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Even the Poor Must Pay Taxes

I read an article the other day talking about the usual tax statistics: top 1% of society pays 37% of taxes, top 10% pay 71%, and bottom 40% pay nothing. With the "earned" income credit many on the bottom actually are paid by the federal government for gracing this nation with the benefits of their citizenship.

For a free democracy to exist into perpetuity it must endow its citizenry with a sense of responsibility for the stewardship of State. The only way to do so is to levy taxes upon everyone who has any say in government. Everyone who can vote must be required to pay taxes, no matter how little the amount. Allowing a large, and growing, segment of the population to evade paying anything into the system, yet to keep their power to vote and influence policy is a recipe for disaster.

If 60% of the voting public can force 40% to pay the bills, what's to stop 90% of people in a democracy from making 10% pay it all? Or why not let 99% of the country off the hook, as long as the remaining 1% picks up the tab?

Civilizations seem to have a fairly well-defined lifecycle. From initial growth there follows a period of properity up until citizens realize they can vote themselves gifts from the public treasury. British historian, Alexander Tyler, says "the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits...with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy."

It's a tried and true axiom of reality/economics that when something is free it loses value, i.e. if you get free healthcare you are less circumspect in your consumption of those resources. My friend's father runs a manufacturing plant that had an odd thing happenwhen the company decided to give free healthcare to its employees, there was a sharp increase in people taking sick days and heading to the doctor. Crazy, right? Can you guess the solution? Not many people liked him, but when my friend's father introduced a nominal co-pay there was a drastic reduction in the number of people getting sick. If only all diseases could be so easily cured!

I hope America can get its act together and fix one of the only safeguards to ensuring our Democracy doesn't devolve into apathetic, dependent, serfdom. The rich should pay more taxes since they derive greater benefit from government, but the middle class and poor also derive benefits for which they must pay their proportionate share. Pandering to these majority voting blocks by promising to stick it to the rich even more sounds great from a podium, but has only one inevitable outcome.

Article Source: http://www.articleadventure.com

Rob Viglione is a writer, investment fund manager, and real estate broker. A former military officer, he is passionate about promoting a free society in America. Check out more of his writing on The Freedom Factory.

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