Can I Have the Check Please?

An interesting guest column ran in the Missoulian print addition today, written by someone listed as simply “Richard Buley writes from Missoula"...an odd attribution since the Missoulian has a long history of disclosing the vocational background of editorial page guests.

So what has caused this noble citizen of Missoula to pick up his pen?

According to Buley, the poor of our country are poor because wealthy Americans don’t pay their fair share of taxes... and he urges Missoulian readers to do something about it.

Until the 98 percent of people who are subsidizing the top 2 percent demand that their representation work for them instead of their big donors, we’ll simply continue this downward spiral.

But is this really what is happening? Are the poor and the middle class really propping up the super rich?

To answer this question, you only need to look to a popular economic illustration comparing our tax system to ten men having a meal in a restaurant.

Let's put taxes in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the total bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they were to pay their bill in the same proportions American’s paid in FY200O taxes (according to figures from the IRS) the bill would be distributed something like this:

The first four men.....the poorest.....would pay nothing;
The fifth would pay $2:
The sixth would pay $4;
The seventh $6;
The eighth $8;
The ninth $13.
The tenth man.....the richest......would pay $67, or 67% of the bill.

There is also an equally revealing version of this simple story that illustrates the impact of a tax cut.

As you can imagine, liberals everywhere HATE these simple explanations, because they present numbers without the emotional smoke and mirrors of their partisan fog machine. Many have attempted to discredit this particular story by questioning the anonymous attribution of the writer but none can credibly question the math.

So, I ask each of you, does it make a difference that the author of this story is unknown? Or should the logic stand on its own?

Of course, anonymity does not allow partisan folks to partake in the character assassination that is the heart of many liberal political arguments. And, it will not extend to the press and academia the convenience excuse of thumbing their noses at your inferior pedigree.

And what about today's Missoulian guest column, cloaked in some partial anonymity? Does this guest column fall flat because we don't know the vocational identity of the writer?

Would it change your mind if you knew the author may be a prominent local trial lawyer? What if his relentless pursuit of personal injury cases helped create the same health care crisis that he credits with undermining our economic order?

The Scoop hopes that it would not.

The classic liberal mantra of full personal disclosure requires you to think the worst of people...that we all move only out of self-interest. It requires you to ignore the facts and instead focus on an endless hunt to expose the hypocritical self-interest that is the root of every argument.

Buley's arguments fail not because of his background, but because it does not match up with the facts. It fails because his logic doesn't follow the traditional common sense that you "don't bite the hand that feeds you."

In a world where the super rich can chose where to locate (and pay taxes), that is something we should all heed. This is especially true in Montana, were we seem to have an increasingly meth-like addiction to out-of-state tax dollars.

Anyways, what ever happened to having a little respect...for the rich AND for the facts?

I'll let you post either, anonymously or not, at the Scoop.
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BONUS SCOOP:

For the mini-economist in each of you, here are some interesting charts that show who pays...and who gets.