Crawling Through Loopholes

Three trillion dollars per year. That’s a large number. That is not the money the wealthiest Americans actually take in, or pay out. That is the amount of money they dodge paying into the system. That is the money they are supposed to pay to ensure that our money keeps flowing; to ensure that our economy stays afloat. While they hoard their money, keeping it out of circulation, the wheels of our economy continue to slow down. The more they gain, and refuse to use, the less there is to use. The less there is to use, the slower those economic wheels turn. Eventually, those wheels will come to a halt.

As these wealthy people hoard more money, there is less to go around for the rest of us. This means that as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer…and that income disparity is a growing issue:

Much of this is due to greed. For a while, wages rose along with productivity. Then, the salaries stagnated, while the productivity continued to rise:

(Interesting side note: as you can see, the salary stagnation seems to coincide with the Reagan administration. The results from his “trickle down” economics are apparent.)

Many middle and lower class people are forced to go into debt to survive, simply because their wages are not enough to provide their family’s basic needs:

What’s really frustrating is the fact that the wealthiest people in America are not physically capable of spending their money. Not in their lifetimes, not in their children’s lifetimes, not even in their grandchildren’s lifetimes. If they were to make an all out effort to spend all of their money before death, it is unlikely that they’d succeed, yet they break the law to hoard their money. An old woman who keeps every stray cat in the neighborhood is actually helping the neighborhood by taking those cats in, but she is considered “crazy” for collecting them. A man who keeps every newspaper he’s ever gotten is considered “crazy” as well. He isn’t hurting anyone, in fact, those newspapers could come in handy if the information in them were ever needed. People who hoard money hurt everyone, yet no one deems them insane. Their money should be in circulation, keeping the wheels of our economy moving smoothly, but it’s not, and the people responsible break the law to ensure that it’s not, and are never punished for their misdeeds.

The few things that will bring jobs and prosperity back to this country will probably never happen, but here they are:

1. Close these loopholes. Everyone needs to be responsible for keeping our economy moving. If the top 20% try to leave all of the economic flow to the rest of us, there won’t be much flowing going on, since they own almost everything: 
2. We need to establish a tariff on incoming goods. So many companies have taken their manufacturing over seas because the labor is cheaper. They pay next to nothing to manufacture these products, then they ship the products back to the states. If the US were to charge a tariff for those incoming goods, it would no longer be cost effective to send those manufacturing jobs over seas.
3. Pull the money/corporations out of Washington. We don’t need our elected officials being bought. I was nearly kicked out of government class because I said that lobbyists were detrimental to our system. We were “taught” that lobbyist were necessary to research issues, and gather information that the politicians were to busy to accomplish themselves. I told the class that lobbyists would gather only biased information and half truths designed to fulfill their goals. A better solution would be to set up student internships. Law, political science and business students especially would jump at the chance to intern in Washington, and their research would be far more thorough, and a lot less biased. My idea made a lot of sense, went against tradition and the big corporations, and because of that, my professor nearly had a cow (several of my classmates had actually listened to me).
4. Treat churches like the businesses they are. Their revenue should be treated like the income it is. They should receive tax breaks for charitable donations, like everyone else, and if they qualify for other exemptions that everyone else qualifies for, they should receive those. Giving them blanket exemption from taxes is the same as mingling church and state.

Everyone needs to be responsible for this country’s economy. The government, the corporations, and the rest of the top 20% have left it up to the rest of us for far too long. We don’t have the resources to save the country, they do. They’ve been crawling through their loopholes long enough. It’s about time they step up and do their share.