Eat The Rich

There are three reasons why it's so darned hard to tax the rich in America:

1) The people making the rules are rich.  You know, it's the Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."

2) A lot of us are inadvertently "rich."  Example: my wife and I individually make very middle-class salaries, live paycheck-to-paycheck, and just manage to make ends meet.  But, come tax time, when we fill out the 1040 as "Married Filing Jointly,"  LORD!  Combine those salaries and we're suddenly perilously close to making $100,000 a year!  So, no, we don't want to see higher taxes for those making $100,000 a year, because, damn! That's us!

3)  We all secretly, deep down, believe that -- someday -- we, too, will be very very rich.  The big money is right around the corner!  It's what keeps lottery tickets selling and casinos open.  It's why we treat some older relatives nice, even though we can't stand them. It's why immigrants keep coming to America, legally or otherwise.

Me?  I don't need a solid gold bathtub or ownership of a Caribbean island (although I wouldn't refuse the island).  I just want a laptop that won't freeze up every time I try to download a movie.