Pay Your Fair Share

We hear a periodic refrain from Pres. Obama, "Pay your fair share". He doesn't explain what that means, but I believe he's referring to the cost of federal government and since each citizen benefits equally from federal government, we should each pay an equal share of that cost.

The President has submitted a budget of $3.7 trillion. The number of US taxpayers is about 220 million. An equal share for each taxpayer would be $16,800. For my wife and me, that would be $33,600. President Obama's application is correct. My wife and I are not paying our fair share, even though we obtain all the benefits supplied by the federal government, such as patent protection, border protection from terrorists, food stamp availability, and reduced cost of medical care. Come to think of it, we don't get food stamps. Could we get a little credit to reduce our tax for that?

On second thought, I have heard that there are a lot of citizens who don't pay any federal income tax. That makes me feel a little better about my wife and I not paying our fair share, but why aren't these other people paying their fair share?

On another thought, I have heard that 5% of the US citizens are paying 90% of all federal income taxes, even though the total is less than $3.7 trillion. I feel a little sorry for them, because they are paying considerably more than their fair share. But I can rationalize that into thinking that they should be paying more than their fair share, because they're rich. My natural tendency to jealousy makes me believe they probably got rich by stealing from others. I'm not rich, because I don't steal, and yet I am as smart as they are and work as hard as they do. They must be crooks. Some say that rich people are rich, because they work smart and dedicate themselves to accumulating money, and that I could have done the same. I wonder if there's any truth in that?

I have heard that Presidential contender Romney pays only 15% tax on his income. When we start talking about percentages, I get a little confused. I like to talk about real money. The average taxpayer income is said to be $55,000 a year and the average tax is 11%. That means the average taxpayer is paying only about $6500 per year in federal taxes, when his fair share is $16,800. Looks like the average taxpayer is not paying his fair share. It is also said that if the taxpayer earns less than $50,000 a year, his tax rate is only 5%. That means he's only paying $2500 per year, which is way off the fair share. But let's get back to Romney. If his income is $2 million per year, he is paying $300,000 a year. Hey! That's way over his fair share. But then again he's rich and my jealousy streak says forget "the fair share" idea, soak him!

Well. If the fair share idea is not working, why not make it even a little better for most of us. Let's make everybody contribute all their assets to a general pool, which we then divide up, or maybe it would be better to leave it in the hands of the federal government, since the average taxpayer really doesn't know how best to make and spend money. The downside on this might be that few citizens would have any incentive to work. Maybe we can then get out the whips and get back to slavery. That has worked for a few thousand years.