INCOME INEQUALITY IS THE EPITOME OF THE AMERICAN DREAM…
(…because everyone is seeking to achieve it)

There’s a lot of yammering these days about “income inequality”, with most of the screeching about it coming from presidential wannabe’s who think that playing that income envy card will help sway more voters their way next November.

The way they rave and rant about it makes it sound as if it’s a cardinal sin of the worst kind; but, what they ignore about the subject (and we believe they do so deliberately just for those political purposes) is that such “inequality” is the epitome of the American dream…because everyone is seeking to achieve it.. So, the fact that not everyone manages to do so should not be the basis for such outcry against it.

Besides, and let’s be honest about it here, most of those who have achieved that level of inequality beyond the rest of us, have done so from a combination of strong enterprise, willingness to take risks, acumen in business, and with skills or talents in entertainment, sports, technology, etc…and if the financial rewards they get from that are astronomical…so what…isn’t that the American dream? You bet your buns…it is!

Of course not all of us have that same degree of acumen, skills, or talents, nevertheless, and barring outright incapacity to dig a ditch or flip burgers, most of us do manage to carve out some kind of niche of our own…with financial rewards commensurate with its level of achievement. These may not be as huge as others but, as a late former partner once tried to explain it for us: “My pot may not be as large as anyone else’s, and barely big enough to pee in, but as long as they say it’s my very own pot…that’s fine by me.”

We think what he was trying to so colorfully explain how America works for us is that it has always been more concerned with maintaining the best ways and means for having a level playing field of opportunity, rather than ensuring “equality” of outcome…and that those who yelp for equality of outcome are advocating an alien and un-American concept for the pursuit of happiness. That is, an imported concept which aims to reduce everyone to the same level of outcome, regardless of their varying levels of skills or talents. As we have seen in many countries and societies where they have tried to apply that leveling concept the result has generally been economic, social, and even cultural stagnation.

Well, we’re not a stagnant society (yet) because America is still indeed a land of opportunity, where someone can rise from the meanest of rags to the most obscene levels of riches, from better acumen in business and enterprise, greater skills and talents than others, sharper and slicker chicanery than most, or even just plain dumb-luck, but no matter how that happens, it’s a matrix absolutely dedicated to promoting such outcomes for anyone willing to work and reach for them.

And the proof of all that is, almost from the start of our nation, that those who found a better way to do, to make, or to peddle something, not to mention being able to excel in the arts, entertainment, and sports, where those who became its elites in wealth and influence. And few, very few, ever achieved that status from just inheritance because, by and large, each succeeding generation has been forced to make its own way to achieve such status from its own accomplishments and merits.

The real flaw in all of that, however, is not because we have such extremes of inequality of outcomes, but rather because we have failed to adjust our system of taxation to be a more equitable one for taxing the gains and financial rewards from such a matrix. Worse yet, over time, we’ve allowed it to accrue a hodge-podge of exclusions, exemptions, deductions, etc, rendering it almost incomprehensible, if not irrelevant. Thus, inequality of outcomes is really not the problem, and those who try to make us believe it is are misdirecting, if not misleading us in the wrong direction from the real problem which is…inequality of taxation. While that can be fixed, it will only work if we approach it in a common sense and rational way…not by inciting emotional “income envy” and lurching ourselves into a class warfare mindset instead.

Well, there are a few of our career politicos who have begun to realize it is time to do something to fix that problem; but, the reality is that unless we, the taxpaying voters, show that we have the will to demand that they do so…nothing will change.

CENTURION