I'm going to start this by saying I'm not bragging, looking down upon, or otherwise trying to portray myself and my family as better.
Together, my wife and I benefit fairly well from the tax scam. I commented on this
here, and it got some traction there, so I thought I'd share with an audience that doesn't delve into the comments on every article.
I make a "decent buck", as it were. I'll get roughly an extra $50 per check or so. My wife makes my "decent buck" times 1.5, and will get roughly $100 per check (double, although her salary isn't double). After some simple math, over the course of a year, we'll end up just short of $4000 in "extra" money (taxes we didn't pay).
This is not something we get because we are great citizens and we've adopted orphans. It's something we are given because of our income level, and that is wrong. It's the reverse of what is needed. It's not a raise; rather, it's money that isn't going to where it could be more useful.
If it was in fact raises from our respective employers, well hot damn, we did earn it through hard work, some overtime, and diligence! But it's not. It's fake, "free money".
It gets worse. If you combine my income with my wife's income and assign that to one person, it's suddenly about a $9500 a year increase in take home pay. Keep in mind this imaginary person makes exactly the same as my wife and I combined, but because it is an individual, the benefit is more than twice as much. It's fucked up.
The correct way to apply a tax break is to give it to those that need it most first, and perhaps gradually apply it as your income grows to a certain level. The tax scam is this in reverse.
I know I'm not breaking news here. We are aware of how this tax scam is a massive donation to the rich. However, I felt like applying it to someone that would supposedly "appreciate" it would be useful. I guess I'm in the bracket that should "appreciate" this nonsense, but in all honesty, we'd be fine without an extra $4k. It would be better used for shit we need as a country.
I didn't vote or ask for this tax scam, and I recognize the stupidity of it. In fact, I voted to raise our local taxes by a small margin (a few hundred annually) to help with lower income schools in the same county. (That didn't pass, by the way, because reasons, but I do help fund a few of those teachers in those schools through
DonorsChoose.org.)
Instead, it's a parabolic, exponential curve against the middle and lower class where the more you make, the more you get. Unfortunately, the correct formula is, the more you need, the more you get. But that's apparently never crossed the minds of the GOP, PeePaw, or anyone else supposedly in charge.
I'm in a position to supposedly be one of those "happy" about this tax scam. I'm not. It's stupid, and it's bad economics. It's like the commercials you hear before tax day every year urging you to spend your tax return on product or service X. No one ever tells you to save it.
At the same time, while my family is in a position that maybe 10% of America is in as far as income is concerned (fairly well into six figures when we combine incomes), we’re getting about a $4000 "benefit" from this bullshit. As I pointed out, an individual that makes what we make combined "benefits" more than twice as much merely for making more money as an individual. (The calculator I used for this can be found
here.) Imagine what millionaires and beyond or getting. It's absurdity, it's unnecessary, and it's the inverse or what we, as a nation, need.
This isn't government by the people. This isn't government for the people. This is a failed businessman and his colleagues selling out as quickly as possible before they are all busted for god knows how many crimes, both legal and against humanity in general.
Our National Government has become Enron, and the lynchers are breaking every window and taking everything they can before "the feds" show up.
I cannot wait for that day.
