Make More, Pay Less

Blog Till You Drop - Ezra Klein

I don't really want to comment on the whole "blogging is a sweat-shop type of job" since there are a number of other bloggers who have and I don't have anything to add to the conversation. But Klein does make an interesting point about the apparent inequality between those who work menial jobs and the 'professional classes' who complain about how hard they worked to get to their six-figure salaries. There was a customer in the store recently who made a similar argument, focusing on taxation and how unfair it was that the rich were taxed more than anyone else. Forgetting for a moment the fact that the actual taxation rate for those making over six figures tends towards under 20%, that this woman of the professional class who doesn't have to work as much to make more money than most Americans believes somehow the system is unfairly biased against her is simply laughable. Klein sees this too when he says, "it's hard to argue that attending an Ivy League school where you smoke a lot of pot and pretend you understand Focault is more taxing than entering a service sector job right out of high school. The professional class just likes to pretend that it is in order to lay a patina of virtue and ethics over what are, in fact, amoral decisions of the market."
That right there is what makes the inequalities of this country so hard to allay. More than just the education system, it's the belief that somehow the professional class has worked as hard as the blue-collar workers that make it harder to argue for higher taxes on the rich. It's the mindset that the professional classes are equal to the working classes which cause a great deal of animosity when someone has the gall to stand up and say, "hey, they make a lot more than most and can afford to pay more in taxes." Thus we get a system where the lower and middle classes are expected to pay a proportional amount in taxes when that amount is far more substantial to them than it is to the professional class. So what if that kind of taxation pushes many families close to the brink of bankrupcy, it's only fair, right?

Economics and Other Things Pulled From My Ass

For Clinton, Government as Economic Prod - David Leonhardt @ NY Times

I'm going to show some of my less liberal and more libertarian tendencies here by: a) calling Sen. Clinton a dolt; and b) saying that the role of the federal government in the national economy is one of referee, not babysitter. I do admit there are times when the federal government must act more vigorously but those time are rare and rarely does government intervention actually achieve positive results in a meaningful time period. It's the government's charge to keep the economic playing field fair, either through regulation or strict and swift punishment, but beyond taxing the people only enough to sustain the projects and institutions of the federal government, they need to keep their camel nose out. If it is truly the wish of the current administration and Congress to provide a relief package to American citizens then it needs to come in the form of serious tax relief and a reworking of payroll taxes (including excising the cap on Social Security taxes) so that working Americans will have a larger paycheck every month and not just one time.

A 'Stimulating Package' for Bush

Bush Calls for Economic Stimulus Package - William Branigin @ Washington Post

You know, this is one of the few times President Bush has acted something like a real leader. He's set out a goal, an economic plan amounting to nearly 1% of our GDP, weighted heavily on tax cuts but left the details for Congress, himself and the Treasury Dept to work out. Personally, I'd like to see something much more radical in the sense of slashing middle class taxes in half while closing most, if not all, of the corporate tax loopholes and then flattening out corporate taxes downwards by a few percentage points. Index Social Security taxes and remove the cap at $90,000. Cut a lot of the farm subsidies, particularly for farms that net more than ten million a year to make up the loss in revenue from middle class taxes. Increase food stamp availability while shoring up the subprime mortgage mess by backing the homeowners for a limited time if they fall into a hardship and can't pay their mortgages. There's a lot more than can be done, but the most important aspect is giving the middle class the money and assurances that turn into consumer confidence and thus consumer spending. While tax cuts for the rich work in theory that's generally not how it works in real life in terms of stimulating the economy. It's the middle class that we need to focus our efforts on and I do hope Congress realizes this, or at least does something to alieviate the burden on the middle class.