I was recently having a discussion about CT taxes with
a co-worker. She was tapping my information pool to enhance her own perceptions
and arguments. She was concerned about recent increases in CT taxes and other
related issues. I informed her that although CT has the “highest per capita
taxation”, we are all not that rich. Our reality, when adding in local property
taxes puts us at about #13 in the nation. It is all in how you do the math.
What is happening throughout our country is the
federal government, which is collecting taxes at record low levels, is now
cutting off the states from federal grants and funds. I could also get into how
many systems Congress is cutting like the IRS, which now has the same budget they
did some 30 years ago, and how it cripples tax collection all together, but
that is a whole other topic. Our realities are…. the well is running dry and
all states have to find other ways of paying for things.
She talked of this suggestion her husband had about
limiting the amount of children you can have based on your incomes. Only 1
child for $25k, 2 children for $50k and above. I asked her to think about what
she was really saying. In Germany, they don’t have this problem and as well it
is not a problem in other nations where the income disparities are not so
great. What she really was saying, without fully understanding it, was that we
should try to solve the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself.
It is atop down problem, not a bottom up one.
It caused me to reflect on how our culture demonizes
the poor as if they have all the power. They made their own economic prisons,
not Corporate America and the overly well heeled. After a huge deep sigh, I had
to let go and recall some of the numbers representing who our country
economically favors. Social Welfare achieves a whopping $50 billion a year out
of our budget. Corporate America gets almost double that at $90 billion. What
most Americans don’t get is that our tax code caters to the upper classes with
a ginormous $1 TRILLION dollars. Talk about who gets what in the big picture.
It is the success of well-funded cultural
manipulations with the onslaught of the misinformation successes of the “welfare
queen” during Reagan’s era, and other propaganda that helps us all find someone
milking the system to help endorse our hatred of the poor. I mean really, we
stomach the multi-million dollar bonuses, but hate the $250 a month in food
stamps to a hungry family without asking why the working poor have to endure
such menial wages. We refuse to address why we do not condemn the lack of
opportunity because of financial barriers and instead, say the “poor get
everything for free”. I cannot begin to list all the “middle class” kids who
cannot afford college let alone the poor who suffer the barriers of even affording
to apply for college. Tuition is
simple, but has anyone looked at the FEES that could be the end game for any
hope of getting ahead??
