tax dodges, patriots, and killing without plans

You know, if I were one of the nation’s super rich, I would be so pleased my efforts in the land of opportunity had paid off that I would cheerfully pay whatever taxes were due on my mega-fortune. I would undoubtedly have enough left over, were I among the super rich, to live far more comfortably than I do now.

Call it patriotism or gratitude or a willingness to share. Maybe a sense of fairness. Or a lack of greed, maybe. But I really believe I would not seek tax loopholes such as off shore accounts and overseas corporate registrations to keep from paying taxes on my mega-wealth. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are two in that wealthy group who also seem to believe as I do. But all the super rich do not agree.

An acquaintance much wealthier than I complained to me at the time President Clinton got his tax increase bill for the richest Americans through congress some years ago. “Well, we’re going to see our taxes go sky high!”

Without thinking that it might seem insulting, I immediately said, “I wish my income made the bill affect me! You are so lucky if you are in that bracket. I’d love to be making enough money to have the higher tax rate apply.”

The man chuckled, a little sheepishly, perhaps, and changed the subject. The only tax increase I felt under Clinton was the added federal gasoline tax of four cents a gallon. And I really do wish I were in the income bracket to have paid more.

This tirade came about as a new report hit CNN saying that seventy-billion dollars in tax revenue is lost each year in America because the super rich use loop-holes to make it legal to pretend to be an overseas company.

I do not know the particulars. I do know that our budget deficit could use the infusion of seventy billion dollars each year, money being hoarded by the wealthiest among us. And I would like to know to what political party most of those moguls belong. To which party have they contributed how much money? How did their tax dodges become “legal”?

Also, how can they shave without cutting their own throats for pretending to be patriotic Americans?

“But it is legal!” the greedy chant. Right. As I said, why is that?

It may be legal, but it is not patriotic, moral, ethical, or right. I’m no expert, but doesn’t that mean it is also not Judeo/Christian?

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An Associated Press story says that Bush dismisses a call for a Mid east cease-fire that would be simply “stopping for the sake of stopping” without a plan for lasting peace.

Read that again. Bush won’t (at this time, anyway) call for a cease-fire because there is not yet a plan for lasting peace. So the killing will continue on both sides. The US wouldn’t want the killing to stop simply for the sake of stopping the killing, without a plan for peace. Do I have that right? One more time. We will condone the killing of men, women, and children into the future rather than simply ask them to stop the killing for the sake of stopping the killing.

The mind boggles, even after more than five and a half years of that saucer-shallow fellow pretending to be President.

But the more one thinks about it, the more the outrageous Bush League comment seems somehow consistent with the continued killing in Iraq after more than three years with no visible plan for lasting peace there.

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