TWO NATIONS

I have become increasingly concerned that America is developing into two separate nations. For many years we have had basically a two party system but we have been able to compromise and get along. That no longer seems to be the case. We now have nearly half of our population dependent on government for some sort of financial assistance through food stamps, unemployment benefits, or untold other exotic forms of government assistance. Of course the other half of our population is being taxed in order to pay for these benefits. The dependent class is growing while the working and contributing class is dwindling. A simple question is what will happen when the dependent class outnumbers the contributing class? What happens when there are more takers than there are payers?

I read recently that France has decided to set their income tax rate for millionaires at 75%. Sounds good until you look into the details. The first thing that is going to happen is that millionaires are either going to hide their assets or they are going to take them and themselves to another country. This isn’t brain surgery you know. Most millionaires aren’t millionaires because they are stupid. In addition, most millionaires don’t have huge incomes to tax. Most have their money invested and therefore protected from income taxes. The same is true for this country. We haven’t raised our income tax to 75% yet but any effort by the government to unfairly burden the wealthy with excessive taxes will be met with frustration at accomplishing the task. As I have said previously, any unenforceable law or tax is just a silly exercise. If those who are targeted by those laws refuse to participate, the law goes nowhere.

The two nations I referred to earlier are the takers and the contributors. Let’s face it. If the contributors stop contributing, the money train ends. You know who makes up the contributor class. It is of course the business owners and the well to do among us. It is the people who get out of bed every morning and go to work. It is the entrepreneurs who have ideas and put them into effect by their actions. It is the investors who buy stock in companies making capital available to these businesses. It is the farmer who plows his fields and raises his livestock. It is not, nor has it ever been, the welfare recipients or the moocher class among us. It is not the college girl who expects working people to pay for her birth control pills. It is not the people who refuse to go to work but prefer to drain their benefits. It is not the illegal aliens among us who extract their livelihood from the good intentions of the working class. In other words, there is no such thing as a bottom up economy, period. These are the dependent nation.

There is surely an answer if it isn’t already too late. First, the wrong people are in charge. We need to get rid of them and put people in office who understand how our economic system works. We need to show appreciation for the accomplishers and shame for the idlers among us. How is there honor for a young girl to pump out babies for the financial benefits she accrues? How is there no shame for the men who father these babies and then refuse to participate in their financial welfare? Where is the honor in living off the system?

Going forward there are only two real possibilities. Either we change out our elected “leaders” and put real accomplished people in office thereby getting our economy back on track, or we ride our gravy train over the cliff. It is clear there is no other answer. I know which nation I would prefer to live in, do you?

Ron Scarbro October 10, 2012