This stems from another thread and I did not want to hijack it so I started this. I would like honest opinions without anyone getting nasty. We can all agree to disagree, I would just like to understand my counterparts in this area. I have posed this question to my liberal friends over the years and have yet to receive a logical answer. It usually ends up with them telling me I am too dumb to understand in a nice way. lol. Lets try not to go there.
Most of the same people that are screaming about high executive pay were screaming before the bailouts. I meant those statements for overall and not just to the idiots that let us down.
This is what I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Keep in mind I am a simple man and I need a simple answer.
Susan and John grow up and go to college. Both take student loans. Susan works during college to help supplement her college life and start saving to help with her intro into the marketplace. John decides to get a job to help with his partying throughout college. Susan makes it through college gets a job and starts working on getting her loans paid off. She skimps the first few years watching what she buys and is very responsible with her money. John drops out after two years of hard partying and goes to work for the local plant. He lets his loans default and runs up credit cards. Somehow John gets a loan for a small home and runs into some bad luck. He loses his plant job and instead of taking a lower paying job to keep his home safe, he goes on unemployment until he gets a job that he approves of. After many months of waiting, he finally loses his home. Susan finally saves enough for a nice down payment on a home and has sufficient savings to cover her if she becomes hurt or unemployed. She has worked her way up the company ladder over the years and is now in line for vice president of sales for her company. She starts to splurge a little and buys a few nice things for herself but never goes over her budget.
20 years later
John never learned his lesson and continues down the road of bad decisions while Susan has made it to the highest paid female Vp in the United States. Susan has now made it into the highest tax bracket in the nation while John has become an alcoholic and gave up on working at all. He now lives off of foodstamps and welfare. He has been offered assistance by the govt to get his life back on track and continues down the road of letting other people pay his way.
-or-
John gets a job he finally approves of but has no chance of improving. His choice. He is in one of the lower tax brackets. John works 40 hours a week with a wife and 3 kids. He has buddies over the weekend and has a good time pretty much when he wants to because he still isn’t saving….not even for his 3 kids college. Susan works a minimum of 60 hours and when travelling she runs up to 80 hours away from home. Susan could not find a BF that would put up with her work schedule. Nor does she have any friends that are not work related. She does take 4 weeks vacation every year. Her goal of retirement is 50 and she is on track.
Question?
Susan busted her ass , made good decisions early in life, and went without things she wanted for a number of years so her future would be secure.
John did not. He lived for the day.
Susan now pays a much higher percentage of her income to the govt to take care of others. She is forced to put her money into tax shelters. She is not free to do what she wants with her money, unless she wants to deal with much less.
John pays little to nothing
SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW THIS IS FAIR??????
Why cant we all pay 10% of our income with NO LOOPHOLES and be done with it. That is fair to me.
Thanks
A Simple Man



Reply With Quote


What if John just decided to take a job that capped out at 50k but was offered a promotion that would increase him to 50 hours a week and would open up all kinds of opportunities for him and he decides against it because he wanted his weekends and free time. Is it fair that susan pays more taxes?
Yes we have some mean dishonest rich folks and some lazy apathetic poor folks. Do we have more of one then the other??? Should that make a difference?? Why shouldn’t everyone pay the same percentage?

Bookmarks