In Search of “Fair Share”
************************************
The euphemistic and seemingly divine term “fair share” is not some Bill James nor Albert Einstein calculation; it is the by-product of government spending
************************************
The term “fair share” has become a rallying cry for Liberals when the subject is taxes.
When Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney finally disgorged his 2010 filed tax return and his 2011 estimated return, it showed that he earned $21.7 million in 2010 and an estimated $20.9 million last year. Mr. Romney’s effective tax rates are 13.9% in 2010 and 15.4% in 2011 as a share of adjusted gross income, and 17.6% and 21.2% as a share of taxable income, respectively. By comparison, the average effective middle-class tax rate is 8.2%. Despite having tax rates that are well below the maximum 39.6% rate, Mssr. Romney still pays a lot of taxes—about $3 million in 2010 and a projected $3.2 million in 2011. It’s hard to imagine that he and his family get that much use out of government-provided roads, as they fly 30,000 feet overhead in their jet, along with other benefits provided from the government. In other words, the government is a huge net winner when it comes to the amount of tax receipts it receives from him as compared to what it provides. Perhaps we should be looking at (and attacking) the government’s pricing model as unfair (Attorney General Holder, check in with your Bureau of Consumer Protection).
Still, Mr. Romney, who is often tongue-tied when taken off a script that is predominantly what a great businessman he was and manager he would be in the White House, was unable to adequately defend himself against the predictable rhetorical pistol-whippings he got from the “fair share” mob. In truth, he was trying to argue against a term that has not been defined and is vaporous, at best.
While the term seems like a great idea with the marriage of two words that no one can disagree with, that is on par with other inarguable precepts like the “golden rule,” no fair share proponent has ever explained exactly how one arrives at such number; a Nirvanac tax rate where the entire universe is in balance and justice is served. Is there some IBM super-computer that can calculate “fair share”? Perhaps MIT has a mathematician (IQ of at least 200) who has determined, with metaphysical certitude, the holy grail of taxation equity? Maybe, in a case of life imitating art, there is a government warehouse somewhere that contains the “arc of the tax covenant” which reveals what “fair share” is?
To date, though, I have not heard what the source of this tax wisdom is that those from the MSNBC carnival barkers to Nancy Pelosi to President Obama rely on. So how do they arrive at what “fair share” is for taxing the “rich”?
Quite simply, it is an equation that starts at how much Liberals wish (or are allowed) to have the government spend, less the amount of revenue they can squeeze out of the non-rich (read: middle) class without causing them to suddenly realize the vicissitudes of big government, and the remaining tab that must be picked up is what is consigned to the high-earners as “fair”. Pretty simple, huh?
So why haven’t Liberals (fairly) shared this with us? Because what they espouse as tax-burden equity is anything but fair and doesn’t share in the traditional sense we learned as kids, let alone know as adults (the mature wing, that is).
And recent IRS statistics show that the dreaded “rich” pay the vast bulk of tax revenues into government coffers. According to 2009 data, those in the top 1% of adjusted gross income paid 36.73% of all personal income taxes received by the government; the top 5% paid 58.66%.
So despite Mr. Romney’s seeming unease about his wealth, he would do both the ongoing debate as well the country well by showing that Liberals’ “fair share” is neither: it is merely rhetorical gauze to pay for their big-government spending using the Robin Hood technique.
-I.M. Windee
