One of my favorite quotes is from my neighbor up the street " Education just confuses people". Unfortunately a lot of people seem to agree with him. In the New York Times today there was a good article about tax cuts and how they affect the economy. The truth is there is no proof they work the way Republicans would like you to believe. Of course most rich people would like everyone else to think giving them tax breaks is a good thing, but it doesn't jive with reality. So many things when put to the test of science, or good scrutiny don't really turn out to be true. I have been in arguments with a lot of people about the distribution of wealth in this country. One argument they like to use is that the wealthy give a lot to charity. On a percentage basis this is actually not true. They typical wealthy person gives about three percent of their income to charity, while the typical low or middle class person gives ten percent. This reminds me of a fundamentalist friend of mine. One day I asked him "Do you give ten percent to the church like the bible says you should?". He replied "They figured percentages differently in those days". In other words two thousand years ago ten percent was not ten percent. How convenient?
No comments:
Post a Comment