I have not written in a long time. The Wild Child is busy, full time gym girl mode, full time student mode, part time photo girl mode. Lots going on.
Then there is the ever present, slight feeling of impending doom as weird chaos infests the country, dismantling the framework of the democracy I know and love. The economy is in the crapper. Badly needed social programs are disappearing, basic rights of assembly and collective bargaining are being villanized and disbanded. Teachers, police and firefighters - the heroes of our society, are laid off, stripped of pensions, slapped down. Corporations are posting record breaking profits while unemployment continues to grow and tax breaks are aimed at the wealthy. Environmental politics are a disaster, The world is amok, and we are no longer the sterling bastion of democratic morality and righteousness our world once new.
I have a solution. At least to the economic part of the equation. It is one of those, "greater good," Utilitarian concepts. I realize that no one is going to go for this, regardless of your political affiliation.
This came out of conversation with my infinitely wise teen-age daughter. She suggested that we should adopt the Chinese philosophy of "1 child." A good idea, which I quickly pointed out would be against the concepts of freedom of action our great country was founded on. You can't go around dictating how many kids a family wants, even if that family can't afford to pay for the upkeep. Hell - the way it is heading, we can't use government funds to educate people about pregnancy prevention (or !horrors! termination), even if the burden of that child will be placed on the government. Population control, as a means for environmental responsibility, fiscal responsibility, social responsibility, well, that's a little like asking people to take personal responsibility for their actions.
My solution? a clause in taxation that would add huge amounts of money immediately into the federal budget, level the playing field for all citizens (OK, not level, but take some of the responsibility of an individual's choice off the back of the government).
Eliminate the deductions and tax credits for kids.
OMG - she did NOT just say that. To be fair, I milk my little tax break for everything I can, this was a huge negotiating point during the support settlement with her dad. She has bailed me out of deep financial holes more than once. Families depend on those deductions and credits. But why? Why do we give a deduction for something that increases cost to the government? More people means a larger need for police, fire fighters, teachers. The bigger the population, the larger the strain on all programs. Families may consider not having a kid, if each child was viewed as an expense; not a deduction. The next logical step would be to actually tax families more for having kids, but I'm already outside the realm of realistic.
I am all for a flat tax, fair to everybody, no deductions. How much did you make? give x% to the government. Don't really care how much you spent on interest for your 3 million dollar home, or how big of a "loss" your business took. When I had a business, I paid myself a salary, and taxes were taken out regularly, just like all of my employees. My business only once showed an actual profit. I was able, routinely, to deduct enough of the business expenses to get more than 50% of the taxes I paid back. Of course, I was delighted, but really? It makes me wonder how much people with BIG businesses are NOT paying, and how much of those costs are getting thrown back to the working Joe. If the money was just taken out of your paycheck, and that was the end of it, no squirreling around at the end trying to get some back, or "oops - I shouldn't have claimed all of those kids, now I have to pay more," just a straight - if it comes home, then the government gets some, and everyone pays the same percent, wouldn't that be nice?
I would be OK with maintaining the tiered tax brackets, the "make more, pay more" concept. (How Socialist of me) But frankly, minimum wage jobs cannot keep a family afloat, and I really wouldn't mind paying a couple of percentage points more in taxes than people hovering at or below the poverty line.
If they let me run the government, everyone would hate me, even the ones on my own team, because nothing that will work is going to make anyone happy. Compromise is hard and "win/win" is sometimes not feasible. Maybe we could be happy with "lose less."
