Does that title look angry? Yeah, he's pretty wound up here.
King points out that most rich do not really give much of their income to charity. King writes,"My wife and I give away roughly $4 million a year to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organizations that underwrite the arts. Warren Buffett does the same; so does Bill Gates; so does Steven Spielberg; so do the Koch brothers; so did the late Steve Jobs. All fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough."
King says that giving to charity is not enough because it overlooks things like the Gulf spill or the need for improved education in Mississippi and Alabama. King also addresses the argument that money saved by the rich results in jobs.
King writes,
"I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy."While I enjoy Kings points and think he makes sharp arguments, I think he loses ground by being personal and derogatory. Taking digs at Chris Christie's weight cheapens his arguments and turns politics into -- literally -- a food fight; but food fights are fun to watch.
And some short commentary. . .
ReplyDeleteOn the tax issue. . . the issue King is putting out for discussion. . . I agree wholeheartedly: Tax the rich! Give you three reasons to tax the rich:
1. They can afford it. Those who have the ability to give more, should.
2. They owe a debt to the country. King says about Mitt Romney, "What some of us want . . . is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged."
3. It's Biblical. A nation is required to care for its poor. I can give you chapter and verse, but suffice it from the preacher: God demands the rich have compassion on the poor. Compassion doesn't mean that they feel teary eyed, it means they are required to help. In the book of Ruth it means Boaz's workers are required to leave grain behind for the poor to pick up.
We must also admit that taxing the rich will not single-handedly fix our economic situation. It will not drive away poverty (an argument King is not making).
King writes that it is unfair for middle America to carry most of the tax burden. But. . . I wonder if Mr. King knows that lower-middle America (families with children) often pay almost no taxes. That is true of upper-middle America; it is not true of lower-middle America. I'm talking about average families.
If King can speak for the rich, than I can speak as someone makes less than 100k a year. A lot less. The super-rich are not on my radar. I don't know them, think about them, or even see them drive by. When lower middle income families pay almost no taxes (in fact, getting more back than they put in), then it is a system that wealthy America and upper-middle America alone cannot support.
So, as one who benefits from the tax code as it is now, let me point out the flaw: If you give families with children significant tax writes offs, and then let them collect from the government if they zero out on taxes -- a situation is created where middle America does not contribute to the pile, and in some cases middle-America is getting money from the pile. This stops money from going to the super-poor.
There's a lot to talk about here and I'm still wondering where to start or go on from.
ReplyDeleteI've said this elsewhere but it bears repeating. I'm convinced that a lot of the problems listed are matters of pathology. In a way, a lot of the rich and white collar class remind me in many ways of the Trashcan Man. That might sound odd, but think about, these are people with a mental wall between them ad the rest of life, yet like Trashie they all have their Achilles Heel. Find that, and you might find the beginnings of a solution. Not to all problems, "Tis the last judgments fire must cure this place/calcine it's clods and set my prisoners free- Robert Browing, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.
At least it's a start.
What's wanted here is Biblical Prudence if you will. Remember the total siuation of Boaz and Ruth, to say nothing of Esther or Daniel.
The situation might have improved some, yet by and large the same old motivations remain. And yet as both the Bible and Aristotle point out, downfall is a do it yourself business, witness the last ruler Daniel served under. When he saw the writing on the wall he tried to get Daniel to bribe God from punishing them, when in fact, God was offering them a way out. They misread the message and as a result did themselves in.
I think we're dealing with the same sort here, if you want my opinion. The trick is to go about solving the problem as best we can while keeping in sight the Eternal picture.
Here's something I learned once, all that drives politics is apolitical. Didn't learn that from any college textbook either, I got it from Watership Down by Richard Adams, who in turn got it from the lieks of Aristotle.
I will admit, you might want to think about all this article when it comes to next Sunday.
Just a thought. Pax Vobiscum.
ChrisC
I am a liberal, myself, so I typically find myself in agreement with King in his political views. These ones here are no exception.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER ... I think it's bad form to start the argument by calling Chris Christie fat. Is Chris Christie fat? Well, sure he is. He knows it; everyone else knows it; he knows everyone else knows it; and everyone else knows he knows it. It's a secret to no one. So it's no problem for King to point it out, but there was really no call for him to be insulting about it. When he speculates about Christie being at a hypothetical "all-you-can-eat cheese buffet at Applebee’s in Jersey City," that's a type of hateful prejudice that one typically doesn't hear from King (although there WERE glimmers of it in his recent Bram Stoker Award-winning short story "Herman Wouk Is Still Alive").
I still love ya, Uncle Steve ... but that was uncalled for.
I should, of course, point out that I myself am a great big fat guy. 320 last time I checked. It's nobody's fault but mine, and I'm cool with that.
DeleteSomebody pass me a Coca-Cola and some nachos; I've got a mile to not run.
As a moral conservative -- but not a "tea party republican" -- I am glad for King engaging our culture in discussion. His words will fall on deaf ears when he lowers himself to name calling.
DeleteAlso, that King thinks ALL republicans fall in the Tea Party camp is strange. Makes me think he doesn't really know many Republicans. There are lots of R. who have great concern for the poor, do not support low taxes for the rich.
I would rant on, but I gotta go work out. . . so I can fit in my Sunday clothes!
It's a byproduct of the times, I suppose: few people these days seem to want to acknowledge that a dissenting opinion could even POSSIBLY have any merit. The result being that even people like King, who are (seemingly) mostly sensible and level-headed, come off sounding like that once in a while.
DeleteBut I did agree with most of what he said, and even if I didn't, he at least managed to say it in an entertaining fashion.
"low taxes for the rich"--you do realize the "rich" are already being taxed at 80%, don't you? They're already being taxed at a much, much higher level than the middle class or poor.
DeleteThe problem is that raising taxes on rich people in general filters down to the poor. When a business owner's taxes are raised, he has to make cuts to the way he runs his business. He has to lay off workers or raise prices, or both.
Democrats took control of congress in 2007. At the time we had a 5% unemployment rate and it was nothing at all for an employee to realize he's not satisfied in his job and look for a better one.
Since 2007, jobs have dried up. Our OFFICIAL unemployment rate is 8% and that doesn't take into account people who have stopped looking for work because the job market is maxed out. Employees choosing to look for a better job? Hardly! It's more like they just consider themselves lucky to even have a job and hope like crazy they're not among the next round of people laid off.
And what's the supposed solution liberals keep demanding? TAX THE RICH!
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. First of all, King mentions charity, and I'm all for charity, and if you're as rich as King is and not giving to charity, what the f#ck is wrong with you? But taxes are not charity. Charity is given. Taxes are taken, and taken by the least trustworthy body in the country.
Do you think they're gonna use tax money to distribute to the poor? Or do you think they're gonna use it for themselves? If you really think it's the former, you are very naive.
Incredibly enough, King always struck me as a walking paradox;a surface liberal with an underlying classic conservatism in the vein of J.R.R. Tolkien.
ReplyDeleteMaybe sometimes those halves conflict, who knows. In Hearts in Atlantis didn't admit in a back-handed way that he learned "Not to be a Republican, even though I sprung from a long line of them?
As for the apparent sniping in the article, well, G.K. Chesterton once said the debate of the street is different from the public forum and King's using the street approach so as a middle lower class I guess that's why I didn't mind as much.
I'll say this, as a fitting capper after I read as I read the article I was listening to a Peter Gabriel song called Big Time that talked about just the same topic we're discussing.
ChrisC
I think our nation wants to come together; we, at the core, agree on much more than we disagree on. There are moral issues on which some of us will never budge. But we are open for respectful discussion; open to new ideas.I think Kings arguments were strong. I am often offended by Mr. Christie, and other Republicans, who are bombastic and rude. It seems unfair, though, to assume all republicans mirror the guys in office. Somehow the more radical ends of the parties make it to washington.
ReplyDeleteThere's something I forgot to mention. It's a cliche but watch out for the media. To borrow from Chesterton again, in a medium that concerns itself solely with exceptions and never the everyday, a moderate and well reasoned and argued and civil debate is the one thing we are least likely to see. You might see them some of the time, just never all of the time.
ReplyDeleteThe reason is because the world of the everyday Joe Schlub and the world of Fox news and Bill Maher are two different cities, one cyclical, the other Providential. Augustine wrote about the first, and T.S. Eliot came up with a good label for the latter: Wasteland.
ChrisC