Five Conjectures Of Socialism

Five statements attributed to various folks including the great late Ronald Reagan, whose vision for our country ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity:

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

That last one reminds Southern Man of the tale of the college professor who failed an entire class by grading according to socialist principles. Like Aesop's fables, it's probably not true but teaches a memorable lesson.

According to this article at american.com:

The 1%-ers hold a fifth of the wealth of the USA, but pay two-fifths of the taxes.
The top 10% holds a third of the wealth and pays more than half of the taxes.
The 53%-ers hold 85% of the wealth and pay 98% of the taxes.

Now, if you ask Southern Man, that sounds about right; our tax system is progressive enough and perhaps even too progressive (especially when you consider the tax-to-wealth ratio carried by the top .1%). The problem is twofold. First, the government always outspends revenue. Second, a big chunk of the population has no skin in the game and therefore doesn't care. To solve both, Southern Man proposes that the Earned Income Credit (which he despises but isn't going away anytime soon) be indexed to the annual deficit. When the government overspends, your EIC goes down. Of course that will never happen as the EIC's main purpose is to buy Democrat votes and neither party has any desire to be accountable to the public but Southern Man can dream.

Disclaimer: even after his finances were shattered by divorce and crippled by debt Southern Man is comfortably perched just inside the top 1% worldwide and in the top 5% USA. And in about four years his finances will have recovered and that debt will be paid!