On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:50:28 -0700 Shawn Gordon <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> How in the world can you say the transfer of trillions of dollars is
> unsubstantiated and unfounded?  I don't know about Canada, but it's a
> FACT in the US, we have indeed taxed the "wealthy" more and more and
> more over the years and given more and more and more to those who do
> not have as much.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of
> wealth that the wealthy may have.

First of all, trillions and trillions of dollars is only meaningful
to an individual.  You might consider trillions and trillions of
dollars a lot of money, and in one pocket it certainly is, but spread
over 60 million poor and a further 100 million working poor it
amounts to less than $8,000.00 a head spread out over many years.
Hardly the irresponsible largesse that your exclamation implies.
Conceding your claim does not charge the fact that it is beside the
point.

I can say what I said because there is no evidence to support your
underlying contention and a great deal that refutes it.  You can
start by considering the work of economists like Edward Wolff or
David S. Landes and go from there, but you will find scant evidence
that significant wealth has has been removed from the wealthy and
given to the poor in the United States.

Even such public social policies as the the US possesses, like
MedicAid (sic?), simply have the effect of first despoiling the sick
and injured of all of their possessions and then transferring public
monies directly to medical care providers and drug companies, none of
whose owners can be considered to number among the poor.  If you get
seriously sick or hurt in the USA and are not covered by private
heath care insurance, and often even when you are, you will become
poor if you are not already.  And you will never recover what you
once owned.

Wealth may increase over time, but at any instant there is always
only a fixed amount.  As recent and continuous analysis of the US
population shows, if a few hold most of the available wealth then
many go without any at all. A rising tide only lifts boats that are
afloat in other words, and it drowns those who are already stuck at
the bottom.


> the FACT is that in the US  the overwhelming majority of federal income
> taxes are paid by the very highest income earners. The top 1% of income
> earners pay about 32% of all income taxes. The top 5% pays 51.4%. The top
> 10% of high income earners, pay 63.5%. The top 20% of income earners pays
> 78% of all federal income taxes.

Hardly surprising when you consider that about half (44%) of all
income earners in the US do not make enough in a year (~>$10,000 for
a family of two) to pay federal taxes.  This is an indictment of
society that prevents a person from making a living wage rather than
a condemnation of a tax system that recognizes the impossibility of
taxing what is not there to begin with.

In short, your assertions are without foundation. They are
expressions of an ideological belief propped up by irrelevant and
misleading pieces of data.  Your beliefs have no more basis in
reality than any other political polemic and quiet a bit less than
some. They are hold-overs from nineteenth-century LIBERAL social and
economic theories. Saying such things over and over may help you
believe in them but you will not make them become fact by such self-
deceptions.  You can however, contribute meaningfully to the spread
of the misery that results from such feelings.

--

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