Money Oligarchy Revisited

Recently dmarks criticized a line in one of my articles [What Is a Fair Tax/Politicians vs. Statesmen]: "They [the ultra rich, ed.] have literally bought the government turning into an oligarchy of the rich."

His response was “This sounds good on paper, but actually the rich pay the lions share of taxex, with the non-rich paying a small amount and the poor paying very little at all.

“There's simply no evidence of what you claim.”

I think Au contraire. Now it is absolutely true that rich folk pay more taxes the less rich folk. Almost half the country pays no taxes at all. But this is the way taxes are supposed to work. Those who have the means have the duty to pay taxes that work for the public good. Those who have problems putting food on the table, who lack discretionary income, just can’t pay taxes. But those with discretionary money can, and those with lots of discretionary money can give a lot. And, when this happens the whole country benefits included, perhaps especially the rich.

What is twisting our democracy out of proportion now and turning it into what I called an Oligarchy is that the rich have an undue influence in who gets elected in this country. That is what an oligarchy is.

I have added a new site to my home page, www.Billmoyers.com. He talks about this much better than I can, but let me offer some pieces to point out the truth of what I’m talking about.

First, we have all the PAC money that is used in elections that comes from the ultra rich. When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were persons, they opened the flood gate for these funds. Thus the ultra rich, like the Kock brothers and their buddies have an undue influence in the election process just because they can spend lots of money.

The second point I want to make it the influence of lobbyists in our country. These are hired primarily by corporations to influence congress in a way normal folk cannot. It is an undemocratic process that helps create a rich oligarchy. I read today that 30 companies pay more for lobbying than they pay in taxes.

Democracy is the idea that all of us are to have equal input into the election of our elected leaders. Just because you have a lot of money and can pay more taxes that others can does not mean you should have more say in the government; that is undemocratic.

The question is not do rich folk pay more taxes, they do, but does paying more taxes give them right to dominate the government? No.

With that said, dmarx, I don’t know who you are but I certainly appreciate your contributing to my blog; that is what this blog is for, civil debate of politics and religion.