The growing gap between the richest and the poorest in this country concerns me greatly. I believe that the mega-corporations and banks have far too much power today, and that some, if not most, of them are misusing that power. But that is a topic for another day.

Today I am going to rant about the rich paying their fair share.

I shudder every time I hear a Politician shout out that the rich need to pay their fair share.   The top 10% of Americans already pay over 70% of all of the Income taxes collected each year, while the bottom 45% of Americans pay no Income taxes at all.   30 Years ago, the top 10% paid 55% of all of the Income taxes collected that year.

One of the most basic of our founding principles is that all men are created equal.  One person.  One vote.  When it’s election time, Bill Gates gets one vote.  Warren Buffett gets one vote.  You get one vote.  I get one vote.   So how is it fair that 70% of the Income taxes are paid by the rich and almost half of everybody else pays nothing?   (Maybe if everybody actually had an extra 10% or 20% taken out of their paycheck every week for taxes, then maybe the general public would be more concerned about the out-of-control Federal spending and decide to do something about it!  But I digress….)

The truth is that the rich pay far more than their fair share. They always have and they always will. Total Income taxes collected last year were 1.5 trillion dollars. That comes to over $5,000 for every man, women, and child in this country, or around $12,000 per household.  I know I did not pay nearly that much in Federal income taxes.  But the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the Rich.

And still, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are demanding that we raise taxes on the rich because they are not paying their fair share!   What a crock!

The government costs a lot of money to operate, and most of that money will come from the rich. The poor simply don’t have it to pay even if they wanted to.

It is very likely that taxes will have to be raised in the future, and I am not saying that they shouldn’t be.  But it will be the rich who bear the brunt of those increases.

So let’s get off our high horse and stop trying to justify raising taxes on the rich because they are not paying their “fair share”. Let’s just be honest and say we need more of your money to fund our lifestyles. Or, and by the way: Thanks!

While we on the subject of the evil and greedy rich who don’t pay their fair share, consider what these richest of the rich did with the money that they didn’t pay in taxes:

Andrew Carnegie used his wealth to build over two thousand five hundred libraries throughout the World.  By 1919, near HALF of the all of the libraries in the United States were built with funds provided by Carnegie.

John D. Rockefeller gave away approximately $540 million (over $10 billion in today’s dollars) before his death in 1937 at the age of 97. With that money, he created two of the world’s greatest research universities, helped pull the American South out of chronic poverty, educated legions of African Americans, jump started medical research, and dramatically improved health around the globe.

Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, has given away almost $7 billion.

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to give away at least half of his wealth, and has already given over $500 million.

Warren Buffet has pledged to give away 99% of all his wealth, and has already given away $23 billion dollars.

Finally, Bill Gates leads them all with over $28 billion dollars already donated.