We all know that the wealthy (defined as anyone who earns $200,000 a year or more) are the dregs of society, responsible for plunging our economy into ruin, sucking resources from the poor and crushing opportunity for the middle class – hey, I should become a White House speech writer.
While we are overwhelming concerned about fairness, perhaps we should throw public employee unions into the mix. If any group is crushing the middle class, it is these unions who ignore the fact their demands for overly generous pensions and other benefits come from the taxes paid by the citizens of their state, including sales, property and income taxes. Here is a clue; the “state” cannot afford what you demand.
On the other hand, perhaps we should reconsider the percentage of national wealth spent on the elderly (me included) while young families struggle to make ends meet after growing payroll taxes reduce their take-home pay, is this fair? Here is a secret they should reveal in school: Forty-years after you start working you are likely to stop working and while it may not be fun along the way, you have to put money aside every week for when you can no longer work. If you are lower-income all your life, you are going to be even lower-income in retirement, if you are retired; the chances are your income will not grow. While your income is not growing, your expenses are and so are things like your property taxes (see preceding paragraph).
Fairness is one big bucket, not just the pot of gold held by the “wealthy.” Fairness is assuring that every person has a fair chance to be whatever they want to be and that they are able to use the resources of their achievements as they see fit. Fairness is also helping those who truly are less fortunate and unable to participate in society, which does not include the irresponsible and those who shuffled along life’s path with minimal effort only to claim that their plight is due to someone else not paying his fair share.
Fairness is not Progressives redistributing wealth, pitting one segment of society against another, or claiming we should all be equal for unequal effort.
P.S. It is also not “fair” to have your credit card debt resolved for half of what you owe, or your mortgage mitigated or the IRS settle for a fraction of your unpaid back taxes in order for your debts to be spread to the rest of society.
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