Fair Share

Winston Churchill said that a nation that tries to tax itself into prosperity is like a man trying to fly by standing in a bucket and pulling the handle. These sort of statements show why he never gained a reputation for wit and remained a minor British politician.

Wealth is like a pie and everyone deserves a slice. Right now, a few rich people get most of it and everyone else gets what's left. Some only get crumbs. The pie needs to be sliced more fairly. There is only so much money out there, so no one can get richer unless someone else gets poorer. This is why our bank accounts get smaller any time someone wins the lottery. Right-wing nut jobs will tell you that poverty is caused by poor decisions and bad luck, but the truth is it's rich people who push down the poor. Life is in better in countries like China and Cuba where the government takes control. That way the common people, not the rich are in charge. Or just look at Zimbabwe, Africa's most prosperous country. There, the government went even further. It printed lots of money and gave it to the poor, and everyone became rich, because money is the same as wealth.

Taxing the rich is good for everybody. That's why the most prosperous period in US history was the 1930s when the top tax rate was 77%. This why the period of FDR's presidency is called The Great Prosperity. If the government needs more money, it should just raise taxes. The rich people will grumble, but they will pay up, because rich people never, ever try to avoid paying taxes by earning less or hiding their money overseas. Also, every time the government raises taxes, the extra money is used to pay down the debt, which reduces the amount of money the government needs to create. This is why everything is cheaper now than 100 years ago and why old people always talk about how a dollar used to worth a lot less.

Anyone who disagrees just doesn’t understand economics.