There is no moral justification for a poor child to sleep in a cardboard box, hungry and cold, because he or she didn't have the luck to be born with millions of dollars, like Geo Bush and the rest of America's nobility.
Recently we have been looking into media reports on wealth in America, and like much from the media, they distort facts to promulgate their own situation.
for example, when they say that less than ten percent of wealth is inherited, they mean that if you are born wealthy, but not on the Fortune 400 list, then you were born poor!
The Boston-based United for a Fair Economy, shows that a majority of the Forbes 400 inherited their way onto the list, inherited already substantial and profitable companies, or received key start-up capital from a family member.
Why should those, such as Geo Bush, rape our country, and other's, with impunity, and not pay their fair share of taxes?
Today the United States has 170 billionaires by Forbes's count, up from 135 last year, and more than 36 million people living below the official poverty line--and millions more living in poverty above it. The latest poverty thresholds are $7,995 for a single person and $12,516 for a family of three. According to the Census Bureau, the top 5 percent of households (with income above $119,540) increased their share of the national income from 15.6 percent in 1981 to 21.4 percent last year; the bottom 80 percent lost ground to those above. The top 5 percent has an even larger share of national wealth, holding about 60 percent of all net worth, according to economist Edward Wolff.
42 percent were born on rich.. These include older dynasties like the Rockefellers and du Ponts, and newer family fortunes from companies like Walmart and Gap. The Waltons of Wal-Mart are ranked nine through thirteen on the Forbes 400, with a combined $32 billion.
Forbes thinks some of those born on home plate hit a home run. For example, it calls Philip Anschutz "self-made" even though he would have made the 400 cut just from the mineral wealth he inherited from his father.
We need to begin taxing the wealthy.
They have not "earned" anything.
No one "earns" billions of dollars.
There are numerous common sense reasons why we need to insit that the wealthy start to pay some of their share to take our country back from the corrupt situation it is in now.
Taxing the wealthy at higher rates doesn’t affect their life chances. They still have plenty of income and wealth to support their higher standard of living and to maintain and expand their companies. In contrast, taxing the less wealthy, particularly the lower and working classes, at equal rates dramatically affects their life chances.
Prevents revolt on the part of poor and exploited.
Ensures workers can buy goods and services that are produced (without high consumption, businesses would fail and wealthy would lose income and wealth.
Labor costs below true value (surplus value)
Not an even playing field – wealth breads wealth. They usually don’t earn it in the rags to riches sense.
Corporate subsidies are extreme and taxing the wealthy at higher rates is one way to offset these subsidies. Examples: roads, sewer systems, firefighting, water quality, air quality, education, incentives to relocate (Alabama and auto factories -- tax reductions), tax right offs, depreciations etc.
It is time that the people who built America, the workers and the blacks and the minorities began experiencing basic human rights, as guaranteed by the UN declaration of human rights, which was ratified by the United States.
(See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://michaelblackburnsr.wordpress.com )
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