Tax Donkeys: Rich Enough to Pay Most of the Taxes, Not Rich Enough to Buy Politicians

Real political representation must be bought, just like everything else in a market economy.

The difference is the 1% remain Tax Donkeys: they pay most of the Federal and state income taxes, but are not wealthy enough to buy political influence.

In other words, the 1% (and indeed, the top 10%) have taxation but no representation. The political strings are pulled by a relative handful of super-wealthy individuals who use a thin slice of their wealth to fund political campaigns and lobbying.

Longtime correspondent B.C. describes this reality as no representation without taxation: those who pay the most taxes are represented via their political contributions and lobbying, and the 90% who pay relatively little income tax have no real representation at all because real political representation must be bought, just like everything else in a market economy.

The wealthiest 0.01% - 0.001% pay a disproportionately large share of taxes as a kind of fee for service for "the best government money can buy," not unlike what they pay for legal, financial, and tax advice, household staff, private security, and so on.

The net result of "no representation without taxation" is the US has become a kind of militarist-imperialist, rentier-socialist corporate-state with a relatively friendly (mass media-generated, infotainment-constructed), egalitarian face.

While it's obvious the bottom 90% lose out in this system, the top 10% just below the Oligarch class are punished twice: they pay most of the income taxes, but aren't wealthy enough to buy political power. They are the Tax Donkeys that toil to pay for the corporate-state's social welfare programs that keep the bottom 40% passive and the imperial structure that secures the primacy of the Deep State and Oligarchy.

Put together, people making under $40,000 a year get $81.1 billion from the income tax; that is, they get more refundable credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit than they pay in taxes. But that same group pays $121.5 billion in payroll taxes.

So people making under $40,000 a year--63.9% of all taxpayers, according to the Social Security Administration, paid a net of $40 billion out of the $2.4 trillion in payroll and income taxes. This is truly a drop in the bucket.

Meanwhile, the wealth of the top .01% has pulled away from the top 10% and even the top 1%:

The corruption and concentration of wealth are self-reinforcing: financialization further enriches the top .01%, who can then buy political power to protect their wealth and restrict competitors, which further concentrates wealth in the top of the apex, and so on.

Pity the Tax Donkeys who pay for everyone below and further enrich the few above. "No representation without taxation" only works for the top .01%; Tax Donkeys pay huge taxes but have no representation in a system that auctions political power to the highest bidders.

This is pretty much what we saw in the Soviet Union under Communism

A very small elite grasping onto power and control

A group of Technocrats who make up the productive classes that keep the lights on, the factories running (sort of) and enough food on the tables to keep the population from general starvation.

Then there is the other 70 % that the elite seek to control and that the technocrats toil to support.

The single most defining feature of the Obama Presidency is his cultivation and engineering of the 0.01% as the political masters of the country.

Obama bucks have enriched these people in an unprecedented fashion.

They have used the money he has steered to them to buy massive, concentrated political power.

It's so extreme that these 0.01% Oligarchs are crowding out all other forms of political money to fund politicians.

They are cash starving the tradition donors to the Republican Party so the Republicans are having to turn to the same Oligarchs who are funding politicians like Obama, Harry Reid,Nancy Pelosi and the like in order to stay a float

This dynamic is primary reason we are seeing Republican politicians turning away from their voter base and acting like Democrats.

Republicans are acting like Democrats because they are courting the same 0.01% oligarch donor base that Obama and the Democrats have manufactured and enriched with public money and favors in return for re cycling a good portion of those Obama bucks back to Democrat Politicians, Progressive Foundation's and Far Left non profits and NGOs to buy all involved unbeatable political clout and the ability to fund paid street organizers and agitators.

In the devastated Obama Economy, hard working, private private sector donors are being starved while well connected 0.01% get fat on massive sums of politically motivated government taxpayer money with no risk and no real exception of productive use of that money or accountability for the funds.

This is why Citizens United is such a threat to Democrats and why they react in such a violent way to the case.

The appropriately named Citizens United organization allows ordinary middle class working Americans a way to band together and organized effective political competition to the 0.01% Oligarchs. many of which are foreign interests hostile to the United States, who currently own the Democrat Party and who are in the process of an under the radar screen and increasingly successful hostile takeover of the Republican Party.

Republicans are acting like Democrats because they are courting the same 0.01% oligarch donor base that Obama and the Democrats have manufactured ... This is why Citizens United is such a threat to Democrats and why they react in such a violent way to the case.

Democrats say their politicians are acting like Republicans because they have to get money from the very rich to win, rather than pursuing anti-rich, anti-Wall Street policies. That's one reason why so many of them hate Citizens United.

Interestingly, this phenomenon explains two things:

1. It explains why so many countries have a tendency to decline into Third World dumps like you see all across Latin America.

2. It explains why most societies in human history have tended to function this way.

The second point is something worth some sobering reflection. It suggests to me that a modern, democratic state is never going to last very long.

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