sharing an oppression-related (tho not gimpmama related) comment

The following is cut-and-pasted from a comment I made on a dear friend's facebook status comment thread (not responding to my friend, but to one of her other friend's earlier comments regarding their opposition to seeing taxes go up on higher-income individuals):


the small percentage of people who make more than a quarter mil/year are generally NOT by any definition of the term "harder working" than the average person making less than $100,00/year and I DARE you to find someone making more than $250k/yr who works harder than pretty much ANYONE who is trying to support a family on $25k/yr. Many, if not most, of the people making $250k/year got there from some degree of nepotism anyway (if they didn't just outright inherit the money and/or job), be it from the job in the "family business" (hello, last name Hilton ring any bells?), getting preferential admission to college beyond merit demonstrated because close family member(s) are major donors or alumni (many politicians, including our former president, took that route), or having family money to back their entrepreneurial ventures (Bill Gates did not raise himself out of poverty, in case you were under that illusion - his parents were quite well off and paid for him to go to a private school that afforded him access to technology FAR ahead of what his birth cohort had access to, via collaboration between his private school and a nearby university - starting when he hadn't even fully hit puberty. Not exactly an equal start with some inner-city kid living in the projects today, is it?).

To perceive those who have a higher income as "harder workers" is, to put it mildly, a logical fallacy of ostrich proportions. The barriers to moving out of poverty, or even from working to middle class, have been getting dramatically worse as our federal taxation has gone from highly progressive in the Eisenhower era (when the top tax bracket was taxed at over 90% and the middle class experienced its greatest period of growth and prosperity in THE DOCUMENTED HISTORY OF MANKIND), to the regressive structure we have now. The currently low federal taxes result in the federal government not pulling its weight to balance out the inequalities of cost of living in various parts of the country and impact of working- and middle-class job loss due to outsourcing (which was made dramatically worse by the "pro-business" policies/deregulation put in place by Republicans and "Third Way" Democrats, as well as union-busting that has lead to Georgia being a well-worn pit stop as decent American jobs move out toward 3rd world countries). This pushes the burden of paying for the lion's share of services (from infrastructure construction/maintainence, to public transportation, to public education, to caring for the most vulnerable citizens through Medicaid/Medicare administration and other issues) onto state and local governments, that typically do NOT have progressive tax rates, but instead "flat tax" rates like so many loud conservatives advocate. "Flat tax" is by definition regressive taxation, placing a higher proportional burden on low-income individuals due to the percentage of income that is "disposable" vs. "essential".  Someone who is making less than $100k/yr is paying a significantly higher percentage of their income to basic essentials (housing, utilities, food, health care, child care, etc) than someone earning over $250k/yr, and a family of four earning the median income in any area is most likely living paycheck to paycheck if not totally in debt, with little hope of achieving the "American Dream" of homeownership if they don't already own one and don't come from families with means to assist them. And that's just one way their held back - if they don't own a home, then they can't take out a home equity loan to help pay for a better education for their children, again keeping that poor kid in the projects in poverty regardless of his intellectual merit, unless he has some exceptional athletic skills. If s/he's more the next Stephen Hawkings than the next LaBron James, s/he can expect to die in absolute obscurity and probably abject poverty. Expecting everyone, regardless of disposable/essential income ratio, to pay the same percentage tax is systemic abuse of the lower classes, and anyone who has taken more than a cursitory glance at human history would tell you that is BAD for the ongoing health and well-being of the upper classes. Not to mention downright unAmerican, if one espouses the ideals this country was founded upon.

But what does that matter, so long as those earning over $250k/yr don't have to have their pocket money decreased a tad? Oh, no.... they may have to work a little longer to be able to afford a new vehicle.... like, you know, a few hours. What a crying shame!