March 29, 2024

You Want to Do What With My Money?

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A lot of the debate in this year’s Presidential election will revolve around your money.  Specifically, how much you get to keep, and what happens with that which they take from you.

The truth of the matter is, if you knew exactly how much money the government takes from you, you’d probably revolt—but our government has learned the less of the Boston Tea Party, and only takes from you what it thinks it can get away with.

Hidden Taxes

Just to give you a taste, you pay Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax (depends on state), State Sales Tax (depends on state), County Tax, City/Town Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax, Gasoline Tax, etc.  It just goes on and on.

And many of these taxes you don’t have an option to rack up deductions, it’s part of the price.

Charity

The big fight that’s currently going on in the realm of taxes is not whether or not to cut them (both sides claim that there will be some cuts), but who gets the cuts1.

We’re into class warfare here, folks.  One party believes that it’s correct to take money from those that make it and give it to those that do not—forcibly.

The truth is, that the other party already offers their own money in great amounts to charity.  The ones that want to take your money prefer to have YOU give more.

We’ve talked about Credit Cards being “Other People’s Money” but this is exactly what you get when you start talking about taxation.  It’s my money and your money that was being proposed to pay for the “Bridge to Nowhere”2.  It’s my money and your money that will bail out Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.

It’s my money and your money that’s being given to people without proper incentive to get a new job.  It’s my money and your money that is funding a baby boomer retirement.

And one political party wants to make sure that we take more of “Other People’s Money” and redistribute it as they see fit.

What is Rich?

This is why we have this big discussion over what is rich.  My dad and I had this discussion just this weekend, and it all started with a tongue-in-cheek answer by Sen. McCain.  He said $5 million, but he immediately said that trying to categorize it was foolish.

My father suggested that rich might be something along the lines about not having to be concerned about money—being able to buy or spend without concern.

I stated that the math would have to be something that calculated the net worth vs. the standard of living.

But all of these miss the point.  Americans are all rich.  Rich is a comparative term, not a mathematical one.  Different people define it differently.  Even people I would consider rich do not consider themselves as rich.  And yet even those that are poor may consider themselves rich.

It’s Those Other People

And this is exactly the point.  We’re content with saying—go tax them, they can afford it… as long as it’s them and not us.

This is the trap and the danger.  This is how the whole thing works.  It’s the classic game of bullying and name calling.  We’re using “rich” to somehow say that we’re more deserving of keeping more of our money—because “we need it”.  Like somehow they don’t.

There’s no moral reason for taking money from the rich.  It’s not “fair”, it’s not “just” and simply because they have more and we have less isn’t an excuse for taking more from them.

You should keep what you earn.  You should give to those less fortunate.  You should love your neighbor.  But you shouldn’t be forced to do something with your property or your money.

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  1. Well, the other sidebar here is that the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, but no one will call that a tax increase. []
  2. Which Gov. Palin supported, until it seemed politically expedient to change her position on the issue []

5 thoughts on “You Want to Do What With My Money?

  1. You are correct. Americans are rich. When I start thinking my family is poor, I remember the people who would love to have my trash. I throw away things others would eat because they are starving.

    God help us to count our blessings instead of sneering at those who have more than we do. There are so many who have much, much less.

    Renaes last blog post..Who Will Represent Me?

  2. WOW – GREAT analysis!

    I was watching the O’Reilly-Obama interview last night. I felt Bill really handed it to him. He made excellent points now – how is income redistribution any different from socialism? And why raise the capital gains tax? You start taking 30% of my interest, I’m not investing any more.

    And I felt Obama didn’t really answer any of Bill’s questions. He beat around the bush, as usual.

    Rachels last blog post..This is why I don’t have boys

  3. @Renae: We are very rich– and we complain over the silliest and trivial things, that’s for sure.

    @Rachel: These are the types of questions that are really going to expose Obama for who he is. It’s definitely interesting to watch.

  4. Popping in to say I really was glued to this post, very good as usual. Being wealthy is as much a matter of attitude as it is being able to pay the bills and eat out once in a while. I guess the secret would be contentment…

  5. @Mary: Very good comment. One of my comments to my dad is that, by his definition, people that have low expenses (like the Early Retirement Extreme guy and Fundamental Mormons and Amish) would then be rich. But that doesn’t seem right.

    It truly is a subjective and emotional term rather than an objective one.

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