TedsPolitics.Com

The wealthy and their minions talk about “class warfare” to keep the focus off the real issues.  And it works! A majority of Americans have a favorable view of wealthy individuals and believe that they deserve their fortunes, according to a new poll. A GlobeScan market-research firm study last week showed that 58 percent of U.S. citizens “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that the rich deserve their wealth. This is slightly higher than the results of a similar survey in summer of 2008. Now I have no trouble with rich people being rich, or the fact that they “deserve their wealth” — when they actually deserve it. There is, however, a “but” coming — and please hear me out on this. I’ll make it as brief as possible.

Americas’s infrastructure is deteriorating rapidly. I realize that everyone uses roads and bridges and airplanes and busses, and sometimes even trains. We all pay a portion of the money that goes toward upkeep of the roads, bridges and transportation facilities. We pay it in fuel taxes, toll road fees, licensing of cars and drivers and with a portion of our local, state and federal taxes. Individual states have enough expense keeping state and county roads passable.  Heavy travel and weather deteriorate Interstate highways and bridges. This is where “liberal” and “conservative” thinking and rhetoric seems to make the largest divergence. I particularly want the 58 percent of Americans (among whom I number myself) who agree “that the rich deserve their wealth” to try to follow along with me on this.

Fuel tax on automobiles, SUVs and other private vehicles is not a problem as far as equitable taxation goes. Motorcycles and Cadillacs pretty well pay equally for their portion of highway wear and tear. The licensing taxes for the vehicles are somewhat equal as well. The situation gets a bit more complicated when large and heavy vehicles are factored in. Freight rates are pretty much standardized in each particular category of trucking; log haulers get so much per ton-mile and the same pretty much holds true for trucking companies hauling groceries, dry goods, auto parts, autos and bulk foodstuffs. When fuel costs go up, companies lose income in direct relation to fuel increases. Over time, the industry slowly catches up with increases in cost, but in the meantime they often reduce the amount per mile that they pay to drivers. In the case of independents, drivers who own their own trucks, it sometimes means the difference in making the truck payment and/or paying household expenses.

America’s economy didn’t get in this state of debt and inequality in just a few months, or even a few years. Most people stop to figure out what the numbers mean, or how pricing and merchandising relate to them, as long as they know how to find the cheapest place to shop. Everyone has heard about “trickle-down economics.” What the conservative factions aren’t talking about — if they even try to see it — are “trickle-down taxes.” I don’t mean the fact that middle-class workers with good jobs are paying 18% to 25% or more of their net income in Federal taxes. I’ll not even mention state income taxes (in some states) local sales taxes, state sales taxes, and property taxes. I’m just going to talk about equitable public infrastructure taxes. I’ve already mentioned fuel taxes, highway tolls, etc.  How do trucking companies, business owners, retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers,etc., get the money to pay their taxes? They get it from the people who pay their fair share by increasing their prices. That’s fair, and the only way to do it.

What do those higher prices mean? The taxes are shoved up the line by the increase in costs to the larger companies that provide goods to wholesalers. The larger companies — and their owners or financiers — raise their prices accordingly, so that their incomes won’t show a loss. Raise the cost of doing and/or financing business — called interest rates, lending fees, etc. — and the wealthy get a percentage not really out of line with those smaller business owners.

The problem is that poor and middle class Americans pay about 25% of their income in food and utilities and another 30% or so in rent or mortgage. Figure that total of about 55% in with car expenses, doctor bills, kids school clothes and you have used up $45,000 bucks a year and are probably still paying off credit cards! The folks in the $250,000 income bracket are perhaps paying $85 to $100 thousand for comparable expenses. With write-offs, Bush era tax-cuts and virtually untaxed capital gains, their taxes are in the neighborhood of 15% to 18%, and in some instances no taxes are paid at all!

But consider this. The millions of tons of materials that are required for the production of food and larger items that everyone uses, are hauled to the manufacturers over roads and bridges that we all pay for. The people who are making the trickle-up profits are getting the benefits of those of us who are paying the trickle-down taxes. If the wealthy were paying anything close to the percentage of taxes that the lower 90% are paying, there’d be no deficit, we’d be paying down the national debt, our highways could be resurfaced where manufacturers’ suppliers’ heavy trucks are tearing them up, and America’s bridges, many of which are already limited in the loads they can support — or falling down; ask Minneapolis and St. Paul — could be rebuilt. And just think about all the jobs that would be created by rebuilding America’s infrastructure, and those workers’ purchases of manufactured items.  That would really give the economy a boost!

I’m still with the 58% who think the rich deserve their wealth. Now, how many of you think they should pay their fair share of taxes?