Another Thought
Oct. 25th, 2011 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI should note that while I have been thinking about this post for a few days I read something that condensed my thoughts and inspired me to add my two cents this morning. I would link it, but I can't find it now :-(
Occupy Wall Street has a slogan "we are the 99%" Their point is that wealth is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of the richest 1% (who now have 1.75 times as much of the total US wealth as they did 20 years ago), that this is bad for the economy and also bad for everyone who isn't the richest 1%, and (I think) that the cause of this development is massive cuts in taxes (several different kinds of taxes) on the richest 1%.
Some folks have an opposing slogan "we are the 53%." What they are referring to is that they are the 53% whose interest free loans to the federal government were not fully recovered at the end of (some year--I'm not clear on which.) This appears to translate as "I pay taxes (and boy is it horrible) and you don't, so you have no right to express an opinion different from mine, or at least no one should listen to you."
This sets up several false impressions.
1) That recovering all of your federal income taxes means you don't pay taxes. Which is crazy, of course. To not pay taxes you'd have to be jobless, have no unemployment, be homeless and (in 45 states) eat out of dumpsters, which--well, things are bad, but not so bad that 47% of the population is in that situation. But crazy or not, that is the principal false impression they're giving, and it's hard to see how it could be accidental when it is so obvious and would be so easy to avoid.
2) That all the federal government's income comes from federal income taxes.
3) That people who didn't pay federal income taxes in (X year) did not pay them in the past and will not pay them in the future.
Aside from the craziness of #1, this is the one that bothers me most. Because our roof, which was supposed to last another 20 years with no problems, turned out last year to have been leaking for quite some time (a large chunk of the plywood underneath had rotted out and had to be replaced, it turned out) we spent a big chunk of money replacing it. Since I had the good common sense to put in attic insulation and use a metal roof instead of a shingle roof, we got enough of a tax cut that our interest free loan to the feds was fully repaid.
I've had other years when I haven't owed federal income taxes--back when the grant ran out and I was so poor I was living on canned corn (3/$1 at the time) and agonizing over whether I really should be living on canned beans (4/$1) even though I really liked canned corn better. All of these times I still had to pay property taxes (directly or through rent) and sales taxes (yes, on canned corn @ 3/$1--I was losing weight from not getting enough to eat but I still paid 3 cents tax per breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and when I was making any income at all, payroll taxes.
But a) if I'd had the choice, I would have chosen to have the roof be good (or the grant not run out) and pay my federal income taxes, thanks; I'd have saved thousands and b) we sure as heck paid federal income taxes most years and will pay them again next year.
4) That they wouldn't voice an opinion on a tax they hadn't paid last year. (So all that screaming about the estate tax, done universally by people who hadn't paid estate tax, because they hadn't died, must not have happened, I guess.)
But the really big false impression is that Occupy Wall Street is somehow opposed to the 53%. Occupy Wall Street is only having a problem with 1/53rd of the supposed 53%. The other 52/53rds are in the same boat with the rest of us, suffering in an economy where more and more of the wealth is stagnating in the hands of an effective aristocracy. OWS knows that perfectly well, even if some of the 52/53rds don't seem to.
Which is why I, who am--barring catastrophe--one of the 53%, am also the 99% and very much in sympathy with Occupy Wall Street.
Thank you for your time.
Occupy Wall Street has a slogan "we are the 99%" Their point is that wealth is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of the richest 1% (who now have 1.75 times as much of the total US wealth as they did 20 years ago), that this is bad for the economy and also bad for everyone who isn't the richest 1%, and (I think) that the cause of this development is massive cuts in taxes (several different kinds of taxes) on the richest 1%.
Some folks have an opposing slogan "we are the 53%." What they are referring to is that they are the 53% whose interest free loans to the federal government were not fully recovered at the end of (some year--I'm not clear on which.) This appears to translate as "I pay taxes (and boy is it horrible) and you don't, so you have no right to express an opinion different from mine, or at least no one should listen to you."
This sets up several false impressions.
1) That recovering all of your federal income taxes means you don't pay taxes. Which is crazy, of course. To not pay taxes you'd have to be jobless, have no unemployment, be homeless and (in 45 states) eat out of dumpsters, which--well, things are bad, but not so bad that 47% of the population is in that situation. But crazy or not, that is the principal false impression they're giving, and it's hard to see how it could be accidental when it is so obvious and would be so easy to avoid.
2) That all the federal government's income comes from federal income taxes.
3) That people who didn't pay federal income taxes in (X year) did not pay them in the past and will not pay them in the future.
Aside from the craziness of #1, this is the one that bothers me most. Because our roof, which was supposed to last another 20 years with no problems, turned out last year to have been leaking for quite some time (a large chunk of the plywood underneath had rotted out and had to be replaced, it turned out) we spent a big chunk of money replacing it. Since I had the good common sense to put in attic insulation and use a metal roof instead of a shingle roof, we got enough of a tax cut that our interest free loan to the feds was fully repaid.
I've had other years when I haven't owed federal income taxes--back when the grant ran out and I was so poor I was living on canned corn (3/$1 at the time) and agonizing over whether I really should be living on canned beans (4/$1) even though I really liked canned corn better. All of these times I still had to pay property taxes (directly or through rent) and sales taxes (yes, on canned corn @ 3/$1--I was losing weight from not getting enough to eat but I still paid 3 cents tax per breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and when I was making any income at all, payroll taxes.
But a) if I'd had the choice, I would have chosen to have the roof be good (or the grant not run out) and pay my federal income taxes, thanks; I'd have saved thousands and b) we sure as heck paid federal income taxes most years and will pay them again next year.
4) That they wouldn't voice an opinion on a tax they hadn't paid last year. (So all that screaming about the estate tax, done universally by people who hadn't paid estate tax, because they hadn't died, must not have happened, I guess.)
But the really big false impression is that Occupy Wall Street is somehow opposed to the 53%. Occupy Wall Street is only having a problem with 1/53rd of the supposed 53%. The other 52/53rds are in the same boat with the rest of us, suffering in an economy where more and more of the wealth is stagnating in the hands of an effective aristocracy. OWS knows that perfectly well, even if some of the 52/53rds don't seem to.
Which is why I, who am--barring catastrophe--one of the 53%, am also the 99% and very much in sympathy with Occupy Wall Street.
Thank you for your time.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 11:54 pm (UTC)By the way, I haven't been on G+ in ages (I thought for a while it was causing my computer freezes.) Are you still planning to leave/leaving/have left?