I\u2019ve tried not to pick on our state legislators too much, since they have an incredibly difficult job to do right now. Faced with a $5 billion hole in the budget, we\u2019ve declined their offers to help pay for it. We rejected their attempts to tax our Twix bars and Fiji water and even tied their hands by requiring them to get a two-thirds majority to pass any new taxes or fees.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
No new fees, no new taxes and revenues are falling. I think voters should make it easier for the legislators and just vote for Libertarian and Tea Party candidates. They\u2019ll be happy to cut the budget using a rusty machete and with little regard for the consequences.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t understand why we continue to send Democrats to Olympia who generally favor social service programs, but then we tell them, \u201cdon\u2019t tax me, and don\u2019t cut the programs I like.\u201d Maybe we just like torturing progressive politicians for sport.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Despite the handicaps, House Democrats managed to find $4.4 billion to cut this week, mostly on the backs of state workers and retirees, college students, grade-school children, teacher salaries, health care for poor people, disabled workers and developmentally disabled people.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Guess who didn\u2019t get any of their benefits cut? People like me who can afford it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
If you think that we shouldn\u2019t be collecting taxes and paying for these types of services, I\u2019d like you to try telling that to people whose sole lifeline is a handout from the government. And I mean tell them in person not in an anonymous post online.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Something like, \u201cI\u2019m sorry that you can\u2019t pay your bills due to a brain injury you suffered on the job, but you should have made better life choices\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s too bad about your sick child, and I don\u2019t care that the medical bills will wipe out your finances and push you into bankruptcy. I want the leather package on this new car.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I think even the most hardened libertarians would not be able to say that to someone\u2019s face. It\u2019s easier to launch a missile than to shoot someone in the face, and it\u2019s easier to cut someone\u2019s lifeline on a mail-in ballot than to steal it from them directly.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t shield everyone from life\u2019s struggles and we can\u2019t fund every good idea, but, we shouldn\u2019t tolerate a government that ignores its most vulnerable members. Our state legislators have done a good job so far of protecting them, but we\u2019re sliding toward massive wealth inequality that threatens them as well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For the very rich trying to acquire massive amounts of money while also paying even less in taxes isn\u2019t a good long-term strategy. You can say, \u201cI earned this money, I should get to keep it all.\u201d However, you didn\u2019t earn that money in a vacuum. You earned that money based on other peoples\u2019 ability to pay for your company\u2019s goods or services. It\u2019s the economy, stupid. You don\u2019t exist in your own personal economy; we\u2019re all dependent on the same one.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The danger in pursuing this strategy will come in the form of a popular backlash. In the 1920\u2019s, the top income tax rate was slowly cut from 73 percent down to 24 percent. After the Great Depression hit, the top income tax rate was quickly hiked up to 63 percent and stayed mostly in 70 percent range until Ronald Reagan came into office. Not coincidentally, income inequality has risen steadily since the early 1980\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
If you have lots of money, you might selfishly go along with the trendy hatred of wealth redistribution, but that redistribution is one of the few things keeping the pitchforks and torches away from your door. Even if violent protests never become part of the fight, poor and unemployed voters will wake up from their slumber and demand 70 percent income tax rates again.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Is there an imminent danger of a popular revolution? Not for a while. There is still a lot of wealth out there among the people, and it will take time for them to lose it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But growing inequalities and high unemployment among educated people will fuel dissent and anger. However, I think it\u2019s more likely that we\u2019ll have a socialist voting backlash in the next 10 years than an Egyptian-style government overthrow.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think we should simply increase taxes on people like me or the very rich and be done with it. Good government isn\u2019t that simple. But expecting the poor and vulnerable to continue absorbing our budget problems is not sustainable nor is it the right moral choice.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve tried not to pick on our state legislators too much, since they have an incredibly difficult job to do right now. Faced with a $5 billion hole in the budget, we\u2019ve declined their offers to help pay for it. We rejected their attempts to tax our Twix bars and Fiji water and even tied their hands by requiring them to get a two-thirds majority to pass any new taxes or fees.
\nNo new fees, no new taxes and revenues are falling. I think voters should make it easier for the legislators and just vote for Libertarian and Tea Party candidates. They\u2019ll be happy to cut the budget using a rusty machete and with little regard for the consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":2233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5631"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}