It’s not easy, being rich. I’m writing in opposition to Question 1, a 4% tax on income over $1 million. Instead of raising my taxes to pay for needless luxuries like schools, hospitals and public transportation, why not get Mexico to pay for it?
As a rich person, I’m not against taxes, only against paying them. Everyone loves to bash us, but to be fair and balanced, have you ever considered that’s it’s not easy being rich? They want to “soak” us, they want to “eat” us, and they want to “tax” us so we “pay our fair share.”
I’m not sure which one’s worse. But they can’t get away with it. As a top 1%er of wealthy Americans, I know my rights and I pay my taxes. Well, I know my rights anyway.
The truth is that the rich are really an oppressed minority in America. Only 1% of Americans make over a million dollars a year while African Americans make up 12.4% of the population. So we’re a smaller minority then they are.
Our government was created to protect the rights of the minority rich against the majority poor. Otherwise you’ll pass all kinds of “laws” making us pay more taxes then we want, which is zero. Even if you do pass laws to make us pay, we’ll just hire expensive tax lawyers to get us out of it. Like the man said, not paying your taxes “means you’re smart.”
Why force me to give thousands of dollars to an expensive tax lawyer just to get out of paying my taxes when simply not having the taxes to begin with will save me all that money and aggravation? I wouldn’t force you to pay your taxes, if you didn’t want to. Why force me?
If some rich person wants to pay their taxes, that’s fine, although highly unlikely. No one is stopping them, but I’ve never read anything anywhere in the Constitution about my having to pay taxes, possibly because I’ve never actually read the Constitution. But I digress.
Why should I have to pay for programs to help poor people? Let poor people pay for their own poverty programs. When has a poor person ever paid for anything for me? Rich people have always had a right not to pay taxes and once a person has a right to do something you can’t just take it away, unless it’s abortion.
What’s the point of levying new taxes if I’ve never paid the taxes I already owe? The truth is that not paying taxes made America what it is today. The U.S. didn’t even have an income tax until the Civil War. Let’s return to the founding fathers original intent which was that rich people don’t pay taxes. Most of the founding fathers were filthy rich and they didn’t want to pay their taxes so they started the American Revolution. That’s what we need now, not new taxes.
Remember, some day you may be a millionare (also highly unlikely) but if that day ever comes, you wouldn’t want to have to pay 4% of your income to the government. Right?
Andy Morris-Friedman lives in Hadley.