The McCain Deception

I always read my comments and I thank my readers who take the time to leave their observations on my thoughts. I also thank the lurkers; you are also valued.

A comment on my most recent entry, "Erasing the Mark of Cain," caught my eye.

Sharing the wealth would also mean something like this: Say you and I were in college together. You turned down social invitations to events that you would have liked to attended to stay in and study. I, on the other hand, went to every shindig I could find and did not study at all. Come test time, you were prepared, I was not. I made a D, you made an A. But the professor, in an effort to share the wealth, gave me part of your A, and we both made a C, you a C+, me a C-. Acceptable? Not to me. If I work for it, I shouldn't have to share with those who won't work, and essentially that's what would happen.
~Meg

While I appreciate Meg taking the time to comment, I take issue with her analogy. I understand it, but it's not valid. Sadly, I think that it's the thought process that happens to quite a few people when they hear the phrase, "share the wealth." The McCain/Palin campaign has clamped onto this issue like barnacles on a whale, so I think that it's worth addressing in more detail.

Fortunately, just as I was thinking about writing something in response to Meg's comment, I received a link from a friend to an article by David Sirota that was right on point, McCain Banking on a Confederacy of Dunces. It's a very thoughtful analysis of the McCain/Palin campaign's efforts to scare the socks off the American public by alleging that Obama is a socialist and wants to turn the United States into a clone of the former Soviet Union.

Nothing could be further from the truth and the McCain camp knows it. It's scare tactics predicated on the American public lacking the facts. You know me; I love sharing facts.

According to data from the Congressional Budget Office, the Bush administration has provided $715 billion in tax breaks to those making more than $342,000 per year. That's tax breaks for individuals. Corporations are in a special category. There are all sorts of loopholes that allow some of the most profitable corporations to pay zero corporate income tax. However, my favorite fact is that the government provides various subsidies to corporations that amount to approximately $93 billion annually, about three times as much as is budgeted for the food stamp program. Then there's that recent little $700 billion bailout.

What this adds up to is that the very wealthy often pay lower effective tax rates than their employees. (According to Sirota's article, billionaire Warren Buffet is one of the few who has admitted this.) In addition, corporations like Exxon Mobile that made record profit in its last quarter, don't pass any of that profit along via paying their proportionate share of corporate income tax.

So Meg, when Obama speaks of sharing the wealth, he's not talking about you going out and earning money and then giving half of it to me. What he is talking about is closing the tax loopholes (I think that the more accurate term is black hole) that allow those who are most able to pay to avoid paying their fair share. In addition, Obama proposes that the 95% of Americans who earn less than $250,000 per year, receive tax cuts. No one is proposing taking money out your pocket or mine and handing it over to anyone. No one is even proposing taking money out of the pockets of the 5% who hold the wealth; all that is being proposed is that they pay their fair share instead of being allowed to evade their responsibility through a series of tax breaks and loopholes secured from the U.S. Congress by very well paid lobbyists. 

What McCain counts on is that we do not understand that all of the things that we take for granted, the things that make our lives comfortable, are supported by the taxes that we pay. I like driving on decent roads. My friends with children want to have decent schools for those children to attend. When I turn on my tap, I want the water to be drinkable. I expect there to be law enforcement officers (in uniform because I like men in uniforms) to be there to serve and protect.

By the way, these wealthy individuals and corporations also have discovered a multitude of loopholes to avoid paying their proportionate share of state taxes as well. Ever wondered why so many businesses are incorporated in Delaware? They don't necessarily have offices in Delaware but that's the state where they filed their articles of incorporation. Some 50% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware. The cost of incorporation there is the lowest in the country. You don't have to have any actual offices in the state, just a corporate agent to pay franchise fees and accept mail, so the business may physically consist of a post office box in Delaware. Oh, and the big lure is that as long as the corporation doesn't conduct business activities in Delaware, it doesn't have to pay any corporate income tax in Delaware. So, if a business has all of its offices in my home state of North Carolina, transacts all of its business outside of Delaware, but is Incorporated in Delaware, it doesn't pay state income taxes anywhere! That's a loophole that you could drive the space shuttle through!

The McCain/Palin camp is counting on us being dunces. They think that we can't figure it out and will continue to believe them when they tell us that sharing the wealth is going to result in the advancement of socialism. They think that we will continue to contentedly wait for the trickle down effect to kick in and provide the 95% with our share of the wealth. Well, so far, the only trickle has been upward. The richest one percent of Americans own "more of America's wealth than at any time since before the Great Depression." (Sirota)

By the way, these tax breaks and loopholes are not available to the other 95% of us. You have to have a great deal of money, in order to take advantage of these loopholes! Sending the $500 that I saved over the last six months to some offshore account isn't an option. If it was $500,000, well, then my lawyers could figure out perfectly legal options that would allow me to shelter that income and avoid paying my fair share of taxes on it or perhaps, avoid paying any taxes on it.

Meg, the issue isn't that these wealthy folks earned their money. I earned my money; you earned your money. But you, and me, and the other 95% of Americans have to contribute to the running of this country through paying taxes. Don't you think that the other 5% ought to have to do the same?

You know that I love music; so, I tried to find the perfect song to accompany this post. I initially planned to use Chain of Fools, but then I decided that another Aretha song was even better, Think (Freedom). I like to imagine singing it to John McCain. For the lyrics, just click this link.

 

Erasing the Mark of Cain

Work has been far less busy this week and I haven't been doing my usual hamster on a wheel imitation. I decided to start my day with a trip to the Board of Elections office in downtown Raleigh to engage in early voting. It was a great idea; there were no lines at 9:00 a.m. and I didn't have to wait. It took me about 15 minutes to complete the ballot. I don't like voting a straight party ticket; I like to read all of the names and then color in the appropriate oval next to each of my choices. That's how we do it in North Carolina, with a black pen we must completely and neatly fill in the oval next to our selected candidate. We cannot vote for the office of President or for judges by voting a straight party ticket. You have to vote separately for president and for judges (district court, court of appeals, and supreme court are elected positions and the races are nonpartisan).

I am happy to have voted, although I confess that it's a bit of a let down. What do I do now? It's sort of like opening your Christmas presents two weeks early. It's a lot of fun at the moment, but then there's no reason to look forward to Christmas day.

I'm not complacent that Obama will win. There is still plenty of time for the winds to shift and for voters to change their minds. I hope that he wins because I really do believe that he has the best plans for delivering us from this economic nightmare in which we are trapped.

It seems so clear to me. Obama proposes spreading the wealth around; McCain wants to keep the wealth in the hands of the few and enable them to accrue even more wealth. People keep bandying about the word socialism in reference to Obama's economic policies. If what Obama proposes is socialism, then I think that I like socialism.

Think about it this way. Halloween is nearly upon us (don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this). Let's suppose that you have three children, ages two, six, and ten. You allow the ten and six year old to go trick-or-treating with a group of neighborhood kids. When they come home, the ten-year-old has a bag filled with candy, but your six-year-old has a couple of packs of bubble gum and a whistle. What do you do?

Well, you could say to the six-year-old that he was lazy, didn't say trick-or-treat loud enough, and he'll just have to live with the consequences because it's his own fault that he didn't get five pounds of chocolate like his brother. Or you could explain the merits of sharing to the older child, and provide each child with some candy from big brother's bag. Even the two-year-old who didn't bother to go trick-or-treating in the first place.

I know that this is a simplistic explanation for a complex matter like redistribution of wealth but the premise is essentially the same, especially if you substitute resources for wealth. Essentially what socialism is in its purest form is a concept of ensuring that all of us have the resources that we need--food, shelter, health care, and economic security. Obama certainly is not proposing that the wealthy hand over their wealth to be shared among everyone else--the 95% of us earning less than $250,000 annually. Instead, he is proposing that those who can afford to pay a larger share of the tax burden do so. Why? Because it's necessary for the survival of the whole.

A society is only as strong as its weakest members. When we allow adults and children to live in poverty, we undermine their ability to contribute meaningfully to the society. Their potential is wasted and whatever benefit that they may have brought to the society in which we live is never realized. Our guilty conscience causes us to implement piecemeal approaches to alleviating poverty, but we never really address the underlying causes and so our problem solving efforts are as effective as dousing a 100 acre forest fire with a cup of water.

Somewhere along the way, we have become enamored with worshipping at the altar of capitalism; it's the national religion of this country. We conclude that anyone who struggles financially is unwilling to work, and that only lazy, shiftless people are poor. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I really do wonder if there has been some collective loss of basic math skills in this country. Let's assume that you earn $10.00 per hour, which exceeds the federal minimum wage of $6.55 (effective 7/24/08) and highest minimum wage offered by any state, $8.07 in the state of Washington. Assuming that you have paid holidays and paid sick leave, then you gross a whopping $20,800 per year. That's gross (before FICA and state and federal taxes). On this $10.00 per hour job, it's doubtful that you have health insurance or any retirement benefits. Double the pay to $20 per hour and your annual gross salary is $41,600.  

So why not get a better job? Well, the service jobs that pay these low wages are necessary to the functioning of society. All those people who work in retail, or restaurants, or cleaning services, or transportation are doing honest labor, working hard and trying to support their families.

So yeah, I support Obama's plans for changing the way we do things in this country. I believe that there is sufficient wealth to ensure that no one goes without basic necessities of food, shelter, health care, transportation, and clothing. I believe that an honest day's work should pay a living wage, one that allows the worker to obtain those basic necessities.

I didn't get these beliefs from Senator Obama, although he espouses them well. I learned them in my catechism classes as a child where we studied from that great tome of socialism, where when Cain cried out, "Am I my brother's keeper?," the simple, unequivocal answer was, "Yes."