I find it ironic that wealthy people are getting tax breaks from the very system that helped create their wealth. What if Bill Gates had been born in the Congo? Would he be the world's richest man today? I doubt it.
Our country creates a system, through the collection of tax dollars, that allows people an opportunity to become wealthy. It's a system that provides a stable infrastructure for goods and services to be transferred quickly and efficiently. It provides a literate labour pool through a public school system. It provides new innovations that have been developed at public universities and government research facilities (the internet comes to mind - how much have tax averse executives at companies like Intel, HP and Dell made from government sponsored innovation of the internet?!)
Furthermore, we're the largest consumer market in the world. If a company wants to benefit from this market, then they need to pay their fair share, which progessive taxation determines. Instead, they have lobbyists in DC advocating for more tax cuts for the wealthy, less regulation and more loop holes. These people are dependent on us, as a consumer market, and on the infrastructure. Without either of those things, all of their companies would go bankrupt. So why are we letting industry executives do this to us? We're their customers and they're pushing their tax burden onto us and our children, because someone has to pay for the upkeep of the system that they profit from. No system. No profits.
Not only are they pushing their tax burden onto us, but they scare us by telling us that if we don't cooperate with them they'll move their companies and jobs overseas. And the ones that do move overseas no longer have to pay US taxes eventhough they reap huge benefits from our consumer market.
If you want to play in this country club, then you need to pay the membership fees!
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