With the economy being the economy, the whole money thing has been quite talkaboutable.  I never really thought much about taxes, but I guess our minds are on are money and our money is on or minds like it wasn’t this summer.  Obama, before the las debate, talked bout how he wanted to “spread the wealth around” and was quickly attacked for it.  Rightly so?  I’m not sure.  It certainly sounds bad, and I definitely see why people who work hard would go bonkers hearing him say that, but I wonder if the times we live in require some sacrifice.  I’m not saying that to be rhetorical, I really wonder if our current situation merits the upper class really biting the bullet and forking over the extra money.

The National Taxpayers union has the following numbers, the left being the wage earners and the right the percent of taxes they account for:

Top 1%		39.89
Top 5%		60.14
Top 10%		70.79
Top 25%		86.27
Top 50%		97.01
Bottom 50%		2.99

So that’s something.   Granted, the NTU wants to get rid of the income tax, but numbers are numbers.  Is it fair to ask such a tiny portion of the population to pay for such a huge percent of the budget?  I think a help number would be to look at wealth distribution.  My instinct is that if the top 1% have 40% of the wealth, then it’s more or less fair.  Let’s see.  From here via here:

Top 1% of Housholds control  34.3% of the wealth.
Top 5% control 58.9%
Top 10% control 71.2%
Top 20% control 84.6%
Top 40% control 95.9%
Top 60% control 99.8%
Leaving the bottom 40% of the country with .2% of the wealth.

So it’s not perfect, but its surprisingly close.  I’m not sure if that’s even really fair.  Plus, if Obama wants to lower taxes for most people and raise it for the top, they will end up 1- controlling less of the wealth and 2- paying for more of the budget.

It’s certainly tricky, and I don’t have nearly all the data I’d liketo really think about it.  One related concern is the income and wealth distribution becoming wider.  Two things I believe to be true are that money creates more money, so there’s just a natural tendency for the rich to get richer.  The other thing is that without economic democracy, ie people have access to money and can improve their situation and compete fairly, there can’t be any true political democracy.  Plus we know tough economic times lead to more crimes, etc.  I don’t know.  It seems like in a utopian world, we could all pay the same percentage of our income, or rather have no government and simply pay for what we use.  But in the world we live in, even though it might not be truly fair, the wealthy should be expected to pay a larger share, if for no other reason than to ensure domestic stability and that the peasants don’t storm the castle.  So much of this is so half-baked.  I should think about it more and get back to it.  I need to find a smart economist to explain some stuff to me.

(Quick note on math/ the plumber dude-

The plumber guy from the last debate said he wanted to buy a company that made 270k a year, but with Obama’s tax plan, he wouldn’t be able to afford it.  Under Obama, the tax rate for over 250 would go from 36-39%, meaning a 3% increase, meaning a difference of $600.  I don’t see how that’s a bank breaker.)