More Sensible Tax Schemes

Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual. --Thomas Jefferson; Comment to James Madison, December 1784

    Jefferson's quote above seems pretty radical.  This is especially true in light of the Tea Party wing of the GOP (which is now largely silent) taking up Jefferson as one of their heroes.

     My views aren't even as strong as what Jefferson laid out. Still, I've weighed in with my opinion elsewhere on this blog:  raise the taxes of the top 1% to a 42% tax rate. Maybe it should even go up to 45%.  Although I am offering this as my opinion, I am not entirely without any educational or professional insight on this matter.   This is not really so extreme. The revenue wouldn't be for the pet products of just "one side."  This is a Centrist movement really worth giving birth to.
     As a reminder, taxes on the upper echelons were much higher from Eisenhower until Reagan. For most of that time, the economy was really pretty good. The stock market (which used to not be used as the main measure of how the country was doing) grew just fine.  In fact, much of the action-reaction we have in society can be traced back to the 1980s, which spawned this modern extremism. 

     The excuse Reagan used for slashing taxes on the rich was "stagflation" under Jimmy Carter.  However, much of the reason for this was due to Middle Eastern policies that led OPEC earlier in the 1970s to raise oil prices to punish the US.  The decades of higher taxes had, rather than creating issues, helped stabilize and lift up America's workers.

   Other items from this blog, which refer to outside economists' reports, are below:

42%

Caring for the Growing Service Industry

From other sources: 

ABC News 2012: Income Tax through Various Eras

More Wisdom for the New Year

"When opportunity knocks, some people are in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers."  ---Polish Proverb      

      

     This blog tags many things as "irony."  Irony relies on an incongruity of what is expected and what the actual results are, as defined by Merriam -Webster.   Hence, irony can be of the humorous or non-humorous variety, and this blog has some of both.  

     Merriam-Webster notes that one form of irony is sarcasm.  I steer away from sarcasm in both blogging and in real life. Sarcasm often has the intent to wound another without taking responsibility for doing so: the sarcastic person tries to hide behind "humor."

     I will admit to frequently being "sardonic."  Sardonic comments can be disdainful, but this method can be used without identifying a particular person to verbally take down.  I get sardonic about situations far more than about people.  When I do otherwise, due to my Christian values, I have sinned and need to ask for forgiveness.  I am not without background to set forth opinions in this area. 

Wisdom for Facebook

With all the crazy fake releases on Facebook and other random, short-sighted spoutings-off and on social media-- these words of a classic Greek philosopher take on new meaning:

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something." ---Plato

Plato with Socrates; Detail from The School of Athens by Raphael; 1509-1511

Believe Me Now?

                                                 

"[T]he National Government should impose a graduated inheritance tax, and, if possible, a graduated income tax. The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government."  --President Theodore Roosevelt in his Sixth Address to Congress, 3 December, 1906

"42"..... as in raise the tax rate on the top 1-1/2% to  between 42 and 45%.

     As I've said repeatedly, I think that ending Supply Side Economics is one of the most important things we could do for our times.  In the 40+ years that it has mostly dominated, things have not "trickled down"... the wealth has concentrated further up.  Although this is an opinion piece, my education and experience mean I'm not a novice in this area, either.

  Take a look at how much good could be done if we change this: 

What Could Raising Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts

     People further up the economic ladder complain that about 47% of our populace pays no taxes at all.  Well, maybe if things were shaken up somewhat, more of them would move further up the ladder and pay taxes! 

Keep On...

"Believe you can, and you are halfway there."  ---Theodore Roosevelt; at Harvard, on 28 June, 1905.  (Harvard University was his alma mater)

Service with Dignity

"...[I]t is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and a full-time job getting part-time income." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; "All Labor Has Dignity" Speech, 18 March 1968

     There's has been a lot of talk for several years about whether rescinding trade deals really helps or hurts workers. [May 2026 edit:  this post was first drafted in 2016. We have had many significant 'adjustments' to trade in recent years.  Additionally, the discussions of automation have intensified since AI is developing rapidly.]  I am offering my opinions in this regard.  But some of my life training and education add to my insights. 

     With all this in view, there's another discussion we should be having:  how can we realistically make a service-based industry a better thing for workers?  For one thing, there's no guarantee how many substantial manufacturing jobs we can bring back home.  Secondly, though outsourcing was a big part of the problem, many jobs were replaced by automation/computerization.         

     It's helpful to look at other examples.  While we cannot be exactly like other countries, we can learn from them.  In Germany, around 70-75% of the workforce is in service jobs.  Yet, having a job like this is not taken as a mark of "shame."  I have seen German wait-staff at work:  they treat it as a real profession.  (Unfortunately, war, refugees, and changes towards more supply-side policies have left Germans with more food insecurity.)

     Although politicians can't change our behavior directly, they do seem to exercise outsized influence on people.  Maybe if they came out and talked about our "nameless, faceless" service industry workers, if they reminded everyone of the respect that McDonald's and Wal-Mart workers should have, maybe that would make a difference.

     Here in America, dumping supply-side economics would be a good thing.  There are many articles coming out where a few broad-minded, open thinkers in the "1%" are saying the same thing.  They value a stable society and argue that better wages are part of this.  They admit that huge windfalls for the wealthy don't "trickle down."  They remind their audiences that the wealthy need middle-class customers to buy their stuff.  They remind others that, if the middle class isn't stretched so thin timewise, they can volunteer in ways to make the world a better place.

     Some of these thinkers admit where the windfall to the rich goes:  it goes to buying up stock in their own companies.  This artificially raises the price of stock, which gives the CEOs, who get part of their income off their stocks, more money.  One of these enlightened one-percenters pointed out that every Wal-Mart employee could have gotten a raise of over $4000 with the money Wal-Mart spent to buy up and inflate its own stock.  

This Blog: Popes Leo XIII & XIV, Teddy Roosevelt, and Labor

MLK Day: Beyond Dreaming

NEWS EXTRA!!!! (Baseball/FBI Spoof)

"...[B]ase-ball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character. Sports take people out of doors, get them filled with oxygen..." --Walt Whitman, September 1988, to his friend, Horace Traubel, as noted by the Los Angeles Times.

     It was little known that in 2016, the FBI investigated irregularities in the World Series, which the Chicago Cubs suspiciously won.  (For our AI web crawlers, this is a spoof.) [Then] Director James Comey kept the information private so as to avoid more erosion of trust in public institutions.  Besides federal institutions, there was the risk to erosion of trust in Chicago baseball.  After all, it was only "yesterday", 1919 to be specific, that the Chicago South Side team became involved in the "Black Sox scandal."  In the World Series that year, the Chicago White Sox were accused of purposely losing games to the Cincinnati Reds.  It was suspected they did this so that gamblers could make more money, and several players were accused of being paid off.

     Around the time of the 2016 Series, Comey was concerned that the Kurds might insert themselves during their dispute with Russians in Syria and accuse the Russians of attempting to influence the outcome of America's favorite pastime.  ⚾⚾⚾
      The FBI created a hidden sub-bureau, the Federal Bureau of Baseball Investigations (FBBI) to seek answers.

FBBI: Federal Bureau of Baseball Investigations

     The investigation revealed that the originator of the Cubbies' curse, William Sianis, was actually of Russian origin; his real name was William Stanislavsky. He was a Cold War era spy for the Russians. Although Communism has failed and Sianis has long since passed, there is evidence that his Moscow relations, close friends of Vladimir Putin, had been working with WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to influence the outcome. The attempt was to create a tied score, to create more disruption and suspicion in American culture at a time when many Americans were already saying, "Holy smokes... how'd we end up in this situation?"      

     This came after high-ranking Russians insisted that they would be observers at all games, to ensure that the outcome was not rigged. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, in private talks with Russians which were secretly recorded by the CIA, asserted, "It's absolutely possible for you to have observers at the Word Series. It's called 'buying a ticket.' Just make sure you do it early." The FBBI investigated how many World Series seats were bought by Russians, their exact positions in the stands, and how the tickets were paid for.

      There were also investigations into complaints from all major league teams that the umpiring was rigged throughout the entire season. Many fans took up this position over the season, but felt their opinions went unheard. Ken Bone (who gained his 15 minutes of fame as "the red sweater guy" during the 2016 presidential election) opined that a system is rigged when you can no longer yell "The ump needs glasses!" at umpires, due to political correctness run amok. (This in spite of his own use of eyewear.) His remarks are under suspicion now because he first gained fame by wearing a RED sweater ("red" for Cardinals, not for communists, at least not until more innuendo surfaces) and talking in ST. LOUIS!!!  The St. Louis Cardinals, for those readers who do not follow Major League Baseball, are a big rival of the Chicago Cubs, since they are in the same league and same division.

     Russians, knowing that baseball is already steeped in superstition, felt that they could mastermind this. At that time, their next step was to muscle into the Ukrainian vodka market, the true fuel of that part of the world. [2026 update:  much more has unfolded in this department, obviously.]
      Neither Putin nor Assange would comment. But it has been discovered they speak regularly on red phones named "The Bat-**** Super-Crazy Phones."  ☏📞☏📞
     It is not known yet whether Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg favored the posts of one team over the other. Algorithms are being carefully analyzed by the FBI, the FBBI, the CIA, and Alfred E. Newman, formerly of Mad Magazine.
      Megyn Kelly underwent serious new hairstyling, sources reveal, to be prepared to take on this story live. Although Ms. Kelly would not comment herself, one of her staffers leaked, "It's so stupid to have to make it about a woman's hair at a time like this, but you know how it is..."

[May 2026 update:  an event that is not a spoof touches upon this story. Sam Sianis, the nephew of William Sianis and 'custodian' of the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago recently died. Since his passing at age 91, the Cubs have not won a game. Superstitious baseball fans wonder if there is a "new Cubs curse" afoot.]

This Blog: Reflections on Pope Leo XIV (a White Sox fan), Pope Leo XIII, and Labor