Taxing only the rich
I was reading this heavily biased story when a thought of mine re-occured to me. The statement that did it was:
“It’s (a new ballot initiative to pay for pre-school for all children) also about taxes, as it would raise the state income tax rate on the richest 1 percent of Californians – married couples earning over $800,000 or individuals over $400,000.”
I fundamentally disagree with this type of taxation particularly when put in a ballot initiative. The basic premise of these types of techniques is “we want this type of benefit… but we don’t want to have to pay for it.”
Listen, I’m OK with a graduated tax (where lower income is taxed at lower levels), but whenever we’re going to increase taxes, EVERYONE’S taxes need to be increased. They don’t need to be increased the same amount, we could choose to increase rich people taxes more than poor peoples, but if a new initiative needs taxation, then we’d all better be willing to contribute at least something. To at least be willing to make SOME kind of sacrifice, even if it is pale in comparison to what another group will be making.
Even if it is $50 a year for the “average family” as opposed to $100K for the millionare at least then we all have to make a trade off; to say to ourselves “is this really worth spending money on?”
Otherwise there will be no limit to our ability to spend money wastefully because it will be “free money”. I’ve already heard people basically admit it with statements like “Hey, if it only affects the millionares, why wouldn’t we do it?”
Why? Because it isn’t fair no matter much money the millionares have. We’re all citizens and we all need to contribute.