Given that it IS the silly season (the election is just a couple of weeks away), there are a LOT of Letters to the Editor (where I kinda got my start in this area). The one thing that is always true is that elections have a way of focusing attention to issues – after all, while we are voting for people, we are often voting for them because they support the issues (at least most of the most important ones).
Like this person:
Society should help
Editor, The Citizen As a former teacher it has been my experience that most people are of average intelligence and, for the most part, work up to their capacity. There will always be those who cannot achieve the basics in life, and need society’s help. What kind of a country lets these people live in poverty? The rich should feel a moral obligation to help the poor. This means paying more taxes!
Barack Obama’s plan will give the poor and the middle class the chance to have health care, an education, jobs and a better life.
Throwing mud at Obama regarding his supposed associations is despicable. He is not aligned with Bill Ayers; he has condemned J. Wright; he is NOT a terrorist. Obama wants what we all want — a better country where there is not such a huge gap between the haves and the have nots.
Barbara N. Mariano
Laconia
My reply was this (yet to be published):
To the Editor,
With respect to Ms. Mariano 10/21 Letter ("The rich should feel a moral obligation to help the poor. This means paying more taxes!"), she and others like her, conflate taxes with charity – they should not. It used to be that taxes were extracted to run government. Thanks to the Liberals, Government is the "new charity"; over time pushing the traditional charitable organizations to the side (or changing their natures so as to be far different organizations in depending on government rather than the general public).
She imputes that the rich do not pay enough and intimates that they are not moral (because they are rich?). I wonder if people really do know that the rich already pay far more taxes than the rest of us do – much more! The latest IRS information: the top income taxpayers ARE actually paying more (percentage and absolute dollars) under President Bush’s tax plan as compared to Clinton’s – the top 1% of taxpayers pay almost 40% of all income taxes, the top 5% pay 60%, and the top 25% (which starts at $64,700/year) pay 86% of all income taxes.
So, answer me – how is it moral or fair to demand others pay for another’s needs? Your needs? Wouldn’t it fairer and more moral for Ms. Mariano to simply organizing and asking herself for charitable contributions privately rather than relying on Government to do that work? After all, studies at Syracuse University have shown that as taxes and government encroachment into formerly charitable endeavors (caring for the poor and infirm), private giving of time and money dry up. And is it fair for only the rich, as she writes, to be charitable? What about the middle class and the poor? Each of us, in our own way, should be charitable.
I ask – is it a fair society when the majority of its citizens are not invested in the cost of government? To stretch an analogy, would it not be like your kids doing the "but I want it" schtick without knowing the cost of their demands? After all, if it is free to me, why can I not have more? If it doesn’t cost me anything, why not give someone else more? Not understanding the real costs of government or having the motivation of watching over those that govern us breeds that motivation.
Many fear radical Islam as it conflates religion, law, and government (Islam, Shar’ia religious law, and a Caliphate) – we in the West rightly reject such notions. However, as in European socialism, Ms. Mariano seems to be conflate higher government taxes with personal charity. Charity used to be called Christian charity – money, time, and talent voluntarily given from an individual’s heart and conscience. Sadly, it may be fading away.
Demanding higher taxes is neither charitable nor patriotic – it is merely obeying the law. Are we rapidly turning into a society where Big Government is muscling out voluntary giving? After all, why should we give more when Government takes it from us – and in a lot of cases, at multiple levels (Federal, State, County, and local)?
What kind of society will we end up with when the very few shoulder the
entire cost of society for the rest? Fairness?I think not.
