Your Fair Share

The growing gap between the richest and the poorest in this country concerns me greatly. I believe that the mega-corporations and banks have far too much power today, and that some, if not most, of them are misusing that power. But that is a topic for another day.

Today I am going to rant about the rich paying their fair share.

I shudder every time I hear a Politician shout out that the rich need to pay their fair share.   The top 10% of Americans already pay over 70% of all of the Income taxes collected each year, while the bottom 45% of Americans pay no Income taxes at all.   30 Years ago, the top 10% paid 55% of all of the Income taxes collected that year.

One of the most basic of our founding principles is that all men are created equal.  One person.  One vote.  When it’s election time, Bill Gates gets one vote.  Warren Buffett gets one vote.  You get one vote.  I get one vote.   So how is it fair that 70% of the Income taxes are paid by the rich and almost half of everybody else pays nothing?   (Maybe if everybody actually had an extra 10% or 20% taken out of their paycheck every week for taxes, then maybe the general public would be more concerned about the out-of-control Federal spending and decide to do something about it!  But I digress….)

The truth is that the rich pay far more than their fair share. They always have and they always will. Total Income taxes collected last year were 1.5 trillion dollars. That comes to over $5,000 for every man, women, and child in this country, or around $12,000 per household.  I know I did not pay nearly that much in Federal income taxes.  But the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the Rich.

And still, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are demanding that we raise taxes on the rich because they are not paying their fair share!   What a crock!

The government costs a lot of money to operate, and most of that money will come from the rich. The poor simply don’t have it to pay even if they wanted to.

It is very likely that taxes will have to be raised in the future, and I am not saying that they shouldn’t be.  But it will be the rich who bear the brunt of those increases.

So let’s get off our high horse and stop trying to justify raising taxes on the rich because they are not paying their “fair share”. Let’s just be honest and say we need more of your money to fund our lifestyles. Or, and by the way: Thanks!





While we on the subject of the evil and greedy rich who don’t pay their fair share, consider what these richest of the rich did with the money that they didn't pay in taxes:

Andrew Carnegie used his wealth to build over two thousand five hundred libraries throughout the World.  By 1919, near HALF of the all of the libraries in the United States were built with funds provided by Carnegie.

John D. Rockefeller gave away approximately $540 million (over $10 billion in today’s dollars) before his death in 1937 at the age of 97. With that money, he created two of the world’s greatest research universities, helped pull the American South out of chronic poverty, educated legions of African Americans, jump started medical research, and dramatically improved health around the globe.

Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, has given away almost $7 billion.

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to give away at least half of his wealth, and has already given over $500 million.

Warren Buffet has pledged to give away 99% of all his wealth, and has already given away $23 billion dollars.

Finally, Bill Gates leads them all with over $28 billion dollars already donated.

Gun Control Rhetoric and Reality

I am tired of politicians using tragedies such as last week’s shooting to promote their own Gun Control agendas.  Of all of the gun deaths, these mass-shootings account for an extremely small percentage of all gun deaths.  We DO have a gun control problem in this country, but it is not the end-of-the-World issue that the gun-control advocates are making it out to be.

On the other hands, some common-sense gun control laws do not represent the total destruction of our Constitutions rights that the gun-control opponents are claiming, either.  

The really disgusting thing is that the politicians on both side know this, and they continue to spout their rhetoric solely to polarize our population for their own political agenda.

THERE IS NO SINGLE SOLUTION TO GUN VIOLENCE SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE IS NO SINGLE CAUSE OF GUN VIOLENCE.    Gun violence generally falls into one of several categories:

ACCIDENTS:   Banning guns from law-abiding citizens would stop these deaths.   But accidents account for about 2% of deaths from firearms.    The better solution here is mandatory safety training, including proper handling and storing of firearms.  This is common sense anyway.  Why would we NOT want to be safe when handling a deadly weapon?

SUICIDES:  Suicides account for about 62% of all gun deaths.   This is tragic, and banning guns would prevent people from using guns to kill themselves.  But the gun is just an mean to the end, and people who commit suicide generally are not thinking rationally. Those who are determined to end their lives would just choose another method.    But a ten-day waiting period before purchasing a gun would not hurt.

That leaves HOMICIDE as the cause of the rest the gun deaths in America.   But it’s not that simple.   The causes for gun homicides can also be broken down:

JUSTIFIED:   Killings made in self-defense or defense of others or by law enforcement officers in the line of duty.  The ability to protect ourselves is the entire reason for the Second Amendment.

TERRORISTS:  Since 2000, terrorists have far less than 100 people in the U.S. using guns.  Those two terrorists last week had a stock-pile of pipe-bombs ready to go.  If they had not had the guns, they could have killed as many or more people just as easily with those pipe-bombs.   No gun control laws can overcome the amount of effort these terrorists expend to plan and carry out a their attacks.  As the White House said yesterday, we could make it a little harder, but I doubt it would stop even one of them.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and CRAZY PEOPLE:   This is the truly tragic category.  There is really no way to prevent the homicide committed in a fit of rage by someone who has never committed domestic violence before.  A person in a fit of rage will grab any weapon they can.  But for those with a history of domestic violence or mental illness, there should be restrictions on their ability to own or possess firearms, just as there is for convicted felons.  We also need a common-sense method to allow for early intervention to prevent people with undiagnosed mental illnesses from gaining access to firearms without unduly infringing on their general rights.   But that’s a topic for another day.

CRIMINALS, and GANGS:   We already have laws that prevent convicted felons from possessing firearms.  These laws need to be much more rigidly enforced.   That means universal background checks.  Judges should add 5 or 10 years of probation to the end of each sentence, during which time police may stop and frisk without cause.   A convicted felon caught in possession of a firearm should go away for a very long time.

I SUPPORT THE SECOND AMENDMENT.   I believe law-abiding citizens have the right to arm themselves for protection.  Guns are useful tools when used properly by responsible citizens.  If even one person at that Christmas party last week had had a gun, the outcome might have been much different.  In today’s world of home-grown ISIS organizations, the original Second-Amendment argument for the need of a civilian militia is not that outdated.  It would be interesting to see how the Middle East would be right now if every citizen in those countries had ready access to firearms before ISIS came to town.

MY SOLUTION:  Personally, I would like to see the concealed handgun programs that exist in several states expanded so that ANYONE who wants to possess a firearm must obtain such a permit.   The permits should require adequate safety training before issue.  But once that training is completed, the permits must be issued to any citizen legally entitled to own a gun.   Anyone who sells a gun must verify the current status of the buyer’s permit, regardless of the location and character of the sale.  Even if you are giving the gun to your own child.  Such verification could be done very quickly with a simple automated phone call.  Dial a number, enter the permit #, and you get back a yes or no.  If you are caught with a gun and you do not have a permit, you go to jail.  Plain and simple.

This would NOT require people to register their guns.   Since having a permit would not prove that you actually owner a gun, the arguments against gun registration would not apply here.