Replies

I read this on another post, but do not know the author:

Let's put tax cuts in terms that everyone can understand!

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
• the first four men, the poorest, would pay nothing;
• the fifth would pay $1;
• the sixth would pay $3;
• the seventh $7;
• the eighth $12;
• the ninth $18;
• and the tenth man, the richest, would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day the restaurant owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten will only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free, but what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?" The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "paid" to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. This is the result:
• the first four continued to pay nothing;
• the fifth man now would pay nothing;
• the sixth pitched in $2;
• the seventh paid $5;
• the eighth paid $9;
• the ninth paid $12;
• the tenth man paid $52, instead of his prior $59.

Each of the six was better off than before, but once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

There are lots of good restaurants in Europe, the Caribbean, and many other places in this world where enjoyable meals can be purchased without being beat up!

You're making way too much sense for liberals. You see, in their viewpoint, the rich guy got that way because he stole from the others since their world is a zero sum game where nobody creates anything from his/her efforts. Therefore, since they got rid of the rich guy, his $52 somehow ended up with them (to be realistic, they stole it). So as you see, the liberals are right!

In the real world the government is the one who is beating up the 10th guy and giving the $52 to the poorer guys. But since the 10th guy is getting robbed by the government, he will no longer put out the effort to earn that extra $52 and his income drops to the level of the 9th guy.

...Oh but wait. For the next meal, where will they get the extra $ again? I guess they'll have to go after the 9th guy. Euuuh... that'll continue until they're all equally poor and hungry. Ain't socialism grand?