Life Is Not Meant to Be Equal, It’s Meant to Be Fair

Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mandami are correct about worker movements, but American politics will not be fixed until we have a graduated income tax.

Sanders, at a rally in NYC alongside Mayor Zohran Mandami, argued that the US working and middle classes are facing an existential crisis at the whims of Trump and other billionaires. “It’s absolutely important that all of us here and every American understand that in the ruling class of this country today, there is an extraordinary level of arrogance and cruelty,” he said. “In many ways, these guys believe like the monarchs. I’m not exaggerating, like the monarchs of the 19th century. They believe that they have the divine right to rule.”

And they’re right. Much of that progress in trying to salvage what’s left of the American Middle Class, and build upon it, depends upon the Union Movements that built it in the first place.

But that’s not the whole story or, perhaps, even the opening chapter.

It’s no surprise that we’re approaching the endgame for our billionaire class. While there are many suggestions for how to do that, it seems the most publicly satisfying of those solutions is to tax the bejeezus out of them.

Sorry to disappoint but, for me, that is neither useful, nor equitable.

And inequity is what brought us to this disaster, so it’s a poor choice to expect to use the disease for the cure. Remember 2008, when the bankers that wrecked us were called upon to solve the problem? The banks soared and three million Americans lost their homes.

Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.

I’m weary of growing calls to drag the billionaire class to the guillotine, to sever their wealth from their body. They came by that enormous financial power legally, if not morally. It’s those structures that need to be addressed, or we face the quite proper accusation of revenge rather than equity.

We know what works, because we’ve been there not all that long ago.

I know what works, because I was there at the time, and not as a wet-nosed kid, but a businessman. My clients were millionaires, back in the day when that was enough. Some had hundreds of millions, but no one (so far as I know) had thousands.

Those wealthy people were grateful for the financial blessings capitalism had bestowed upon them, and faithful in paying the taxes of the time. We had a nation that believed in moving up the ladder from immigrant to Middle Class and educating their kids to do even better.

In the 1950s we had no national debt, save a smidgeon left over from the Marshall Plan that rebuilt our WWII enemy nations, and we repaid that quickly. Federal government worked because, Democrat or Republican, we respected one another’s opinions and had no billionaire class to buy legislation.

Think about that for a moment, and think about what enabled it.

A graduated income tax was not meant to be equal, it was meant to be fair.

Let me explain further (the numbers of those days are not those of today):

• $0 to $50,000-5%

• $50,000 to $100,000-10%

• $100 to $500,000-20%

• $500,000 to $1 million-30%

• $1 million to $1 billion-50%

• Everything over $1 billion-90%

No deductions, no earnings carry-forwards, no gimmicks.

Let’s say you earn $62,000. You pay 5% on the first $50,000 and 10% on the additional $12,000. Total, $3,700.

If you earn $3,500,035,000) you pay 5% on the first $50,000, 10% on the next $100,000, 20% on the next $500,000, 30% on the next $500,000, 50% on the next $500,000, 50% on the next $million to $billion, and 90% on the final $2,500,035,000.

Add ‘em all up, my mind doesn’t go that high, but I think that’s $2,300,512,532 on over $3.5 billion, which leaves well over a thousand million dollars for their year’s work and is their fair share.

That’s what a graduated tax looks like, and it’s not taking anyone’s total income at a 90% rate. Yeah, if you make a hundred billion in a year you’ll pay a hell of a rate, but you’ll never be Elon Musk rich…and you shouldn’t, but nor should he.

And this is not the end of the story.

We desperately need to get unlimited money out of politics, but we had at least some control of that before the Supreme Court opened the floodgates. Some isn’t enough either, we need all of it gone. Pay our Senators a million a year, if need be, and Representatives a half-million, but the ‘best government money can buy’ has to come to an end.

There’s an interesting history on how the Congress ran in times gone by.

In the early years Congress typically met for only a few months each year because the country, its government, and its expectations were far smaller and slower-moving than today. The federal government simply did less. In the early republic, most power and responsibility rested with the states. There was no modern regulatory state, no vast federal budget, no permanent committee machinery as we know it. Congress didn’t need to be in constant session because there were fewer laws to write, fewer crises to manage, and far less oversight expected.

All well and good, but the actual time congresspersons are currently in session averages 150 days/year in the House and 165 in the Senate.

Match that against the average common American wage earner, who punches the clocks on 235–240 days. Seems we’re getting screwed by 80 to 90 days and not getting much value in those days the privileged dudes and dudesses finally do take their seats.

Congress these days is so wounded and dysfunctional that it now operates (when at all) primarily as a crisis-management body, rather than a lawmaking institution.

(Confession) I am a lifelong, over-the-top, admirer of Bernie, who should have (and probably would have) become president, had the DNC not illegally decided it was ‘Hillary’s turn.’

What a difference a discretionary stupidity by the Democratic National Committee makes in the history of politics.

Any-old-how, politics functions most properly when fairness is on the menu.