Republicans would really prefer it if we didn't vote.
Must be why they're constantly telling me that if I don't like our corporate-run country, I should go live in Canada (or Sweden, or, well, fill in the name of any country with a progressive tax structure and social welfare system.) It's a nice way of saying "go fuck yourself."
I never had a comeback for that. I mean, where could I think of that has lower taxes and less government than the United States? Nowhere in the Western world, that's for sure.
Of course, living in Canada or Sweden, or Europe, doesn't sound so bad. But as it turns out, there IS a conservative dreamland out there somewhere. Turns out, I was looking across the wrong body of water. It's not across the Atlantic. It's across the Rio Grande.
Yep. That's right. Low-tax, minimalist government Mexico.
Mexico's highest personal income tax rate is (wait for it) 29 percent. 29 percent! And their corporate tax rate is 28 percent! In fact, Mexico's tax revenue represents around 10 percent of GDP.
See, Mexico knows how to treat its rich people. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim recently passed Bill Gates as the world's richest man. Like Gates, Slim came up with a new, revolutionary technology (landline telephone service) that helped him become the world's richest man.
Well, really, he didn't come up with the great invention. He bought the old state-run telephone company when the Mexican government decided to privatize it. There! Privatization! It's great for everybody. Telmex controls 90 percent of Mexico's landline telephone market, and charges, well, basically whatever they want to. By law, other phone companies can compete with Telmex, but in reality, nobody can compete with them because they're so huge.
But Slim's become the world's richest man in large part because Mexico, unlike some other countries, allows him to keep more of his money, because he deserves it. And of course, Slim, like other Mexican businessmen, takes all that extra money he gets to keep and creates jobs. Jobs! There are jobs everywhere in Mexico!
Because of the trickle-down effects of low taxes, Mexican companies create jobs. And since poor Mexicans are freed from the shackles of government handouts, they work at all those jobs. In fact, Mexico has so many jobs that poor Mexicans often move to America to get away from all those freakin' jobs that rich Mexicans won't stop creating with their hard-earned tax dollars.
Speaking of government handouts, Mexico shows just how great government works when it doesn't have to pay huge government salaries and benefits. Like police officers. Mexico has no crime problems, because its police spend their time fighting the bad guys instead of at union meetings. The bad guys try to bribe the police, jailers, and judges sometimes to get away with it, but it never works because they're just so gosh-darn happy to have jobs and get paid whatever the government wants to pay them.
So that saves money that the government can then spend on fighting the bad guys... oh, right, because the bad guys DO bribe everyone.
Yep, but Mexico is a conservative's dream with low taxes and a government that doesn't do shit. So next time you hear a conservative complain about how Obama is leading this country on a dangerous path and we need lower taxes and less government, suggest they go check out Mexico.
High taxes and social welfare programs are what it takes to live in a civilized nation. But, hey, if you're a billionaire, I guess you can just build a moat around your house to keep the poor people from robbing you blind.