Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Right Direction?
Are we moving in the right direction?
I noted an interesting statistic in a Washington Examiner editorial column this morning. That stat showed that there was 14.8 percent of the U.S. population that didn’t pay taxes in 1984. That number in 2008 had grown to 43.6 percent of Americans who do not pay taxes.
Viewed from the other side, something over 85% of us contributed to the operation of our government in 1984, while only something over 56% of Americans today support the cost of our government.
Obviously, the cost of government has grown enormously since 1984 so the impact on those who pay taxes today is much greater than these numbers would suggest. Entitlements have expanded significantly over that period. It would not be proper to presume that those who are favored by the entitlements pay none of the taxes. I am drawing Social Security and am covered by Medicare but still pay taxes. There are, I’m sure, many who receive some entitlement but who also continue to be active taxpayers.
I listened yesterday (over and over) to the clip of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) talking about her goals for reforming America. She was espousing something I would define as socialism in her remarks about the ‘haves and have nots’, and about the unfairness of some having much while others have little. She talked about this not only extending to cash entitlements but used terms describing property holdings and ‘equity’ suggesting, to me at least, that she was envisioning her utopia for America: the complete redistribution of wealth in all forms.
I suspect that she and her wealthy husband will somehow avoid being overtaken by her desire to share my ‘wealth’, but, that supposition notwithstanding, her diatribe in front of that union audience was enough to send shudders through me.
We do not seem to be moving in what I would consider the right direction. I am hopeful that some corrective action will occur in early-November.
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