I got a bonus today.
It was from a weird salary negotiation two years ago year that ended up not working all that well for everyone involved, and I got a bonus instead of a raise. I was pretty excited to get it because, honestly, I didn’t think I was getting it. (So props to my company. My company is young but growing and qualifies as a small business – and I am sure that without Obamacare my company would not have started a company health plan a couple of months ago.)
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Last month when I heard I would be getting said bonus, I decided to start saving everywhere I could, including getting into the whole couponing thing and putting all the money saved into a special “Pay Off My Car” account with my local credit union. I have a car with an obscenely high interest rate due to bad credit in large part due to high past medical bills. So when my last car caught on fire a few years ago, thanks to the help with friends from church, I was able to get my current car. I pay more for my car a month than I do in rent.
But I’ve got a good job and can save some each month (although it’s a struggle) and I made that goal to pay off my car as quickly as possible. It would free up a huge amount in my monthly budget that I could put into savings, and allow me to eventually follow my dreams.
I’m incredibly thankful for my job and for this bonus. Now I generally don’t like talking about salary and numbers. But I did the numbers and I paid a 32% tax on that bonus (it was 10% of my annual salary. The actual dollar amount is probably less than the cost of one of Romney’s suits and certainly less than what they pay a year for their horse.) Now, I’m a good liberal and don’t mind paying taxes. I’m perfectly fine with it. It was less than I had hoped to put into my “pay off my car” account, but still - I recognize how lucky I am to have gotten that today. And I wouldn't have been able to do it without the public schools I attended throughout my entire life.
But then I see the news about Romney. And Romney’s taxes. And Romney’s tax rate. And I don’t have the appropriate vocabulary to express how personally offended I am that I, as a middle class random 30 year old guy, paid 3 times the rate in taxes on my bonus than Romney paid last year.
This is the first time the Romney tax thing ever really hit home. I knew he wasn’t releasing them and thought it was smart politically to hammer him on it. But now I can’t help but comparing him to me. And this guy who made 30,000% more than me paid less than a half to a third of my tax rate. And that’s simply not fair. It’s Un-American to me.
I pay my taxes because they pay for food for the less fortunate, to support our troops, to have roads and schools. I’ve never questioned paying my tax rate before, and even if I owe some in April I pay it without complaining. It’s my patriotic duty. And it ought to be expected and demanded of any President or Presidential candidate to pay their fair share in taxes. Because all of us, especially the President, ought to be doing all we can to support America, and support it financially.
So today I won’t be putting all of my bonus into my “pass off the car” account after the new about Romney’s actual tax rate.
I’ll be making a donation of my own today – my first donation this cycle to Barak Obama for President. And I hope you join me.