I think of him as the Taxophobe Next Door, a neighbor of sorts, one of the clueless, thoughtless 1% of the place I call Suburgatory. That's the title of my new satire compilation (and ABC sitcom), which springs from life in three affluent suburbs since having my son and abruptly leaving my job as a CNN head writer.
Surely, Taxophobe is in his Great Room somewhere, watching the young Occupiers and yelling, "Get off your asses and iPhones and get a J-O-B, dirty hippies!" Easier said than done, Taxophobe: a New York Times Sunday editorial noted the 9.6% unemployment rate for college grads under 25 and a jaw-dropping 21.6% for high school grads.
I say "neighbor of sorts" because thankfully I only had to share a road with Taxophobe, not an actual property line. He appears in Suburgatory as "Eric Sellers" in an attack piece called Mercedes Driving-Dad Dreams of Easier Life for His Children. The impossibly delusional character has a bumper sticker that says "Had Enough?" My whip-smart copy editor shot back on this one, saying roughly, "now, this just isn't at all realistic." But in the grand cliche of fact being stranger than fiction, that was 100 percent true, or nearly so.
It wasn't a Mercedes, but another one of those "I have a teeny tiny penis so why don't you look at my humongous tacky car instead" kind of cars. (I don't know cars - my own cars are old enough to be studying for the PSAT's.) Now, I'm not knocking political difference - my own deeply-missed parents were hard-core Reagan Republicans. But I couldn't help thinking what those guys out on the commercial drag, frantically waving "Going Out Of Business" signs for hours on end, often in the rain and cold, must feel when they see that behemoth and that sticker idling at the lights.
"Had enough" of what? Inherited wealth? Profound luck? My guess, of course, is that this anti-Obama sticker was signalling that he's had enough of his "high" taxes. Here's a bit of the piece, in which "Eric Sellers" tries to explain the tyranny of marginal tax rates to the mostly Latino guys earning shit per hour detailing his Mercedes.
"You know, I'm just a regular Joe, a suburban small-business man. We are the backbone of this economy! And yet I'm expected to pay more than 40 percent of my income to the government. Money that should be going to my kids, who are suffering in this terrible recession. Thank God I have a whiz-bang accountant who can get that 40 percent down to about 10 percent, but that's still highway robbery."
At a 40 percent tax rate, this would put Sellers in the top 1 percent of America's wealthiest individuals. Sellers scoffs at this notion. "Oh please, do I look like Donald Trump? I may be 'technically' in the top 1 percent, but with prices these days I'm really just average like everyone else. Right, guys?" He gestured to the men working, who murmured their approval."You know, America used to be great. Everyone had a fair shot. But I don't know anymore, I just don't know. I just hope and pray life is easier when my kids are grown up than it's been for me these last few years. And for them."
He then goes on to detail the hardship he's had to endure, like telling his wife "no more Nordstrom. Nordstrom Rack only" and the usual skiing would be in Vermont, no more Vail.
As you can tell, I've had enough of Taxophobe, and the rest of America's luckiest whining about taxes and somehow - unbelievably, unconscionably - getting so many lower income people to believe it's in their interest to hate taxes too. My response bumper sticker would be two words as well, and they start with an F and a U.
I look at so many of the young faces among those Occupiers - the Times calls them the "generation of lost opportunity" - and think, is it any wonder they are finally saying they've "had enough" too?
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I may not always agree w/ you, but you always display rationality and forethought. Thank you for being a rational voice.
Cybexg
Check this out for more impossibly delusional characters:
http://www.leftycartoons.com/the-24-types-of-libertarian/
http://www.amazon.com/Suburgatory-Twisted-Tales-Darkest-Suburbia/dp/0762780193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318603510&sr=8-1
* property tax, even where rapacious like in Texas, add up to only a few % of AGI - you can only afford so much house
* excise and sales tax for the top 1% amount to a few percent at most, since they don't spend most of what they earn
All other taxes and fees are so low or so infrequent as to be noise for someone makings hundreds of $K a year.
So maybe if your neighbor is doing his taxes himself, he might be paying 30% of his income in taxes, but no way is he paying 40%.
Personal income taxes in America are not only among the lowest in the world, they are lower than they have been for two generations, especially for the rich. This constant whining about being Taxed Enough Already must have their parents and grandparents rolling in their graves.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075296/
But the 1 percent do, as well -- for the "crap they say".
WHile it may be true our Statutory Federal tax rates are low to non existant below around $50,000 , Americans pay plenty of them, they just are use to it...and they are nearly impossible to ad up unless you do the math with a spreadsheet and Quicken
Sick of our public schools cutting back on teaching staff and class sizes of 35+.
Sick of driving on highway pavement that could be mistaken for a moonscape.
Sick of parks closing because there isn't enough money to keep them staffed.
Sick of the short-termism that eschews a lack of government investment in clean energy and mass transit.
Sick of public universities having to take in more out-of-state and international students to balance their budgets, at the expense of qualified in-state students.
Sick of the fact that we ALWAYS find money for war and prisons, but never enough for our unemployed, our neediest, and our sickest.
And finally, I'm sick to death of the people sitting on the top of the heap complaining about what they don't have rather than paying their fair share.
I really do not want the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
HOWEVER, I have been known to get grouchy when even buying one lousy hamburger is not easy.....
......when too many of my family and friends are unemployed or underemployed through no fault of their own
......when there are 10 applicants or more for one part time, low wage, few benefits supermarket job
.....when you should go to college and can't make enough working to pay for it and risk going heavily into debt for many years if you borrow
.....when the rich and upper classes are paying the LOWEST tax rates since the Great Depression, lower than under Reagan....never mind corporate welfare and subsidies
.....when lower class people are BLAMED....no matter that they are sick, older, or just don't have the intelligence to do as well as others.....
In short, I really do not care what the upper classes have....BUT start taking away from what little me and mine have.....and I start to get quite angry.
BTW....MOST small business owners are not in the upper class.
Only a handful risk paying the higher taxes suggested.
When I ran my businesses, I sure wasn't.
Plenty of money for war but not enough for education.
What a country we live in.