[extropy-chat] Tax Burden Gap

[Spike]

> Olga Bourlin
> Tax Burden Gap
> 
> 
> New government data also shows that President Bush's tax cuts 
> have shifted the overall tax burden to the middle class from the 
> wealthiest Americans.:
> 
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/headlines/D84GNDMG1.html

Olga

Quote from the article about a family that is on
hard times:

	So the family budget tightened. That meant fewer cable channels,
more meals at 	home, postponed doctor appointments, missed vacations,
delayed credit card 	payments, all to "keep the wolf away from the
door," she said.

Oh god no!  Not fewer cable channels!  Mercy, anything but that!

I am trying to imagine explaining to my late grandparents 
that life is now so hard that I am forced to eat meals 
at home and can afford only 70 cable channels.  If I
postpone doctor appointments, their level of medical care
was so poor that such a delay was a blessing.  If I miss
a vacation or two, they seldom took one.  Delay credit card
payments?  They didn't even have credit cards, and no one
is forcing me to get them today.  Any wolf that showed up at 
their door would be in grave danger of meeting face to face 
with Mr. Twelve Gage.

Lets get some perspective.  Some will always be way richer than
others, that isn't going away.  But today our poor have hamburger 
and TVs.  Modern poor people face far greater danger from obesity 
and alcoholism than from starvation and disease.  That's progress, 
is it not?  OK bad example.  But let us measure our success or 
failure by comparing our lives to those of our ancestors.  
Better or worse?

s