The Slippery Slope

According to the IRS’s own data, the bottom 50% of wage earners in this country pay %2.99 of all taxes. The remaining is paid by the top 50%.

Even with this, Obama is planning to pay out cash to folks who pay little or no taxes (this is called the “refundable tax credit”).

The result of this will be that well over 50% of Americans (voting Americans) will pay no net federal taxes beginning 2010.

Aside from being unfair, there are many dangers:

• When more than 50% of the folks in this country are not paying for the costs of government, it will become virtually impossible to win an election based upon promises to reduce the size of government. This will remain true even as it becomes critical to our financial existence as a country.
• Historically, all democracies have fallen apart when the majority is allowed to tax the wealth of the minority. This always leads to the society collapsing.

If you have not read “Atlas Shrugged” (admittedly a long book) you should consider doing so. It is a fictional account of a society collapsing as more and more folks become idle while making demands upon the truly productive members of the society. It is chilling and beautifully written.

Little children believe that the food on the table is simply there. The toils behind such produce, unless the child is fortunate enough to live in a productive family (especially farms), goes unnoticed. The sad part is that since few are taught, as their basic education, the basics of economics even adults begin to believe that it boils down to the fact that some people HAVE and some people HAVE NOT. They miss the concept that the conditions of existence, of economy and life, require BE, DO and HAVE. They are unable to see that everything they HAVE was something that was produced somewhere by someone.

These folks tend to think in terms of how to “get” theirs- rather than as to how to “produce” theirs. So when the laws of the land begin to be written for their benefit (by those who are equally misguided or who see these folks as voting blocks to guarantee their own continued power) then we allow our society to steal (legally through taxation) the wealth of the producers. Thus, as in “Atlas Shrugged”, we lose the producers.

That will lead, inevitably, to the collapse of a society.

Obama, and those who think as he (both Republican and Democrat) are leading us down this road. Whether they do so because they don’t understand, or even if they do (an unsettling thought) makes no difference. The results will be the same.

What we can do is to understand the basis of production and be sure this is taught in the schools and to our own children.  With this understanding, then, we watch our legislators and make sure they do not throw more water on the very fire that keeps this society going.

Productive folks and those who understand BE, DO and HAVE will not contribute to such a grand demise.