Rich people employ people and pay them minimum wage. It is impossible to live in society on minimum wage, so these people go on public assistance. I have read that up to 80% of Wal-Mart's retail-side work force is on some form of public assistance. A quick back-of-the-envelope estimation shows that Wal-Mart's failure to pay their people a reasonable wage costs the Federal Government over a trillion dollars in the course of 10 years.

So we have two types of theft; theft from their own workers and theft from the Government. All in the name of "letting them keep what they 'earned.'"



A poor man has a friend who is very rich. The poor man works for a low wage and has saved many weeks to buy a nice steak dinner. He invites his rich friend because, after all, they are friends.



The poor man, not having that much in expendable funds, orders a $25 steak. The rich man, who never worries about money, orders a $50 steak. They eat and have a good time together. Finally, at the end of the night, it is time to say good-bye, so they ask for their check. The poor man reaches for his wallet and pulls out $25. The rich man decides that $50 is not fair, but he still agrees to pay a little more (fair's fair, after all, unless you are Mittens R-money in which case you would pay $15) - he pays $30. The waiter comes by and reminds the rich person his steak was $50. The rich man is angered. "I earned this money, I deserve to keep it. I will not pay my share of the bill; be happy with $30." The poor man is deeply embarrassed by his friend's behavior. He takes out every penny he has - another $10 - and offers it to the restaurant, who has no choice but to accept it and take a loss.

It's an apt analogy, isn't it? The restaurant is the Government. The rich person refuses to pay his fair share to the Government. He won't foot the bill. Many Republicans ask, "well how much is fair?" The answer is simple - fair is when the bill is settled. The rich person bought a $50 steak. So $50 is fair. Likewise, when the budget is balanced through taxes, then the rich have paid their fair share.

But that's not all. The rich person actually stole from the working poor. The poor person was obligated to pay some of what the rich didn't. So not only was the rich person stealing from the Government/restaurant, he was stealing from the worker, by not paying his fair share!

It's time to say enough is enough and stop the partisan bullshit in Washington. The rich NEED to start paying their fair share. They need to pay to balance the budget, and provide free education and health care that their workers - their PEOPLE who they should be taking care of - as well as good benefits and a good wage. It wasn't like this in 30 years. In the last 30 years, we've gone from "I am a rich, patriotic American, and I will pay my fair share" to "I got mine, fuck you." I humbly propose we go from "I got mine, fuck you" to "we'll take yours, fuck you."