Tag Archives: taxes

Here’s Your Trickle Down

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Hey, Tea Party morons and most other Republican supporters (and no small amount of independent voters, too)!

Do you want to know why people who earn $250,000 or more should be taxed at a higher rate (like the wealthy used to be in the early- and mid-20th century)?

First of all, they represent around 3% of the U.S. population, so they most certainly aren’t the bulk of hard-working Americans who have trouble making ends meet.

But you know what the real reason is?

This figure:

The richest 1% of Americans now take home almost 24% of the income in the nation, up from around 9% of the income in 1976.

Yeah, do you still believe the myth launched by Ronald Reagan, and perpetuated by Republicans ever since, that if you let the wealthy keep more of their money, the whole nation will benefit?

If you do, you’re an idiot, as there is no clearer evidence of the fact that if you give them huge tax breaks so they can hang on to their excessive wealth, they don’t spread it around. Instead, they hoard even more of it.

Company executives get paid more and more outrageous salaries even though they don’t work THAT much harder than their employees (do you really think your company CEO works 40 to 100 times harder than you do? Get real). Companies won’t give workers raises that match or keep ahead of inflation, and take away more and more days off and more of their benefits, and make them pay more and more for health insurance…just so that they can keep making their top execs richer and richer.

Reagan’s trickle down theory DOES work.

But it isn’t money trickling down to all of us poor folks and us blue collar, pink collar and middle class professionals.

It’s the hot piss of the rich running down our backs as they laugh.

Drive-by Scripture, Acts 4:31-37

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After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), old a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 4, verses 31-37, New International Version)

I would like every Christian fundamentalist who goes on and on about the evils of social service programs, the peril of socialized medicine and the like to read the above passage and then kindly, shut the hell up.

I find it incredibly annoying how many Christians will say, “But that’s not the government doing that in the Bible. It was Christians. I’m all for Christians and churches giving out help, but not the government with my taxes!”

And yet, two things are so abudantly clear.

First, churches are generally unable, and often unwilling, to help at the kind of levels needed to ensure that families have healthcare and other basic necessities when they can’t afford them (and who can these days?). Individual Christians, too, often the very ones who spout the rhetoric I just exemplified above, also don’t provide the necessary levels of support to do these things.

Second, these are often the very same Christians who have no problem with our tax dollars being spent to wage war on nations for no particularly good reason, and to occupy them for years after the original conflict has ended. These are often also the people who call upon government to craft laws in line with the Bible.

Because, you know, government should enforce God’s will when it’s punitive or to rein in our behaviors, but Heaven forbid that it should get involved with the more important Christian principles of mercy, love, comfort and help.

The Unpatriotic GOP Faithful?

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I just read a comment at Monroe Anderson’s blog, and I’ll just post a little snippet here to give you a taste.

I find it to be somewhat perplexing for those who profess to adhere to the Judeo-Christian values on which this country was founded to condemn the concept of “sharing the wealth.” I also find it somewhat puzzling for those who are seeking the highest elective offices in the land to view paying taxes as a punitive practice and not a patriotic privilege.

I highly recommend you click here and read Dr. Woods’ comment in its entirety.

And let me add my “Amen!” to the chorus.