I was having lunch with a dear friend of mine not long ago and we were having a discussion about just how bad off I feel politics and the state of our country has become over the past several years, both under Obama AND Bush. When he asked me for something specific, I brought the travesty that is our federal and state taxation system. I mentioned in particular that I feared we could soon see more and more people paying close to 50% in taxes, outside of such taxes as sales tax and things like that which are harder to quantify. He seemed completely aghast at my concerns and basically passed it off as utterly ludicrous, that no one was anywhere close to paying 30 or 40 percent, let alone 50.
Well, I was listening to the news just now and they gave me a set of interesting figures out of New York. Certain higher tax brackets in New York City are paying the following tax ranges:
- 35-39% in Federal Income Tax
- 8-12% in New York State Income Tax
- 4 and a half percent in ‘City tax’
That’s getting awful close, don’t you think? (Hehe, yeah, ya think?!) Hell, the Federal income tax alone is already inching far too close to 50% for comfort, so I certainly don’t think it’s that outlandish of a concern to think that we could soon see half of our income being taken away in one form of taxation alone, let alone all the various taxes combined. And I’m not just talking about the wealthy, although frankly, I don’t feel they should have half of their income taken away any more than anyone else’s. After all, the wealthy are the ones who are investing in companies, creating their own, and getting all that capital out into the system that makes the world go round. But beyond that, everyone’s taxes are escalating, and the threshold for the so-called “wealthy” seems to dip ever lower with each passing year. Those who are currently wagging their fingers at the “evil wealthy” and proclaiming it necessary for them to be unfairly punished, they may soon find themselves in the same boat.
Granted, I don’t personally have any experience with taxation at the moment, given the fact that I’m no longer working due to disability and have no income to speak of. But do any of you out there have any personal experiences to share? How much of your income is being taken away to the government’s National Money Hole?

By the way, I want to apologize for the long delay between new entries lately. My health has declined a bit over the past several months as I’ve been battling both a long term upper respiratory infection as well as decompression sickness (don’t ask…) I’m trying to keep up, but alas, sometimes my body and brain just won’t let me. I’m doing my best, though, and will keep trying to bring you my perspectives on the latest political tidbits. Of course, if any of you would like to suggest a topic, or even if you want to write an entry and submit it, that’d be peachy with me!

What happens when you make brash generalizations? You make yourself look like a fool. What happens when you make generalized assumptions about an entire group of people? You betray your own prejudices.

That’s what I believe has happened – among other things – with the vilification of generalized, anonymous, faceless A.I.G. “Executives”. Certain members of Congress, along with the Attorneys General of various states, would have us believe that every executive who ever worked at A.I.G. is directly responsible for all the credit default swaps that landed them and the American economy in such turmoil. Furthermore, not only is it every executive’s fault – regardless of whether they were even in the same departments that handled those credit default swaps or not – all of those executives are also totally heartless, greedy, disgusting bastards who deserve to die for so blatantly disrespecting and victimizing the tax-payers by doing something so wrong, so dastardly, so disgusting as… receiving payment for their hard work, as dictated by contracts signed by those in charge, both at A.I.G. and in the Federal government. If we believe what we’re being told by the likes of Barney Frank, *every* executive is a criminal who deserves to be “named and shamed”, who deserves no sympathy for the death threats they and their families are being subjected to, and who ultimately deserves the first ever retroactive, personally targeted, over-the-top, 90% taxation that was just enacted by Congress, despite the fact such taxation legislation so blatantly violates the Constitution (another contract that no one seems to hold must esteem for these days.)

This is another rash generalization. Not only does it make those who make such generalizations look like fools, and not only does it betray their prejudices, but good people who have done absolutely nothing wrong are being hurt in the process.
Oh, and we, the American people, are also being hopelessly distracted from much more important and pressing issues.

This point is beautifully illustrated by none other than one of those awful executives from A.I.G, Mr. Jake DeSantis. He’s taking an awful risk revealing his name, but I believe that what he has to say is important. After all, didn’t our parents teach us to walk a mile in another man’s shoes before we criticize them? And no, not just so that when we do criticize them we’re a mile away and we have their shoes. No, no, the point is, we need to look at both sides before grabbing our pitchforks and running people out of town who may be completely and utterly innocent. Mob rule isn’t the answer here; reason is.
So for the sake of reason, I beg you to take a look at the letter of resignation which Mr. Jake DeSantis sent to Edward M. Liddy, the Chief Executive of A.I.G. It explains a few things from the point of view of the executives that we’re all being riled up to hate.

Click here to check it out.

Before any of us say another word about these executives, I wish we’d all calm down for a minute and think about a few things. First, contracts should be sacred and the government has no right to interfere with them, especially with regard to contracts that they themselves agreed to.

Secondly, before we let mob rule trump our reason, perhaps we should ask ourselves, who is it that’s trying to get us to behave like a bunch of vicious, thoughtless, violent rioters in the first place? Perhaps then we might have a better idea about what really went on here, and who’s really to blame. Not some faceless, nameless, villain of an executive, but some politicians who didn’t even bother to read the biggest, most expensive bill in the history of our country before they voted for it. They’re the ones who signed a contract before reading the fine print (hell, they didn’t even let us read it!) If that happened to us, the little people, we’d be the ones to blame. We’d be the ones with our credit ruined and our possessions being taken away. Yet Congress is trying to shift the blame and attention onto others, hoping they’ll get away with something tremendously stupid – which, by the way, we’re currently paying the price for. Congress entered into this contract, a contract which simply stated that executives – like any other employee of a company – should be compensated for their work. Whether the Congressmen and Senators now feel that compensation was too high, it’s too bad, so sad. It’s their fault for not reading the fine print. So hold them responsible, not the people who simply got paid for doing their job. If that contract can’t stand, if the government can interfere in that contract, then who’s to say they can’t interfere in one of yours? Who’s to say you won’t be the next villain to distract the people of America from yet another of Congress’ sins? Walk a mile in the shoes of those executives before being so quick to judgment, then maybe you’ll understand why this entire situation is so entirely wrong.