It turns out that not only are so many Americans at the federal/state trough, but I believe it’s 48-49% of Americans have no federal income tax liability. And not having a federal income tax liability makes people natural constituents for big-spending politicians. Because if you have no federal income tax liability what do you care about federal taxes?
And matter of fact, there’s one reason why the so-called “Bush tax cuts” weren’t very popular–because for the people who are not paying any federal income tax why should they be happy about a tax cut? And a tax cut might mean to you that some of your handout programs will be threatened.
So, I think that that every American should have skin in the game. I mean it’s like how I don’t have any right to tell Ford Motor Company what to do when I don’t have any of its stock. I don’t have any skin in the game. And I think that for the American people we should require each person to have skin in the game. Matter of fact, I wrote a column some years ago–turned out to be a bit controversial– suggesting that people get one vote per $10,000 in taxes they pay. And those who thought that would be unfair would just lower the taxes.
