The America that should be

The Founding Fathers

I’m here to tell you a story. It’s probably a story you know well. This is the story of the creation of this country. I’ll give you a quick quotes version of this story to save time and space. We became an independent nation based for the most part on wanting to be a free republic in which people made their own decisions and did not have large portions of their lives dictated to them by a large figurehead such as a king or an overbearing government. We also separated from the crown of England because of the taxes being levied on us by the King. At the time, the average citizen of the colonies paid less than 5% of their earnings in taxes overall. We became the United States of America because we did not want our income taxed and because we did not want a big government. This is what was agreed upon by our founding fathers, who, in the true spirit of democracy, came together to discuss what the people of their constituencies wanted. If you look at the name of our country, you will see what we stood for at our inception. We were a collection of self governed states, united under one small central government which was responsible for the protection of it’s people from both outside attack, internal crime and the dangers of everyday life. At the inception of our country in 1789, 4% of U.S. citizens relied on government spending, none of which was a government subsidy. To fast forward a bit, we will take ourselves forward 124 years, a period in which our country prospered and continued to grow, to the year 1913. If you do not already know, this was the year that the income tax was incurred upon the citizens of the United States. A note, there was an income tax in 1861 to help pay for war expenses, however as this was one of the intended functions of the government set out in our constitution, I do not count this, especially because it was repealed directly after the war was over. Up until this point in the economic history of the U.S. there were not economic difficulties, because the government did not do more than it was set out to do. America had also been set upon the ideal that it would not interfere in the affairs and wars of other countries unless it was necessary to the safety of its people. After the enactment of the sixteenth amendment in 1913 of the federal income tax, we have seen the worst economic downturns since the beginning of economic civilizations. These economic downturns have come following periods of exorbitantly high rates of taxation on the upper class. When this issue of taxing the upper class more is taken at face value, it may seem logical to some and possibly even a good idea. Logic would follow that because the rich have more money, they should pay a higher tax rate, right? Wrong! The democrats responsible for the graduated, confiscatory tax rates are all about equity or the equal redistribution of wealth to help the greatest amount of people. This sounds like a fair system. It is not, but I will get to that later. For now, I want to touch on this subject as it pertains to the tax system. If we want a fair system, why is it that those who make more money should have to pay a higher percentage of more money to the government? Wouldn’t it make sense that they pay the same amount as everyone else? Even at that, they would still be paying more than everyone else, but it might be a bit fairer.
And before you even think it, I will move on to my next subject. I know what you will say next, “If we tax the rich less, the rich will stay rich and the poor will stay poor”. Again this is not true. If it is possible, I ask you to look at this from an objective, unbiased standpoint. For the sake of my point, we will look at an economy known as “Not America”. Not America is exactly like America in every way, except that it is not America. That being said, we have your bottom 50% of wage earners who pay 2.9% of the tax burden in Not America. Now, we have your top 10% of wage earners who pay 73% of the tax burden in this country. The remaining 40% in between pay the remaining 25% of the tax burden. Looking at the numbers objectively of Not America, you might see that the distribution of the burden is rather unfair. Now you might say that because the top 10% make more money, they have more to give in taxes. I have several questions as pertaining to this idea. The first being, who provides you with your job? How much does this person make? Is this person willing to make more jobs for those of us unemployed? Would this person be willing to make more jobs for us if we take away an additional 25% of his or her money? If you think so, you are wrong. Trickle down economics can and has worked before.
Getting back to real America, where we are faced with the daunting reality that this is how our economy is split and the fact that our new president elect has just these plans in mind and that this is how he won this election. I say to you readers now, who do not understand the dangers this entails, WAKE UP! If you want to see a prime example of why this does not work, look around you now at your failing markets. Blame big business if you want. I cannot say that greed is not a factor in this, but the root of this disaster lies in the Clinton administration, wherein president Clinton and Barney Frank pushed through the sub-prime lending, which is the cause of our present economic malaise. Bill Clinton walked into a dream in terms of an economic standing. After the economic messiah, Ronald Reagan had left his touch on the economy, we saw the best years in the history of our great nation. During the mid nineties, we had low unemployment and low inflation. Those of you who attribute this to Bill Clinton, please don’t embarrass yourself publicly, go back to school and take a course in econ. When Reagan came into office, he had one inch short of a disaster to deal with, the aftermath of Jimmy Carter, a man who thought it wise to raise the income tax to 70%. Economics works in a very interesting way, when certain decisions are made such as tax policy, we can see a result very quickly but the true effect usually takes between 5 and 10 years to hit. Our good friend Jimmy Carter left the U.S. economy in tatters. Those of you who lived through the late 70’s know exactly what I am talking about. Those of you who didn’t, to give you an idea, you could only buy gas on certain days of the week based on the last number on your license plate. If today wasn’t your day, you weren’t going anywhere. This in turn all but destroyed our economy. The Carter administration thought that if they taxed the upper class more, there would be more money for the economy to thrive. Needless to say this did not work. Within months of taking the oval office, Reagan dropped the tax rate on the upper class down to 28%. The following speculatory boom brought great confidence to the American people. The bust in the market in the late 80’s was to be expected so that the economy could correct itself. The years following, up until 2003 were the best economically that this country has ever seen. So good in fact that when George W. Bush came into office, he actually came in to a surplus in the budget. Now imagine that, nearly 22 years of economic splendor due to lower taxes on the upper class. What politicians fail to inform you of is that, when they raise taxes on the upper class, they firstly drop the standard for what makes you upper class; they also fail to report the loss in capital that follows this increase. If this doesn’t make sense to you, again think about the rich, who already have money, having more money taken from them. In this situation would you, A. Invest in more jobs? Or B. liquidate your assets and enjoy your money without paying any of it to the government. Chances are, you picked B. Taxes are not the solution to the problem, nor is the government. These are the problem. If we were to let the free market reign, there would be less unemployment, there would be less inflation, we would have fewer wars, and we would not spend our time and money sticking our noses into the affairs of other countries.
Who made us the big brother to every other nation in the world? All of these nations that we have supposedly helped, when asked, do not much care for Americans. We are thought of as arrogant. Because of our high tariffs on foreign goods, we are no longer a competitive force in the world market for goods. If we accrued more of our human capital to production of goods instead of being a service dominated economy, we would have more jobs for people. With the help of the ingenuity of any of our countless engineers in this country, we could actually find a way to make the production aspect easier and more efficient and be able to sell it to the world market at a world price, which would allow trade with many countries that hitherto had been unable to trade with us. This in turn could turn our trade deficit into a trade surplus, which would increase our GDP greatly. When our GDP increases, so does the economic well-being of those who live in that country. If we are producing goods in such an efficient way that we could sell them to emerging nations, we could not only increase our trade benefit, but actually help others at the same time without hand them everything on a platter.
The issue with just sweeping in and handing out support is that once we leave we have not given them an infrastructure to rely on. It is the same issue we face with welfare here in America. If we are able to offer a way for third world countries to make themselves an active force in the world market, we have given them more good than any handout could have done. As the old adage goes, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” If emerging countries are shown how to and allowed to make themselves a considerable force in the world market, it inspires education and economic growth. Tourism increases, and if the free market is left to its own devices, we now have another educated, cultured, active country that can fend for itself and in all likelihood will no longer be a destructive, war torn countries that offer safe haven to those intent on harming others. If you look at the way we are now, the super powers of the world, France, England, The U.S. Japan, we do not war with each other. However less than a hundred years ago, when none of us had that much to offer, we were constantly at each other’s throats. What has changed is that we have been allowed to trade with each other, to build up our economies and to unite friendships amongst ourselves based on the ideal that we all want to do well.
That being said, I will bring this back to our shores where the same principle applies to the “temporary relief” of the U.S. welfare system enacted in 1964 as a temporary policy. We are ailed under the weight of roughly 85 million people who rely on government subsidy for no other reason than they can. When I go to work, I do not go there to get a portion of my paycheck taken out to pay for someone else’s life. Many people would say that if the idea were proposed to drop the maximum income tax to 20% and to rid the world of welfare that many people would die. I would say, and there are many people who would agree with me that if we did this a lot more people would have jobs. Imagine if you would for one second, that these 85 million people were not part of the workforce. Imagine that these people were working everyday to make a living like everyone else to pay their bills and to have shelter and food. Imagine how the productivity of this country would go through the roof if we had 85 million more people working with the same efficiency of those who are already working. We would live in a Utopia of economic prosperity, one that would be almost completely free of crime. Imagine that a decent portion of those 85 million people became teachers. We would have more teachers and a better-educated public. From education stems success, aspiration and ingenuity. The root of violence and ignorance in this country is the subsidizing of 85 million peoples lives. If you make above a certain amount of money, you don’t get welfare anymore, so these people who rely on welfare are incentivized to turn to underground markets. People respond to incentives. When faced with the idea that they can make thousands of dollars partaking in illegal activities tax free and continue to collect their government checks every month because the government doesn’t know what they are making on the side. This is the root of crime in this country at present. When people are handed everything without having to put in an honest days work for it, there is no sense of propriety. They have not had to take the sweat from their brow and put it into paying their rent or to buying their groceries or to pay maintenance in their buildings. When nobody own it, nobody cares for it and this is the reason why our subsidized housing projects in this country are a festering sore on the façade of otherwise beautiful cities. But instead of addressing this issue, we just blame it on the rich. For some reason when one person fails at something, it automatically has to be someone else’s fault and they had better pay for it. The evil rich people who employ everyone in this country are definitely responsible for the poverty in this country. If anything, the wealthy are the light at the end of a distant tunnel for those with enough ambition to achieve. Anyone and everyone can make it in life if they try, regardless of their background. If your parents didn’t do well in life, this is all the more reason for you to step up and make a difference for you, for your family and for those who will come after you. Stop blaming everything on race and religion and sex. We’ve had women candidates for the presidency, and although the reason I am writing this is because of my strong anti Obama views, we now have a black president. If a black man can make it to the most powerful position of power in the world, I don’t ever want to hear again that, “I can’t make it because I’m black”. Get up and do what you need to do and make a life for yourself and your family, stop relying on others and you will feel good.
Now that I’ve had my sentimental motivational part of my manifesto, I need to move on to this issue of socializing everything, especially the attempt of our new president elect to socialize the healthcare system in this country.