Just one rogue socialist's take on what's wrong with the country

In 21st Century Democracy class this morning, we had a rousing argument about Barack Obama's proposed tax plan. It boiled down to me advocating progressive taxes (with occasional backup from two people) and pressing the need for the wealthy to give back to the community, while several others argued that such measures would punish people who have worked for their wealth and that "the American dream is not a government program." One person even said that those whom the tax increase would affect (with personal incomes of $250,000 or more) would wind up living "bill-to-bill."

First: The proposed tax increases aren't enough to make that much of an income tight to live on. If the people with said incomes are living beyond their means already, that was bad judgment on their parts, and they ought to scale down a bit. Overspending got the entire economy into this mess in the first place.

Second: There's a difference between being paid to live by the government, and being treated by the government in such a way that getting out of poverty or bettering oneself isn't impossible.

Third: Those who have gotten much from the system and can afford to give back should. It's what taxes and tax brackets are all about. Today's richest citizens have it better, tax-wise, than those in any other era. In 1955, the top 400 earners made an average of $12 million and paid over 51% income tax on it. In 2005, the average income of the top 400 was $213 million (that's covering a wide range because the top 5 hedge fund managers each earn about $5 billion) and income tax paid on it was just 18.2%. See The Nation's article "Plutocracy Reborn" for charts, graphs, and lovely data-like things. The upshot is that, basically, today's ultra-wealthy are spoiled rotten.

I think that there's a disease in this country. We fundamentally lack a sense of community responsibility. That is what socialism, true socialism, is all about: taking care of society as a whole, and not just taking as much as possible for any one individual. Yes, success should be rewarded. But if you've gotten so much from the community, you have a basic human responsibility to give back. Somebody's got to pay taxes! Otherwise we'd have no infrastructure, no public utilities, no garbage collection! It makes no sense whatsoever to place the majority of the burden on those who barely have enough to scrape by as it is. Those who can afford to pay more ought to. It's that simple. Otherwise we'll wind up with this ever-widening wealth gap becoming insurmountable. The majority of the population won't have any chance at all at the American dream. That's not a future this country can face.