Yesterday,
the Patriotic Millionaires, a growing group of wealthy individuals who are demanding that Congress raise their taxes, went to Congress and pestered the offices of Senators John Kyl, R-AZ, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., minority leader, Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., and Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., assistant democratic leader.
They were led by entrepreneur and former AOL exec Charlie Fink who apparently didn't get the memo that innovators and the wealthy are under attack by vicious government regulators and idiotic moochers all bent on taking the fruits of their hard earned labor with the butt of a gun. Shit, man, didn't this Fink guy see what happened to Steve Jobs and Apple?
The US federal government destroyed him.
Fink, who lives in Washington, D.C., said if the Bush tax cuts do not expire, the country "is digging itself a big hole by foregoing revenue." "Without revenue, we will never solve the problem by giving tax cuts to the wealthy while supporting two foreign wars," he said.
Patriotic Millionaire Robert Johnson, former chief economist of the U.S Senate banking committee, said that the current economic system is not broken, but it is "working on behalf of those who designed it in their favor."
"
America is no longer based on markets and capitalism, instead our economy is designed as 'socialism for the rich' – it is designed to ensure that the wealthiest people take all of the gains, while regular Americans cover any losses," he said at a press conference this afternoon in Washington, D.C.
"It's a Las Vegas economy where regular Americans put their money on the table and the richest 1 percent own the house," he said. "And if the 1 percent happen to lose money, the 99 percent bails them out – covers their losses and then stands by watching while the house does it all over again."
Amen, brother.
Of course, the response to these simple facts usually consists of any or all of four of the following. First, the wealthy pay more than half of the total taxes. Second, their portion or responsibility of total revenue has doubled over the last 30 years. Third, half of Americans pay no taxes. Fourth, the wealthy pay a higher ratio of taxes paid to income earned than any other country.
All of their points are true but, as is usually the case, they leave out information and don't tell the whole story.
A recent article in The Christian Science Monitor explains all of this in a very balanced way. Here are four graphics that take a serious and critical look at the whole picture.
In looking at all of this information, it's obvious that the various cheerleaders for the wealthy (or at least only some of them now that Buffet and the PMs are out lobbying to have their taxes raised) are not being honest. No one is denying that the half of the story they are telling is true. It's the other half that brings out the technicolor and shows us that we have some very serious problems with the way our country is being run by both public and private leaders. As Mr. Johnson said above, it's "socialism for the rich" and no longer capitalism. But why is it this way? How can people (and I'm speaking specifically of a few my regular commenters here in addition to the 40 percent of this country who votes GOP) who aren't wealthy continue to support Bizarro Capitalism? Sadly, the answer is simple.
Because they view themselves as temporarily inconvenienced millionaires.