Warning: The beginning of this post may contain serious content! If you feel you are ill-prepared for such a travesty, you can skip to this week’s mindless ramblings by clicking here. InvertedMind is not responsible for any sanity this serious content may cause.
Recently I’ve made it a rule to stay away from serious politics on the site. It gets my blood boiling, and I don’t need the stress. But I have to do it, this week. This is too good.
Okay, here goes…
The next time some liberal politician yells and complains that the wealthy don’t deserve tax breaks, I hope Warren Buffett tells them to go suck an egg.
A study released this week by the Tax Foundation (their logo says “since 1937″ so they must be good at something, even if it turns out they’re only good at surviving for a long time) points out that the 20 percent of households with the lowest annual income receive an average of $8.21 in various forms of government assistance for ever $1.00 they pay in taxes. On the other side of the coin, the wealthiest in the nation (the report isn’t terribly clear on what percentage) receive $0.41 for every $1.00 in taxes. The most telling statistic is that the bottom 60 percent of earners — that’s where the majority of us fit, at least if you’re reading this crap — receive more government funding than we pay for. Even the average middle-class family receives $1.30 for every single tax dollar.
So here’s something for the libs to chew on: the wealthiest 40 percent in America pays everyone else’s taxes. I’d like to think I’m pretty well off, but even Her Hotness and I don’t fit into that bracket, which means I suck more out of the government annually than I give back.
Let’s figure this out. Let’s assume a single individual who makes $25,000 per year pays out 15 percent of that in taxes, for a total of $3,750. They will, according to the study, recoup 841 percent of that, for a total of $30,787.50. Add (yes, add) that to their income of $25,000, subtract the original tax amount, and this person winds up with a total annual income of $52,037.50, with a total government benefit of $27,037.50.
Now, let’s assume middle-of-the-road. Take $70,000 with a tax burden of 30 percent. Their total comes to a whopping $21,000. Now, multiply those dollars by 130 percent (remember $1.30 per tax dollar) and the government pays them $6,300 per year ($27,300 - $21,000), bringing their net annual “income” to $76,300.
Here’s where it gets ugly. Just to be on the safe side, we’ll go with a relatively low annual figure of $5 million. Take out a whopping 40 percent in taxes for a gross tax payment of $2 million. Now factor in the government return of 41 percent of that, and this person (or perhaps family) pays a net total of $1.18 million in taxes.
Now, I’m all for assisting those who are not as well off. I’ve witnessed it most of my life first-hand. Speaking from years of personal experience, poverty isn’t fun. However, I also see no reason to literally punish people for being wealthy. As much as we like to vilify the rich, in the vast majority of cases they’ve done nothing wrong or illegal to achieve their level of wealth. They may have inherited it, or they may have spent their lives with their sleeves rolled up scraping for every penny and turning each one into dollars. They worked hard, just as you and I do. They’re take may seem disproportionate, and it may very well be, but people were willing to pay them that much. Their wealth should not be their burden.
Oh, and consider both Bill Gates and the aforementioned Mr. Buffett: they are inarguably two of the greatest philanthropists of our time. They give away their wealth even when not required to by law.
So, to all you richies out there, I’ll take your back the next time you are crucified for receiving a “tax break.” More than anyone else, you deserve it.
Obviously, that’s an obvious obviousness
InvertedMind is full of study reports this week. One released last Wednesday shows that Chinese food is bad for your health. Now, while it’s true that Asians have lower occurrences of obesity and heart disease (I’m getting this information from Sleepy Stan’s Book of Unresearched Facts so please correct me if I’m wrong), I have to question how this is considered news. After all, it doesn’t take a genius to look at a Chinese buffet and realize that they’re staring at flavored, deep-fried MSG.
Chock Full o’ Nuts? (I’m so getting sued for this)
A festival…in Virginia City, Nev. …I’m trying not to regurgitate here…celebrates the eating…of sheep testicles. I kid you not, the 16th Annual Mountain Oyster Fry attracted enough people to eat more than 130 pounds of livestock cajones. I’ve been familiar with the concept of Mountain Oysters for a long time, having lived a fairly sizable portion of my life amongst the less-upscale side of the Redneck population, but this is beyond even my comprehension. They’re celebrating eating something I would consider chowing down on only after I’ve eaten my shoes, underwear and at least six of my own fingers.
Somehow, I’m not shocked
In yet another study released in the last week, it was found that as many as one out of every three people in Washington, D.C. is illiterate. Yeah, they’re called the House and Senate Majority.
Do you pee Earl Grey? I pee Earl Grey.
In a covert effort to show how greedy and unreliable the Chinese medical system is (after all, for millennia they’ve thought their food was healthy), a group of reporters pulled the old urine switcharoo. Results of their studies showed that six of the 10 hospitals found their urinal tracts to be infected. But wait, they didn’t switch bad urine with urine that was known to be good. It was brewed tea. What a whiz-bang effort by the reporters. I’m sure the hospitals’ management staffs were pretty pissed off. You’d think they’d file some sort of lawsuit over the invasion, but it looks like they’re too yellow. Complaints from former patients are no doubt streaming in. Their business is likely to go down the toilet. Stop me before I bad-pun myself to death.
…but I wonder how many accidents it has caused
Billboards are getting far more creative these days. But you have to wonder if something like this is having unintended consequences:
CNN continues to prove they hate the world
I will say this one more time, people (CNN, in particular). Nothing about Anna Nicole Smith’s death is front page news. There is far, far more important things in the world than a completely unsurprising autopsy report for someone who will be completely inconsequential to the rest of the world by May.
And finally (really, I mean it!), we’ll end on the lighter side…
No wonder he wished to remain anonymous
A Georgia teen was taken to the hospital for injuries sustained during a golf team hazing incident (yes, I said ‘golf team’ and ‘hazing’ in the same sentence) in which his new teammates gave him the wedgie of a lifetime. No, the injury isn’t funny (the circumstances are hilarious, though). However, the poor kid’s mom did everything she possibly could to get this kid labeled for life as Ultimate King Super Wuss Numero Uno. I wish I could say I was making these quotes up:
“It [The wedgie] was so extreme it ripped his boxer shorts in two.”
“He was bent over and couldn’t hardly walk. He cried for probably 30 minutes.”
This kid will eventually get over his injuries, but I’d wager his backswing will probably never be there same.
