TAXES...WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING TAXES

  
      A real  “bellwether” issue is on the table in tomorrow’s election that will tell us where this nation is as a “representative democracy” as it was set up to be by our founding fathers. Not so oddly it is a most discussed issue in the state wide campaigns in the State of Washington. They are one of the few states among our 50 without a state income tax. There’s a proposal on the table there, the main proponent of which is the father of that state’s and sometimes the world’s wealthiest man. A bill is in their legislature to tax the income of individuals with income of more than $200,000 per year and household incomes of over $400,000 per year. The proponent mentioned is Bill Gates’ father. Bill himself has come out as perfectly willing to pay such a tax. The education system of the State of Washington is in economic crisis. The tax is essential to it’s survival. It only applies to personal income over $200,000/yr or household income over $400,000/yr. All income under that remains untaxed, including for those who pay the tax on amounts above the limits. If one makes $1,000,000/yr in Washington one pays tax on $800,000 under the proposed tax.
    All that said, the executives of nearly all of the state’s major corporations, the economic engines of the state, to a man vehemently oppose the tax. They decry it as a jobs and innovation killer, unemployment being the whole nations well defined #1 issue this election year.   They claim that, while at the same time they demand the state provide better educated workers, taxing them, the wealthiest individual executives, to pay for it is unjust and will force them to move their companies out of Washington. Even the CEO of Microsoft is on record opposing it on that basis. Bill Gates removed himself from that role some years ago. 
   Let’s be clear here. The proposed tax is not on the corporations but the individuals’ income.
    This is just the easiest current example to understand of the argument that pervades all politics today in the good old USA. Who rules here, the people of the nation or just the wealthiest 1-5%?
    Make no mistake, that wealthiest 1-5% didn’t get there producing all the wealth themselves. It was produced by the labors of others under their control. Windows operating system would have created 0$ wealth with only the efforts of Bill Gates and his co-founders applied to it’s growth! Millions of employees’ and vendors and licensee software companies and their employees’ labor was required to get it to where it is today. Yet Microsoft’s current CEO believes his personal responsibility to maintain the quality of education of tomorrows workers in the state where they’re headquartered is 0$!