Recently, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the wealthier individuals should pay higher taxes as a "burden of the privilege of being an American."
First off, being an American isn't a privilege granted by a benevolent government. It is our right by virtue of our having been born or naturalized here, and the government is there to work for us not the other way around. It's also an equal right. The homeless guy at the soup kitchen and the dot-com billionaire each have exactly the same right to call themselves Americans and neither one can be stripped of that because someone doesn't feel they are contributing their fair share.
Ideally, I'd like to see a flat tax. That's the most fair to everyone. If you make a dollar, you contribute X% to the running of the government regardless of whether it's your first dollar or your millionth. I don't know whether or not such a flat tax would be practical (I've certainly seen people who've looked more closely at the numbers than me argue both sides.) Even if it's not practical, though, it's still the most fair, and we should be striving to get as close to that as possible. Instead, tax policy is being used to divide the country along class lines, and that never ends well. So, instead of just talking about how the wealthy should be paying more, let's look at comprehensive reform of both tax and spending policy and find a way for everyone to pay a fair share for a sustainable set of government services.
No comments:
Post a Comment