There are few things as universally despised as a deadbeat dad. Creating dependents and then refusing to provide financial support is cruel and irresponsible.
We expect even the poorest of fathers to pay support for their dependent children, and yet we find no fault with the 49.5% of American households who do not pay any income tax, the major source of financial support for the millions of Americans who have been made dependent on government programs.
If you recall, it was just 18% free riders that were intolerable when it came to government health care – so much so that we had to jettison the Constitution to save the Republic from them with the individual mandate. Why then do we let 49.5% of Americans channel their inner Timothy Geithner and pay nothing towards all other government programs combined? Are they necessary or only 50.5% necessary?
There are 118 million households in this country, and the median household income is roughly $50,000 per year, so the amount of tax revenue raised by a minimum tax – let’s say a paltry Romney-esque 15% - would be around $450 billion. Or to use the 10-year pixie-dust triple-speak of Washington budget geeks, $6 trillion.
I can hear it now; the argument against taxing those who pay nothing is that they can’t afford it. Has there been a single deadbeat dad in the history of deadbeatery who has not made that very same argument to the court when it was time to set his child support? And has a single one of them ever won it? Never. Everybody has to pay something.
Imagine if you will that every other car at the drive-thru gets to pass its bill on to the car behind. How do you think the freeloading happy meal driver in car #1 will respond to the question, “do you want fries with that?” Sure! Supersize it! And pay off my student loans and mortgage and throw in a hot apple pie and a liposuction. And make that next guy throw another buck into that charity bucket right there – the heartless bastard – there are kids who don’t have enough to eat, you know.
Is it so difficult to understand why the folks in car #2 – i.e. the 50.5% of us who actually pay income tax - bristle at the notion that we are not paying our “fair share”? Before a single penny is added to the bill of those who pay tax already, the truly fair thing to do would be to let all the non-payers catch up. There is nothing stopping them from implementing tax fairness on their own; the IRS accepts overage payments.
And do you remember that argument from Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren that the rich should happily pay more tax because they benefited from roads and schools and police and such? Well, don’t the deadbeat 49.5% benefit from those same services? Why not increase taxes on them, too? To something greater than zero, for example.
Or for that matter, doesn’t every charity and tax-exempt advocacy group drive those roads, attend those schools, and call those 911 centers, too? Why is it that we only guilt-trip on the job creators and people who pay taxes already? Why is it “fairness” for a smaller and smaller number of taxpayers pay more and more of the taxes?
The politics of taxation is fundamentally dishonest. You convince a very large voting block that a very small voting block is freeloading and you make punishing those few deadbeats a moral crusade. Everybody likes a moral crusade; it makes us feel all moral and stuff. The favorite bad guys are the rich, because resentment is easily marketed – it is the path of least intellectual resistance.
What the class warriors conveniently leave out of their tax-the-rich pitch is that it never works, a lesson we learned AGAIN this week from our friends in the U.K. Last year they increased the top marginal tax rate to 50% - what people in some states here would pay under President Obama’s proposed tax fairness plan – but instead of increasing, revenues dropped. Duh.
Surprise, surprise - the rich are moving out, or shielding income, or simply sitting on their money instead of putting it in play where it will be taxed. When big money sits on the sidelines jobs are not created, and jobs – not government programs – are the answer to poverty. When you tax the rich you punish the poor.
It is ironic that liberals who rail against poverty are also the first to demonize the wealthy job creators who eliminate it. They should spend a little less time regurgitating 100 year old disproved slogans and a little more time acquainting themselves with current income statistics – the Current Population Survey (CPS) for 2010 from the Census Bureau is a pretty good place to start.
Each of the five income quintiles in the U.S. now contains 23.7 million households. In the poorest fifth, 14.8 million households have zero income earners living in them; in the richest fifth only 722 thousand households have no earners. Only 1 million of the poorest households have two or more earners, while 17.7 million of the richest households have two or more. Jobs cure poverty – it is that simple.
And so do traditional values. Only 4 million of the poorest quintile households are married couple families, while 18.6 million of the richest quintile are married couple families. This should surprise no one; traditional values only get to be that way if they prove to be beneficial over centuries. I’m not proposing that government should legislate values, but it can quit being openly hostile to the ones that work – family, faith, freedom, thrift, charity, marriage, work, responsibility, patriotism.
As much as he would like you to think so, President Obama cannot make you richer, and for that matter neither can Governor Scott Walker. The latest income statistics reinforce the familiar instruction about what to do to avoid poverty and move up from the bottom fifth into the higher income quintiles; and those are things we must do for ourselves:
Get a job and keep working, get married and stay that way, have children, don’t do drugs, don’t commit crimes, save for retirement, don’t spend more than you earn, pay your taxes, and vote Libertarian.
Ok, I just made up that last one. Fair is not when half of us pay a lot for what all of us benefit from; fair is when all of us pay a little so that a limited government can do the few things we cannot do for ourselves.
We expect even the poorest of fathers to pay support for their dependent children, and yet we find no fault with the 49.5% of American households who do not pay any income tax, the major source of financial support for the millions of Americans who have been made dependent on government programs.
If you recall, it was just 18% free riders that were intolerable when it came to government health care – so much so that we had to jettison the Constitution to save the Republic from them with the individual mandate. Why then do we let 49.5% of Americans channel their inner Timothy Geithner and pay nothing towards all other government programs combined? Are they necessary or only 50.5% necessary?
There are 118 million households in this country, and the median household income is roughly $50,000 per year, so the amount of tax revenue raised by a minimum tax – let’s say a paltry Romney-esque 15% - would be around $450 billion. Or to use the 10-year pixie-dust triple-speak of Washington budget geeks, $6 trillion.
I can hear it now; the argument against taxing those who pay nothing is that they can’t afford it. Has there been a single deadbeat dad in the history of deadbeatery who has not made that very same argument to the court when it was time to set his child support? And has a single one of them ever won it? Never. Everybody has to pay something.
Imagine if you will that every other car at the drive-thru gets to pass its bill on to the car behind. How do you think the freeloading happy meal driver in car #1 will respond to the question, “do you want fries with that?” Sure! Supersize it! And pay off my student loans and mortgage and throw in a hot apple pie and a liposuction. And make that next guy throw another buck into that charity bucket right there – the heartless bastard – there are kids who don’t have enough to eat, you know.
Is it so difficult to understand why the folks in car #2 – i.e. the 50.5% of us who actually pay income tax - bristle at the notion that we are not paying our “fair share”? Before a single penny is added to the bill of those who pay tax already, the truly fair thing to do would be to let all the non-payers catch up. There is nothing stopping them from implementing tax fairness on their own; the IRS accepts overage payments.
And do you remember that argument from Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren that the rich should happily pay more tax because they benefited from roads and schools and police and such? Well, don’t the deadbeat 49.5% benefit from those same services? Why not increase taxes on them, too? To something greater than zero, for example.
Or for that matter, doesn’t every charity and tax-exempt advocacy group drive those roads, attend those schools, and call those 911 centers, too? Why is it that we only guilt-trip on the job creators and people who pay taxes already? Why is it “fairness” for a smaller and smaller number of taxpayers pay more and more of the taxes?
The politics of taxation is fundamentally dishonest. You convince a very large voting block that a very small voting block is freeloading and you make punishing those few deadbeats a moral crusade. Everybody likes a moral crusade; it makes us feel all moral and stuff. The favorite bad guys are the rich, because resentment is easily marketed – it is the path of least intellectual resistance.
What the class warriors conveniently leave out of their tax-the-rich pitch is that it never works, a lesson we learned AGAIN this week from our friends in the U.K. Last year they increased the top marginal tax rate to 50% - what people in some states here would pay under President Obama’s proposed tax fairness plan – but instead of increasing, revenues dropped. Duh.
Surprise, surprise - the rich are moving out, or shielding income, or simply sitting on their money instead of putting it in play where it will be taxed. When big money sits on the sidelines jobs are not created, and jobs – not government programs – are the answer to poverty. When you tax the rich you punish the poor.
It is ironic that liberals who rail against poverty are also the first to demonize the wealthy job creators who eliminate it. They should spend a little less time regurgitating 100 year old disproved slogans and a little more time acquainting themselves with current income statistics – the Current Population Survey (CPS) for 2010 from the Census Bureau is a pretty good place to start.
Each of the five income quintiles in the U.S. now contains 23.7 million households. In the poorest fifth, 14.8 million households have zero income earners living in them; in the richest fifth only 722 thousand households have no earners. Only 1 million of the poorest households have two or more earners, while 17.7 million of the richest households have two or more. Jobs cure poverty – it is that simple.
And so do traditional values. Only 4 million of the poorest quintile households are married couple families, while 18.6 million of the richest quintile are married couple families. This should surprise no one; traditional values only get to be that way if they prove to be beneficial over centuries. I’m not proposing that government should legislate values, but it can quit being openly hostile to the ones that work – family, faith, freedom, thrift, charity, marriage, work, responsibility, patriotism.
As much as he would like you to think so, President Obama cannot make you richer, and for that matter neither can Governor Scott Walker. The latest income statistics reinforce the familiar instruction about what to do to avoid poverty and move up from the bottom fifth into the higher income quintiles; and those are things we must do for ourselves:
Get a job and keep working, get married and stay that way, have children, don’t do drugs, don’t commit crimes, save for retirement, don’t spend more than you earn, pay your taxes, and vote Libertarian.
Ok, I just made up that last one. Fair is not when half of us pay a lot for what all of us benefit from; fair is when all of us pay a little so that a limited government can do the few things we cannot do for ourselves.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.
If there are 118 million households, how can 23,736 make up a quintile? Woudn't that leave you 117,881,320 (or so) households short? I'm no statistics expert, but is there something simple I'm missing?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@ doug - CPS data is stated in 000's and I did not point that out in the original, so I have changed it to be stated properly. Sorry, readers.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to get married but I can't because it's not legal in my state. Traditional values are great but not everyone is allowed to partake, even if they want to.
ReplyDeleteI didn't meet my Dad until I was 13. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, had signed off on Child support and Dad, fool that he was, signed off on visitation. A judge gave his approval. Fast forward. mom sued Dad for back child support. She won. Dad said fine, I get to see my kids. Mom wasn't happy, but fortunately, court said too bad. Sadly, my mom won with my sister where she failed with me. My sis wouldn't have anything to do with dad. Me? It was great. He's gone now, but he made my life better.
ReplyDeleteThat said, what frosts my flakes is someone who pays no Federal Income tax, and yet, they get a tax return! Horse hockey! I know that we all pay sales taxes, and those wonderful fees (taxes) that are on out phone, water bills, etc. However, if you don't pay fed tax, no damn return.
Anony 11:21, Most people, myself included, would have no problem with civil unions, set up by the government that so wants to be secular. Problem is, that's just not good enough for the activists. They have no tolerance for those of us who disagree, so I guess, unfortunately, you can expect little in return. Until everyone steps back, and takes a deep breath, and talks to each other, rather than trying to get their way through the courts, nothing is going to change.
I'm PROUD OF NOT PAYING INCOME TAX any more. I am no longer contributing to the unconstitutional uses that Congress has made of the more than ample monies that I've sent them in the past.
ReplyDeleteJohn Galt was right, withdrawing our support is the only answer left to the productive people of our American society. Nothing illegal, I've just dropped out of their system and refuse to go along to get along. I retired early, and I will not support the leviathan any longer, until it's reined-in to it's authorized constitutional levels.
If anybody thinks that things will return to "Limited Government" under Newt, Rick, or Mitt.... they're deluding themselves. I've seen too many presidents come and go, spouting the language of fiscal responsibility, but only using that rhetoric to get elected. Ron Paul is the only candidate that would reduce government to a more sustainable level. He's the only candidate with a consistent conservative record, never wavering from constitutional principles.
Excellent, Dr. Tim!
ReplyDeleteI was once pretty stoked about my 5.85% effective tax rate and $500 tax refund. I was really sticking it to the man with all my deductions. The real eye opener for me was when I started helping other people prepare their taxes. I never knew an ETR could have a negative sign in front of it! And double digit! Those with the lowest income and paying ZERO in withholding are the ones getting huge federal refund(?) checks ($6000.00+). And then when I did their kids taxes, they thought they were getting ripped off when, at most, they got back the $100 they paid in because they don’t have kids (yet). Pretty sure they don’t understand or care about anything you write and will be voting democrat for awhile. Good strategy on both parts.
Where does all the government money come from if I only pay 6% and they get 40%? Why are all the factories laying people off again? Oh yeah, the rich(?) are a bunch of greedy SOB’s.
Boy I missed the deleted comment, I'm sure it was just another tolerant liberal. My wife has told me of the same lady that comes in every year to deposit a $8,000.00+ return when she has been living on our dime all year. This is criminal to say the least. The system must change!
ReplyDeleteNicely done as usual Dr. Tim.
@E.D. - Barry is no liberal! He is a libertarian friend and one of my first fans. I think he was still a UW student when we met - brave soul. Hie's one of us!
ReplyDeleteI want to believe that this class warfare battle will be lost by Obama and the leftist congress. But I'm not too hopeful. The current candidates for President, other than Paul, are not very eloquent at countering those messages.
ReplyDeleteDr, T.
ReplyDeleteRe: E.D. and the deleted comment:
So why was his comment deleted???? Was it at his request?
I'm so confused
The comment deleted was deleted by the person who wrote it. When you delete your post, it doesn't completely get rid of it, just replaces it with "This comment has been removed by the author."
ReplyDeleteAnother great piece Tim. Continue to give out your clarity, would be nice if liberals had half a brain to understand it!
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous who wants to be married but his state won't let him...
ReplyDeleteI bet you're not poor. I'd wager that you are likely upper middle-class.
The marriage and poverty link doesn't apply to you. It applies to people who can have children at young ages out of wedlock before getting an education thus locking themselves into a struggle to survive.
The rule I tell my kids is this: Get your education, get a carrer, get married and then have kids. Life is tough enough if you do that but if you get the order wrong you're going to make things exponentially difficult for yourself.
While I agree that the 50% who bilk a living from the other half is reprehensible, adding another tax is NOT the answer. Seriously. They pay nothing now. Where would they get the tax money? Ans: From the government (read you & me). In time, the liberals would raise the payments of the non-contributing folks to make up for the loss. That would mean we just got another 15% tax hike and we'd be worse off than now. The right answer is to cut the payments to those paying nothing. Some would be forced to work and then they would at least pay for their own way, but more likely become tax payers too. The answer to our government woes is never increasing taxes!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your reply Dr. Tim.
ReplyDeleteKeithh1981, I took it as the author of the piece, not the comment. Thank you.
Excellent Advice...Perhaps the Healthy Youth Act in WI should mandate this information be passed on to 10th graders that have to endure the Health (Reproductive)Class as mandated by WI graduation standards.
ReplyDeleteThe marriage and poverty link applies to people who can have children at young ages out of wedlock before getting an education thus locking themselves into a struggle to survive.
The rule I tell my kids is this: Get your education, get a carrer, get married and then have kids. Life is tough enough if you do that but if you get the order wrong you're going to make things exponentially difficult for yourself.
Tim, you say, "It is consequence - not law - that moderates the human appetite for self-destructive excess."
ReplyDeleteI would be a Libertarian except that I picked up some kind of strange disease from a public bathroom (or somewhere) that generally only transmitted between individuals that do strange things to each other. It has made 20 years of my life difficult. I am, therefore, a Conservative who wants the Libertines of our society restrained by law to protect myself but more importantly my grandchildren and neighbors.
I have a complete and total respect for you and your thoughts which is the only reason I would take the time to communicate with you. Keep up the good work!
Don Gander