Its been awhile. It usually is. I am not sure I will even renew my web page when the time comes. I just don’t post enough to spend the money for a personal rant page. People used to journal but reading my handwriting is like trying to read a prescription from your local cursive writing physician.
April 15th is closely approaching. That time of year where you do your best to not be stuck with the bill. That bill being an amount due on income taxes. I have had issues with a divorce and a downturn. It caused me to cash out my retirement 401k. With that came penalties and of course more taxes. I consider myself middle class. As much as what a middle class is these days. I will say that at this point in my life I am pretty much done with the notion that the money that is taken from my wages is being used for anything of value to myself or my family.
Tax the rich man has been something I have heard for years. Always the “Robin Hood” mentality to fund programs that tab the lower class of Americans and their needs. The rich should pay more. They are not being taxed enough. Would it surprise you if you knew they were not being taxed at all? Not that the tax brackets for salary have been bent to a certain salary level. It has not. What has happened and what continues to happen is the amount of loopholes or write-offs that have been added through the years.
During the 2020 Presidential debates, Donald Trump was asked about his taxes. This was long before his returns were released. He tried to get their release denied and I believe with everything I have that this was a huge mistake. There would have been this initial anger at the amount donated to charity, deductions for business loss, and especially that amount owed. However, once you begin to break the entire thing down, something becomes abundantly clear. Wealthy people do not pay the percentage of taxes from their salary bracket. It isn’t even close to that amount. Wealthy people over time have been given the ability to deduct things that the middle class do not have the ability to do. Those deductions are not available to the lower class as well. If you boil it down to percentage, I would make a guess to say it goes wealthy, poor, middle class in the order of percentage of salary to amount paid in income taxes.
So who do we blame for this? Who is responsible for the deductions and write-offs? The answer is there are 2 types; the wealthy and the poor. The wealthy provide funding for the politicians. Politicians in turn make an effort to make their donors happy. It is beneficial to the politicians as well. They were either wealthy before they took office or they most certainly will become so while in or after office. The wealthy ask for tax breaks to be in place so they can deduct the amount from their “yearly income” to the point of making it seem as though they were paupers. Those who are poor don’t have the money to support their political party. What they do have are votes. Votes that are surely available to be “bought” for the right price. There is no money that changes hands. Not the drug deal on the street corner kind at least. There are goods, services, and payments made to people in the form of phones, low cost rent, welfare, and other government programs are designed to do one thing. It gives low income families enough money to afford certain things. Those things are not luxury items but they are items that would be rescinded if someone works to better their situation. Imagine going to training and finding yourself receiving a promotion at work. With that promotion comes a pay raise. The raise in pay throws that person into a higher tax level, or makes their availability to social programs invalid due to their income. What is the incentive to work hard enough to only lose money in the process?
So where does that leave the middle class? Too rich to receive assistance and too poor to have write-offs. We see the money we pay in taxes go to programs that have no effect on us. It turns out that we are told that we should help thy fellow man. Whether that person is American or not is not up to us. You see, the middle class isn’t asked about where the money goes. We get no say at all. Now, we have a country that has handed out so much money to its own and abroad that we have a debt that our children’s children will be on the hook for. When is enough enough? I have worked my entire adult life. I have paid into social security that whole time as well. When my true retirement age hits, it will be the same timeframe that what I have put in and promised to be repaid to me will be paid back at 72% of what it is supposed to be. Taxes should be down to 1 thing, a percentage of income. It should only be 1 form regardless of income or lack thereof.
The Beaten Path 