Let the unbelievers participate in equity
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
We are going to need some definitions to set the stage for this week’s column. "Unbeliever" usually pertains to religious faith; however, with the way some are treating the “Green New Deal,” I would say they have made that their religion, so we’ll bend the meaning a bit today and not be talking about traditional religions of any kind when we talk about unbelievers.
Equity vs. Equality. Per Google: “Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
In other words, communism.
Now, my definition of unbelievers in this context are those who fly around in their private jets telling the rest of us the sacrifices we must make to stop global warming and climate change.
They are truly unbelievers – despite their words – for if they really believed climate change was imminent, they would change their personal practices rather than just flying around and telling us to change ours.
Besides being unbelievers, they are also elitists or wannabe elitists, thinking they have something special that exempts them from the rules they think the rest of us must absolutely follow.
The latest scheme these characters have is that we need to “transition” to clean energy (of course, clean by their definition, no other). One way they think they are forcing us to do this is to construct the economy in such a way that energy prices – most notably gasoline prices – go through the roof. Rising gas and other energy prices are regressive taxes. This hits the poorest with the highest tax.
We can fix this problem through the tax system. Right now, according to Yahoo Finance, the state with the highest gasoline burden is Alabama, with the average resident of Alabama spending 6.4 percent of their income on gasoline as of April of this year. The place with the lowest percentage of income spent on gasoline is Washington, D.C., with 1 percent. You can immediately see the problem.
So, we change the tax code so that everyone pays a new tax of 6.4 percent of their income; in other words, the burden seen in the highest state. For illustration, if you make $50,000 per year, your tax is $3,200. If you make $10 million per year, your tax is $640,000. But let’s not be completely heartless here. We’ll let you deduct from your tax all fuel expenditures for which you have receipts. So, if you are spending $100 a week for fuel, and you keep the receipts, you’ll get a refund ($3,200 per year less $5,200 in receipts), meaning you will get $2,000 back.
I suspect our high-income person is spending about $75,000 per year on fuel, so their receipts will reduce their tax to $565,000.
What should we do with this tax revenue? I suggest we apply it to the national debt.
The equity idea says perhaps we should give it back to the lower-income people. I don’t think that will be necessary, however, for I think if the high-income elites start paying this tax as I have proposed, you’ll see the price of gasoline fall to about $1.50 a gallon in about two weeks.
The unbelievers have control of the levers, and they can make this happen and I am certain they will if they start getting hit with this new tax. The unbelievers will be completely exposed.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
We are going to need some definitions to set the stage for this week’s column. "Unbeliever" usually pertains to religious faith; however, with the way some are treating the “Green New Deal,” I would say they have made that their religion, so we’ll bend the meaning a bit today and not be talking about traditional religions of any kind when we talk about unbelievers.
Equity vs. Equality. Per Google: “Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
In other words, communism.
Now, my definition of unbelievers in this context are those who fly around in their private jets telling the rest of us the sacrifices we must make to stop global warming and climate change.
They are truly unbelievers – despite their words – for if they really believed climate change was imminent, they would change their personal practices rather than just flying around and telling us to change ours.
Besides being unbelievers, they are also elitists or wannabe elitists, thinking they have something special that exempts them from the rules they think the rest of us must absolutely follow.
The latest scheme these characters have is that we need to “transition” to clean energy (of course, clean by their definition, no other). One way they think they are forcing us to do this is to construct the economy in such a way that energy prices – most notably gasoline prices – go through the roof. Rising gas and other energy prices are regressive taxes. This hits the poorest with the highest tax.
We can fix this problem through the tax system. Right now, according to Yahoo Finance, the state with the highest gasoline burden is Alabama, with the average resident of Alabama spending 6.4 percent of their income on gasoline as of April of this year. The place with the lowest percentage of income spent on gasoline is Washington, D.C., with 1 percent. You can immediately see the problem.
So, we change the tax code so that everyone pays a new tax of 6.4 percent of their income; in other words, the burden seen in the highest state. For illustration, if you make $50,000 per year, your tax is $3,200. If you make $10 million per year, your tax is $640,000. But let’s not be completely heartless here. We’ll let you deduct from your tax all fuel expenditures for which you have receipts. So, if you are spending $100 a week for fuel, and you keep the receipts, you’ll get a refund ($3,200 per year less $5,200 in receipts), meaning you will get $2,000 back.
I suspect our high-income person is spending about $75,000 per year on fuel, so their receipts will reduce their tax to $565,000.
What should we do with this tax revenue? I suggest we apply it to the national debt.
The equity idea says perhaps we should give it back to the lower-income people. I don’t think that will be necessary, however, for I think if the high-income elites start paying this tax as I have proposed, you’ll see the price of gasoline fall to about $1.50 a gallon in about two weeks.
The unbelievers have control of the levers, and they can make this happen and I am certain they will if they start getting hit with this new tax. The unbelievers will be completely exposed.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.