Tax The Wealthy; Tax The Wealthy; Tax The Wealthy

Now that we’ve started growing our economy, it has become a persistent theme… “We need money for this”; “we need money for that”; “we need money for both and for other things too”.  “We need money”, pure and simple.. Am I not right? Pick up any paper. Listen to any radio newscast; read any internet news source…. (did you notice I completely ignored television entirely? You should ignore them too if you don’t already ).

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but (and this is a theoretical question…):  when you want something that you don’t have….a)  do you go asking for it among people who don’t have any themselves, or b) among people who have lots of it to spare?

Hmmm. I wonder…. (finger on chin; one eye looking at the sky)  Should I ask those who have, … or those who don’t have….

Which makes Markell’s asking our Seniors to forgo their credit on school taxes allegedly to balance the budget, nonsensical..  Especially when the top 1% of Delawareans by simply adding a few lines to the tax code. can cough up $70 million a year… (enough to roughly fund 3 years of casino shortfalls) and not experience any loss of spendable cash,

So why would someone ignore those who COULD give, and threaten those who have NOTHING to give?  There are probably many reasons, but none meet the level of good straight forward reasoning… For if you truly want something, asking someone who doesn’t have it is absolutely pointless….

What Seniors don’t have, the 1% does have;  (that is why they are in the one percent.)

So, being theoretical again, wouldn’t it make great sense to turn the tables on Markell and actually go forward and spitefully raise the taxes on HIS friends, those in the top one percent, oh… let us say…. about the same percent that his tax hike would have hit Seniors pinching pennies on limited incomes… to around the percentage of a 100% increase….

So it would come out that on incomes over let us say, $100 million dollars, instead of the 6% they are currently assessed, (the exact same percent as someone earning $60,000) we would hit them with a 100% increase (another 6%)  and bump that owed amount to 12%…  We could then graduate the layers from 6% to 9% over a range of income levels.. and except for the rates on the top echelons, the percentages would still be lower than neighboring New Jersey.

This gives us $70 million in new revenue. Each and every year… We can even blow it on the casino’s if we want….

We need the General Assembly to respond to Markell’s challenge with a tax increase of this nature.   Now, the point is really not so much of whether it passes or not..  But the point is that by having a progressive coalition sponsor and at the very least, put it on the floor, (especially those who hail from districts where doing such would make them a cult hero for life, and cost them zero switched votes since no millionaire would ever vote for them anyway), it becomes a bone of contention, and a topic of conversation in letters-to-the-editor pages across this state; on Al Mascitti and Rick Jensen; on WDDE and other WGMD down south, and gets talked about on both sides…

Because there is a funny thing that always happens when good ideas get talked about in the open, and one can hear both sides.  They start to get followers.  And as more and more followers pile on, as more and more support for this bill becomes apparent..  as more people start supporting what appears to be a very common sensical means of pulling our society back together, of fixing the broken door jambs that have been stepped over too long, of repairing leaking cracks too long ignored across our aged infrastructure (in both physical and human capital), then Jack will rue the day he ever threatened Senior with tax hikes they could never pay…. while ignoring those who can easily pay 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 times the amounts we will be asking of them.

And the idea that we have to cut back now on very essential stuff in what is now a richly growing economy,  all because we don’t have money when it is there, right in front of us, dangling for us to take it: is plain stupid.  Really…  Would YOU not cash in a winning Powerball ticket because you didn’t want Powerball LLC. to lose any money over you?   Somethings are smart. Some things are really dumb… Not cashing in a winning Powerball, or not raising the tax rates on the top one percent, are both…. about as equally dumb.

The point of placing this bill on the table, is that if we generate significant conversation and make a run at passing a 12% top state tax rate, or even just get that conversation out there, and get 500,000 Delawarean voter’s hopes up that yes, this legislature might finally do something responsible, and still fail by being one or two votes short… the very fact we did so helps it become far easier to have the General Assembly slip in and vote on the last day of session, a bill that raises the wealthy’s rates by 1%, or 2%, or 3%, or 4%…. And that, would be a godsend to Seniors…..

Society across the board has simply outgrown all this “cut taxes to grow” hype.  We tried it; it failed; now we remember the good years back when taxes were a tiny bit higher and we were all, everyone of us, far much happier, far better off, and all of us facing what looked to be a very, very bright future. …