many for the benefit of the few. Asking the wealthy to step and do their part- even on a very limited basis (and, really; will the wealthy really miss 3.6%?) is only living a very simple (and very Biblical) rule: from those to whom much is given, much is expected.
“I got mine; you can damn well get your own” is a damn poor way to run a country. If an extra 3.6% makes you feel as if you’re being oppressed for being successful, perhaps you’d feel better if we just returned to the tax policies that existed in the middle of the 20th century? After all, collecting 97% of your income would certainly go a long way towards plugging a lot of holes in the social fabric, don’tchathink?? We live in desperate times, and millions of Americans are suffering. It’s time for you to admit to your good fortune, step up, and stop your whining.
