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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>“The vast majority of tax dollars go to benefitting the wealthiest of Americans”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Really? Where is this data? (And I don’t mean a HuffPost blog post… I would be wanting to read some real raw data…) The wealthiest of Americans don’t qualify for welfare, yet they are taxed for it…. the wealthiest of Americans are more likely to opt for private schooling, but still must pay the taxes for public schools. (To an extreme degree, the HIGHER the income level you go the LESS likely you are to have more (or any) children… but yet the taxes are there... )… but I don’t want to digress too far…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Admittedly, I should have been a little more clear in where my opinions lie: I am in strong favor of a FLAT % TAX based upon RETAIL CONSUMPTION. This is the FAIREST way to ensure that everyone is paying their “fair share” of taxes… whether it be the super-wealthy, or whether it be super-poor. Close ALL other loop holes and tax advantages. (Some call this a “national sales tax”, but I shy away from that definition, as it leaves room for a VAT, which I am NOT in favor of). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>WEALTH is MEANINGLESS without CONSUMPTION… if Bill Gates/Warren Buffet (or choose your favorite uber-rich mogul) decided to simply sit on their piles of money, never spending a dime of it and living a life WELL below their means, then their wealth has NO WORTH or MEANING. (Insert images of Ebenezer Scrooge). It’s only when money is being spent (or consumed) that it has any value at all…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The wealthiest of Americans tend to consume more than the most “average” of Americans… that’s why a flat consumption tax is the FAIREST way to go about making sure that everyone is paying their fair share. A CONSUMPTION tax means that if you SPEND MORE, you pay more… and if you spend less (even if it’s because you HAVE less to spend), you pay less. (And if your statement of “vast majority of tax dollars go to benefitting the wealthiest of Americans” actually IS true? So be it… the wealthiest of Americans are also paying the most into the tax melting pot… also making that relationship FAIR).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>As a (sort of) aside…. one of the core thoughts that seem to consistently leak through during discussions with the liberal viewpoint is an underlying assumption anyone wealthier than they are must have “gotten away with something”, or that to make more money translates to something improper or unethical, or that the MORE money someone has made, a “LESS advantaged someone” had to be created as a result (falsely assuming that wealth is a finite resource, and therefore the MORE one person has the LESS another person is left with)... <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Even Obama’s famous gaff “… I do believe that after a certain point you’ve made enough money…” demonstrates this line of general thinking among the left.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>When presented with this thought, the liberal/progressive typically recoils in horror… “Oh, NO! Of COURSE NOT! I just want everyone to pay their fair share!”… but FAIR SHARE means EVERYONE pays their taxes… not just the middle class… (leaving out the poor AND the rich)…. EVERYONE… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Now, rarely does anyone come out and directly SAY they just want to PUNISH the rich, of course… and when pressed to explain their opinion, the reply generally follows that they want the rich to simply “pony up their fair share”, but in their mind, the word “fair” translates to what a person is REDUCED TO through taxation, not necessarily what a person PAYS in taxes. (“Hey, he has 10 widgets and I only have 1 widget… that’s not FAIR! He should have to give up more of his widgets!”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>As far as your last comment “the people with 90% of the resources pay 90% of the taxes… wouldn’t that be fair?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Well… no. Now, even though statistically this doesn’t match (90% of the resources doesn’t equal top 10% of the population), you want the top 10% of the wealthiest Americans to pay 90% of the taxes due in this nation? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>First… this was last tried in the 70’s… (I believe the top marginal tax rate in 1979 was something like 70%, with plans to go even higher to dig the US out of their recession…)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But… let me use different words in your sentence: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Let’s change your statement of “the people with 90% of the resources pay 90% of the taxes” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>to <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>“the people with 90% of the [strength] [do] 90% of the [labor].” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Does this still sound fair? Let’s let the STRONGEST people in our society do the vast majority of the work while the rest sit back and simply reap the benefits of their effort. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Sounds like a form slavery. And (to a degree) it is. Society would be effectively STEALING 90% of the revenue from the top 10% of the wage earners in this country… living off the backs of someone else’s efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>So… no… having the top wage earners pay the bulk of the taxes doesn’t sound like it’s fair at all to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Now… of course we’re going to disagree, and that’s fine (I can’t imagine for the life of me that I’ve swayed opinion on this front)… but at the very least stop using the word FAIR in the context of making SOME people pay MORE and SOME people pay less. That’s not FAIR, that’s BIAS based on income… nearly the exact OPPOSITE of FAIR.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>To quote Indigo in “Princess Bride”: ‘You keep on using that word… I do not believe it means what you think it means…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Jay<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Donovan Arnold [mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com] <br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, August 09, 2011 11:51 AM<br><b>To:</b> Jay Borden; lfalen@turbonet.com; thansen@moscow.com<br><b>Cc:</b> vision2020@moscow.com<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vision2020] CNN Breaking News<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'>Jay,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'>The fundamental problem with the flat tax theory is that it assumes everyone benefits equally from the government. The vast majority of tax dollars go to benefiting the wealthiest of Americans, not the average US citizen. Further, if the bottom 25% of households had to pay a tax equal in percentage as the wealthiest 5% in order to balance the budget they would have to resort to crime to survive because of the poor wages, limited hours, and no benefits or health care they get from employers who have all the wealth.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'>How about instead, the people with 90% of the resources pay 90% of the taxes, wouldn't that be fair too, Jay?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'>Donovan Arnold <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'> Jay Borden <jborden@datawedge.com><br><b>To:</b> donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com; lfalen@turbonet.com; thansen@moscow.com<br><b>Cc:</b> vision2020@moscow.com<br><b>Sent:</b> Monday, August 8, 2011 11:35 AM<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vision2020] CNN Breaking News<br></span><span style='color:black'><br>There are a variety of reasons persons flocked to the New World... The Georgia colony, for example, was established as a refuge for those sentenced to debtor's prison, and as a colony where the 'poor and destitute' could find a new start. (The British aristocracy felt that getting rid of these folks would relieve their burden from the crown).<br><br>If we're talking about every person paying their fair share, then I'm all for an across the board flat tax.... Poor, middle class, and wealthy alike. That's what FAIR means.<br><br>Jay<br><br>Sent from my Android phone... So ignore the typpos<br><br>Donovan Arnold <<a href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com">donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>Actually Roger, this country was built on slave labor and the abundance of natural resources the native peoples kept well preserved and protected for thousands of years.<br><br>Taxing wealthier people who use and benefit most from the government is not stealing from them. It is making them pay their fair share.<br><br>Donovan Arnold<br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>