I had a discussion with a student in my class who was a tax & spend person. He was quite outspoken in his opinions that taxes should be raised to previous high levels. He seemed to be hostile to the wealthy. I asked him if he thought the rich could pay 100% in taxes. He, without hesitation, said “certainly.” I then asked if he thought the wealthy should pay 200% income taxes, again he replied “certainly.” They can well afford to pay 200% taxes. I attributed this to his lack of education. Maybe not.

My daughter who has her doctorate in Business mention that she found girls frequently claim; “I hate math.” She is able to persuade them that they can do it. She mentioned that the girls had difficulty with pie charts. They would assign numbers to the pieces of the pie which were totally illogical and added up to far above 100 %. Then they couldn’t understand that as being wrong.

We are now in an important election cycle. Senator Warren has put forth her tax plan. Analysis of the program has found that for some the rates would exceed 100%. The example given was that for wealthy persons the rate could be as high as 158%. Richard Rubin in the WSJ (Nov 16-17, 2019 p A4) estimates that the tax rates on investments for billionaires would typically be over 100%.

Now how do we define her in adequacy with math? Is she inadequate at math or simply hostile to the wealthy? This could be very likely since she wants a wealth tax. This could increase tax preparation for most of us since the IRS would make sure no one slipped through the cracks.

Remember California has a prior gubernatorial candidate who was the state treasurer. She dropped out of the race when they told her she would have to show her tax returns. What would be the purpose since another branch of the government reviews or processes all returns?

Being wealthy is not un-American. Most of the founders and entrepreneurs who became wealthy came to America with little money. Some were actually destitute. They saw America as the land of opportunity where exceptualism would be rewarded.

Warren would negate all that. Is she given status because of gender? Remember Hillary Clinton was given status because women thought it was time to have a female president. The female Secretary of State under President Obama said so publicly. It really didn’t seem to matter if she agreed with their political philosophy or if they were qualified. Gender was determative.

In America we are given the birthright that all men are created equal and have equal opportunity for success and wealth or for failure and destitution—neither is promised nor assured—and equality can never be attained. America has showered the poor with $trillions but the proportion of poor has never changed. Most have remained poor.

Giving money to the poor has seldom helped to lift them out of poverty.

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