Taxing and Parents

I consider myself a fairly average parent. I love my kids. I’m sure there are things I do that will leave them mumbling to the shrink during their midlife crisis sessions. I also think there are things they learn from me that are good, useful lessons they will take to their adult life. I’m not sure what they are but I’m hoping there are some. I can’t be the worst parent and I’m sure not the best. I’ll settle for average.

When other children came to our home to visit, I tried to encourage my children to share the things they had. Most parents understand the negotiations that need to take place between a parent and a child in order to get a visiting six year old to play with your child’s toys. My strategy was always to tell my kids that if the toy breaks while our guest is playing with it, I would buy them a brand new one. The idea of having a brand new favorite toy worked well for all except my son’s favorite toy that he had since he was three. It’s a Curious George monkey that he calls Diddy, after the little chimp from one of the Donkey Kong games. Fortunately it wasn’t very popular with the other children so I didn’t have a terrible time getting my children to share their toys. Sharing is always a good thing.

When it came to mealtime with guests, there was hardly a problem. Maybe on Thanksgiving there was a small conversation if three of more children wanted a Turkey leg, but to be honest, I don’t remember that ever happening. The assurance that there were two turkey legs satisfied everyone and peace was always quickly restored. Sharing vegetables or salad was even easier because my children became the most magnanimous people on the planet when it came to sharing peas and broccoli. Even sharing peas and broccoli is a good thing.

Giving money or gifts to visitors was even easier. I could just ask the kids to get this or that gift and give it to this or that person and they were very happy to do it. I think it was mostly the surprise of seeing the gift unwrapped that led my children to give the gifts so easily. It was never too difficult to get my kids to share gifts with other children and adults, and sharing gifts is always a good thing.

Giving and sharing is one of the things that are on the top of the parental to do lists for their children. Some children are more difficult than others, since everyone has their own individual personalities. However, virtually all the parents who believe they have been good parents, agree that kids need to learn to share and care about other people. Sharing and caring about others is a very good thing.

So what happens when people get older? Do people lose the sharing skills they were taught as children? Or am I delusional when I believe that parents teach sharing skills to their children? I understand the argument that I am delusional, but that’s a different conversation. I don’t think I’m delusional for believing parents teach their children to share.

So where do the sharing skills go when the 12 year old kid becomes a 20, 30 or 40 year old adult? I hear well educated people saying that homeless folks need to get jobs so they can feed their families. Don’t they think most of these homeless people have thought of that? I guess that’s the value of education. Maybe Santorum was on to something when he accused President Obama of being a snob for wanting more education for people.

Houses are being foreclosed by the millions; unemployment is over 8 percent while the structural unemployment is over 15 percent and minority unemployment is over 20 percent. Veterans are coming home from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, suffering the psychological problems of war; the problems that develop in any normal human being when they see people they’ve known and loved killed right in front of them. Yet we don’t have jobs for the Vets or even the medical help they need. There are millions of homeless veterans in the United States who are suffering untold psychological problems. It is beyond a shame how our country has used and abused our Veterans. If there are such things as sins, then what America has done to its veterans is a surely a sin.

My son once told me an adult actually said that the street person he had seen should get a job instead of holding the sign begging for money. Did that fairly clueless and totally heartless adult think the person was holding the sign because he thought that was the way to riches? Maybe the person holding the sign didn't really want a job because they’d chosen to have that leisurely lifestyle street people have known to love.

Maybe I’m being delusional again. It seems to me that in these difficult times, it’s tough enough to get a job when you have an address, transportation and the support of your family and friends. Imagine not having an address because you’ve been thrown out of your foreclosed home, only public transportation, and no one that cares enough to take you in as you face one of the most difficult times in your life; find a job under those circumstances, even at McDonald’s.

People aren’t begging on the side of the road or sleeping in homeless shelters because they’re too lazy to get jobs. Sure, there are people who wouldn’t work under any circumstances. But that is the vast minority of people. Those people are not most of the people who have had their homes foreclosed or can’t even get a sandwich for lunch. Yet, America is not sharing or caring about the vast majority of the people who need us most.

We have millionaires and billionaires who don’t want to go from 15% income taxes to 28% income taxes. That is just amazing to me. For every million dollars earned by a person, the 28% tax bracket would mean they only take home $720,000.00. That’s just shy of $14,000 a week - take home pay - with a million dollar salary. How much is enough?

In 2009 there were 235,000 folks who “earned” salaries over one million dollars. That is according to IRS statistics. I’m thinking there were even more, but those 235,000 folks “earned” in excess of 750 billion dollars; again, these are IRS statistics, not some fly by night marketing company.

Just as an aside, which, by the way, lights my shorts on fire, over 1400 of those 235,000 folks did not pay anything in income taxes. I don’t even want to know how that could be. I don’t care what hardships they’ve had to endure, how miserable their lives had been up until they earned a million dollars, once they’ve earned a million dollars, fairness and justice demand they pay at least the 15% in taxes! I’m losing weight just thinking about people earning a million dollars that don’t pay any income taxes. I'm not interested in some bogus rational of why they didn’t have to cough up even five cents in income tax.

Back to those who actually pay taxes, at only a 30% tax rate, our country would benefit by over 225 Billion dollars. We would be able to hire over four million teachers and pay them 50 thousand dollars per year. Or maybe policemen or firemen or something that benefits society as a whole. And that’s just a 30% tax rate. If we ratchet it up, and tax multimillionaires like they should be taxed, our country would benefit even more. And those poor multimillionaires would only have multimillions of dollars left to drown their sorrows in. I’m almost feeling sorry for the greedy rich. 

As far as I can figure, the truly wealthy in this country need to pony up in these tough times. If you’re earning an average salary, you can’t make a big difference when you pay your taxes. But if you’re making over a million dollars, you can make a huge difference. One millionaire can fund several above average paying jobs. A million millionaires can fund several million above average paying jobs. This isn’t an economics argument. It’s a mathematical one. And the millionaires will have hundreds of thousands even millions of dollars left after we take these large sums of taxes from them.

What it comes down to is sharing. Most of us were taught to share when we were kids. Many of us, unfortunately, forget those lessons when we become adults and actually enter the work force. There is enough wealth in the United States of America to support every single citizen in a comfortable lifestyle. That comfortable lifestyle can be accomplished while the millionaires still keep their second homes, fifth cars and the usual three week vacations to Europe. Multimillionaires will still have all their goodies but they’ll have a little less in the bank. Breaks my heart; but it comes down to sharing. The top earners need to give up more money in taxes to make everyone else better off. We are not asking them to give up their toys. We just want them to share the toys with us so we can all play more. It would seem it is the least these mega rich can do for the country that made it possible for them to be mega rich. Or am I being delusional again?