It Just Isn't Fair!

Let’s say you’ve got a friend who, for whatever reason, likes to buy you lunch once a week. Nothing fancy: just a sandwich and soda at a local diner.

One day you also order a dessert. Then you start ordering a bowl of soup to go with your sandwich.

Your friend says nothing, generously continuing to pay. Then you wonder: why only a sandwich? Why not a steak?

Why this diner? Why not someplace nicer?

Why lunch? Why not dinner and drinks? And why only once a week?

Your friend can clearly afford to treat for any and all of these things, so you ask. Several times. You begin to complain. Tell other friends how cheap he is.

Not surprisingly, it isn’t long before he stops meeting you for lunch altogether.

The Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance released a report last week on Wisconsin tax filings: how many people at various income levels filed, and how much in taxes they paid.

The results won’t surprise anyone: fully half of all Wisconsin tax filers paid 5% of all state income taxes in 2006. Nineteen percent of tax filers paid 77% of all income taxes.

The richest 0.1% of Wisconsin’s tax filers – those with adjusted gross incomes of over $1 million – paid over 8% of all taxes. The richest 9% - those whose AGIs are over $100,000 – paid 47% of all income taxes.

To those of us on the Right, these numbers speak for themselves. No further explanation necessary. We stand aside, nodding, with knowing looks. See? There it is. Black and white. You can’t argue with it: the “wealthy” pay a disproportionate amount of taxes.

To which members of the Left say: awww, pity the poor rich people, having to pay more. They can afford it, you know. They can spare a little to help those on the other end of the economic scale.

My answers to those answers, in reverse order: true, true, and that’s not the point.

We're not arguing that the rich are paying too much. We're refuting the argument that they're not paying "a fair share."

If they’re not paying enough now, when will they be? If people making over $500,000 a year – three-tenths of one percent of all tax filers – pay over 13% of all the taxes, for which they get exactly the same services as those paying nothing (fewer services, in fact)…how is that less than "a fair share?"

And yes, I agree, half a million dollars is a lot of money. I agree, people making that much can afford to pay more. The question isn’t whether they can: the question is: should we make them?

I’ll come back to that.

Half a million is a lot. A quarter million is a lot. A hundred thousand a year? Any tax filer – and realize that “tax filer” can mean a married couple – making $100,000 is in the top 9% of tax filers in our state. They’re among those paying 47% of all state income taxes.

A couple making $100,000 could be an electrician married to a teacher. A police officer married to a construction worker. A registered nurse married to a car salesman.

Heck, the city of Madison has bus drivers making six figures.

These are hardly blueblooded country-club fourth-generation Republicans who bathe their children in champagne and attend five-grand-a-plate fundraisers for the sake of “being seen.”

Okay, so some of them are. A tiny minority. Mostly, though, these are working people. Families. People who might as well have “middle class” tattooed across their foreheads.

This is the top ten percent.

When the Left complains about “the wealthy” “not paying their fair share,” they’re talking about people like this.

And even if they’re not: even if “the rich” are only the big CEOs and corporate lawyers and investment bankers and spoiled Hollywood starlets, the point still remains. The top 0.1% pay more income taxes in Wisconsin than the bottom 50% pay. That’s not crying for the rich: that’s denying that the rich aren’t paying a fair share.

And even if you disagree – even if you think it still isn't fair – well, we’d better hope that 0.1%, or 0.3%, or 9% doesn’t decide to up and move to Texas, or Florida, or Nevada, where there is no state income tax.

And why wouldn’t they? They can buy lunch there, too.