I Have a Problem With That

A politician who wants to re-distribute wealth may or may not have noble purposes in mind. The stated goal is always the same: to help the poor. Even if their hearts are pure (which I doubt), I have several problems with re-distributionism.

1) The politician places himself in a position of knowing who’s rich and who’s poor, and almost always bases this on income levels. This is clearly no way to measure wealth, especially with all the convoluted tax laws in our society. Income is hidden, protected, re-categorized, and just plain un-reported. Plus, income in a given year doesn’t speak to all the other forms of wealth one may possess.
2) Even if income was fairly reported, it ignores the other side of the equation—demands an income earner may have. Just one example everyone will understand and agree with: ever heard of some good person who cares for an ailing parent? Parents are often not “dependents”, so the income earner gets no credit or discount for that parent, despite large outlays of cash to satisfy heavy demands for medical or other living expenses.
3) What makes someone able to judge what is “fair”? Is it being elected by popular vote? Hardly. My life’s experiences have taught me that only God and his inspired servants can know how to fairly judge a person’s heart. To place oneself in a position of decreeing “fairness” for a large population is quite presumptuous, even pompous.
4) The idea of charity for the poor starts with the heart, not with the pocketbook. A gift given unwillingly is not counted as righteousness. My conviction is that all gifts to those in need should be done by those who are willing to help, not by those who are forced to do so.
5) If the “rich” are going to be forced to give some of their wealth to the “poor”, where does it start and stop? If we could develop a system that re-allocates wealth, and it works perfectly, those who are rich today will be less rich tomorrow. Over time, they will fall below the established threshold the politician decided was “rich”. Then, the politician will have to establish a new threshold, and begin over-taxing a new class of “rich” people, albeit they will be less wealthy than those who were previously over-taxed. This pattern will continue until eventually, everyone is at exactly the same wealth level. What’s wrong with that? Just one thing. People figure out very quickly that there’s no need to work hard, because they will be just as wealthy as their neighbor, without regard to what is done to earn a living. People stop striving for higher levels of education—doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, business professionals all end up with the same amount of wealth as the hamburger flipper—so why bust your brain or break your back? Just sit back and let the wealth flow. But of course it doesn’t work that way. Without wealth-creating innovators, the movers and shakers of our society, industry-based nations don’t exist; natural resources aren’t turned into national wealth. Society as we know it collapses and everyone spends their day foraging for food. Just look around the globe and you’ll see plenty of examples.
6) Without individual judgments as to what “rich” means at the individual level, there are only formulas which must be applied to the masses. Formulas ignore why people are rich or poor, and they also ignore whether rich or poor people are good stewards of whatever they may have. Give two people the exact same amount of money each year, and in similar circumstances, one will squander his money on gambling, drinking, and riotous living, while the other will save, invest, and grow his money. How can any rational person think it makes sense to keep taking away money from the good steward and year after year give it to the squanderer, just to keep one from being rich and the other from being poor, and call this effort “noble”?

I could continue, but hopefully I’ve made the point. Our current tax system is terribly unfair, and there are any number of people who are working vigorously to make it even worse with new re-distribution schemes, all while doing an excellent job of brainwashing the people sucked into this unholy effort. Think you’re not being influenced by the brainwashing? Let me ask you a question. How do you feel about the children’s story of Robin Hood? Good guy? Better think again. You may be that robbing hoodlum’s next victim.