Paying Your Fair Share

For several years a good friend has been telling me to watch a television series named Boston Legal. He told me that I would like it. I said OK, but never did watch it. I rather wait until a program goes into syndication (if it’s good it will). This way I can see several episodes each week or even each day.

Last week on a local Tampa Bay TV channel I watched an episode of Boston Legal. It was a second season (2006) episode named “Stick It”

In this episode the William Shatner character (Denny Crane), said to the James Spader character (Alan Shore) “Do you have any idea what would happen if the little people stopped paying their taxes?”

Shore answered “The rich people would have to start paying theirs.”

Crane responded “exactly.”

This is the same thinking that got us into our current bailout mess. Let’s screw the little people. And by little people I mean the people that are 90% or more of the working population (many of whom are now unemployed).

In the early 1990’s a friend from the 1960’s wrote a book titled “Beyond Revolution”. He advocated that we not pay our Federal Income Taxes. He was a hypocrite because he always paid his taxes. But it was a good concept.

In the mid 1970’s I wrote a thesis concerning the dissolution of the IRS and replacing it with a Federal “Ad Valorem” Tax. This was not a fresh idea, as there have been proponents of a graduated user tax for decades before I wrote my paper. I just had a different approach to the subject (300 plus pages worth).

I could write about this topic, ad infinitum, but I won’t because I am currently in a state that is commonly referred to as being “half in the bag” (so please forgive my bad grammar). It’s rapidly closing in on midnight (the point at which the reasoning part of my brain no longer functions), and the time that I usually fall into “the arms of Morpheus”.

The Beach Bum