This morning I read a New York Times opinion piece Liberalism's $400,00 problem. I don't think it offers much significant insight. But, what it did not say was significant, and highlights how serious the problem is. People have completely lost perspective.
The USA [and the rest of the world] is in limbo because of a bitter ideological debate about whether someone who earns $400,000 is "rich" and should be taxed at a particular rate [35% versus 39.6%]. Or should the threshold be $250,000? or one million?
I have three concerns.
1. Tax rates for a very small percentage of the population has become a central issue. This shows how increasingly politics, particularly in the USA, is completely controlled by the rich [or the wannabe rich] and their concerns.
2. Politics is the messy "art" of government and getting things done. This requires compromise. Rigid ideology, no matter how well meaning and well thought out, can be destructive of the broader longer term interests of society.
3. Grow up! Get some perspective! Does it really matter? $250K or 400K? Just make a decision and stick to it! A mark of an immature individual [whether a teenager or an insubordinate employee] is they get fixated on small insignificant and imperfect decisions that they don't like. They want to keep revisiting the issue, debating it, and trying to overturn it. Time and energy is then wasted that could have been spent on weightier matters.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The US and Europe, as well as Argentina have bad habits of borrowing money. This has led to mounting debt and the need to increase tax. However, the tax increases do not actually tax the rich, but the working class. (does this sound like Australia?)
ReplyDelete