random thought of the day

October 12, 2005

People are always complaining that taxes aren’t a fair shake– that the Rich pay a significantly lower portion of their income in taxes (as a %) than the middle class.
Simultaneously, they (it is often the same people) make the case: that an across the board tax-cut benefits the rich at the expense of everyone else. I do believe in the first premise, but I find fault in the second.

These two arguments are incompatible— if it is true that the rich pay a smaller portion of their incomes in taxes, then it is corollary that the middle-class will receive the greatest benefit from across the board tax-cuts.

This thought occurred to me when I saw a woman working, who has I believe, two children, And she’s probably bringing in $12/hour. So she’s most certainly on some sort of government assistance program. I thought to myself, if only it weren’t for these programs, she probably wouldn’t need the assistance (or as much assistance.) Which I concluded based on the presumption that the middle class is most affected by an increase in taxes (the lower rungs of society are often exempt, and the upper echelons can pay attorneys to loop-hole out of it); hence they must also derive the greatest benefit from a decrease in their effective tax rate.


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