Wrong to direct anger at the rich

Mark D. Traeger, Las Vegas

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

I don’t understand the folks who rail against the rich. Wouldn’t everybody like to live more than comfortably at some point in their lives? I sure want to do so. But I am nowhere near that now. By liberal standards, my wife and I are still below the definition of “rich” by about $130,000. But we don’t bear the rich any ill for their earnings or holdings.

In Friday’s edition of the Las Vegas Sun, I read George Will’s column about tax reform. His research showed that 147 million-plus American workers had no federal income tax liability in 2007. People will argue with this, saying they pay payroll and other taxes. True. Everybody who works pays those taxes.

Then I Googled “who pays federal income taxes?” According to the IRS, for tax year 2008, the top 10 percent of wage earners paid 69.94 percent of federal income taxes collected by the IRS. The bottom 50 percent of wage earners paid (are you ready?) 2.7 percent. The year 2007 was basically the same. I’ll wager you’ll find that going back 20 years.

What is wrong with this picture? If we should be angry at anybody, it is the people who have no skin in the game. Because once we cross the threshold of more nonpayers than payers, the game is over. You can’t pay government workers with taxes paid by government workers. (Duh!) Don’t begrudge the wealthy. Endeavor to become them.