To all of you out there who think the rich are evil and need to be put in their place - STOP COMPLAINING!

You’re also probably complaining that they don’t pay their fair share of taxes.  Since they make so much more than the average Joe out there, they should have to pay more, a lot more, right?

Well guess what?  They are already!  According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2006 (the most recent year which data is available), the top 10% of households shared almost 73% of all individual income tax liabilities.  The top 5% of households was over 60%, and the top 1% was over 39%.

Think about how fair that is. 

If you were to go out to a fancy dinner with 10 friends, and the bill came to $1,000, would you have the person with the highest income pay $730 for his dinner, and split the remaining $270 among the 9 others?  If you did, I’d bet that friend would find another group of people to go out to dinner with!

Then how is the current scaled tax system fair?  Just because you don’t know the highest income earners personally, doesn’t make it right to stick them with the bill for your issues, does it?  Think about the dinner example.  Why should the rich person have to pay 73% of the bill if all he had was a salad, and everyone else got to eat steak?

Just some food for thought.

President Obama recently visited Mexico to discuss, among other things, the escalating violence in the country, which stems from the growing drug trade.

In his visit, Obama acknowledged that the US shares a piece of the responsibility for the violence in Mexico because of the guns that get smuggled into Mexico from the US.  To his credit, President Obama said he would rather concentrate his efforts on anti-smuggling laws rather than on more restrictive laws on sales of guns in the US.  Although he did admit that the Clintonian Assault Weapons Ban “made sense”, but that “none of us is under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy, and so what we’ve focused on is how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws.”  I’m reading that as a positive for now, but stay tuned I’m sure there will be more developments on that front.

Back to my original point, regarding how the US shares the responsibility for the escilating violence in Mexico.  Is it our fault that the Mexican economy is in such bad shape that their people have to resort to illegal means to bring money into the country?  Is it our fault that the best way for Mexicans to make an “honest” dollar is by crossing the border in to the US and working illegally?  Either that or they could team up with a drug cartel and add to the already out of hand violence.

I’m failing to see how the US has caused any of this.  True, many of the guns used by the drug cartels were purchased in the US and smuggled across the border.  To that same logic though, couldn’t one reason that Mexico is to blame for the US drug problem?

The current economic situation, was manufactured by Washington politicians and the media. Granted, I doubt any of them wanted the end result to turn out the way it did, but the reality is, that it was manufactured.

Here’s what I mean.  During the 1990’s, liberal politicians and the media created the problem of “unaffordable housing”.  They used bizarre statistics, saying that minorities were turned down for mortgages more often than whites, and that they also had lower levels of home ownership than whites.  Both of which were probably true. 

One has to ask then, why was this true?  Was it because all mortgage lenders were racist?  Or was it because in general whites were more credit-worthy than other minority groups?  And just because minorities had lower levels of home ownership, did that mean that they were living on the street, rather than in a home that they owned?  Or did minorities rent more than they owned?

Washington’s solution: more restrictions and quotas placed on banks to increase lending to low-income and minority families.  This caused banks to loosen their lending policies, and issue more risky loans.

In the short term, this appeared to work in the benefit of lower income families, as they were finally able to get approved for a loan to buy a home.  Now, however, we’re seeing massive foreclosures, and a collapsing economy due to tightening credit markets, and bankrupt financial institutions.

During the 1990’s, there wasn’t a problem with unaffordable housing, as everyone, in general, was living within their means.  People who couldn’t afford a home, rented, and those who could afford to buy a home did just that.  Politicians trying to fix a problem that didn’t exist created exactly the problem that they were trying to solve.  People can’t afford to live in the homes they bought, and are now being forced to foreclose.

What’s next?  If minorities are foreclosing more than whites, does that mean that there are unfair foreclosure practices in place?  Are we going to keep banks from foreclosing on delinquent loans if the loan is to a minority?

Remember back in the late 1990’s, when the tobacco companies were sued?  They were ordered to pay over $240 billion to 46 states over the course of 25 years to fund the health costs associated with smoking and chewing tobacco.

According to an article on Townhall.com, roughly $80 billion has been paid out so far, and of that amount only 30% has been spent on health care programs, while only 6% was spent on smoking cesation programs.

So where did the other 70% go?  It must be sitting in escrow somewhere right?  Wrong.  The states have spent this money on things like museums, tax relief programs, and other non-health related programs.

The reason why, is that the states are not bound by any formula or criteria for spending the money.  They essentially said to trust them to do the right thing.  The right thing for who is the question we’re now left with.

It becomes a public outrage when big corporations like AIG “inappropriately” spend their bailout money to send their employees and agents on outings to Las Vegas.  But when the states do essentially the same thing, no one makes a peep.