As the next Presidential election approaches, and especially as Mitt Romney moves toward running again, it is clear that we are going to be hearing a lot about society’s moochers. Obviously, the word “moochers” will not pass the Romney’s lips, but he will still talk about the issue, both in private and in public (albeit in code). So I thought we should get this show on the road by identifying the real moochers in today’s society.
A moocher a person who is supported by or seeks support from another without making an adequate return. When he made his famous comment (which did not actually contain the word “moocher”), Romney was referring to people who “are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.” This is not an unusual opinion: according to the Pew Research Center, most wealthy people believe that “poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”
It is certainly true that there are many people who accept government services without paying any income tax to the government. In most cases, this is because they do not have enough income to trigger income taxes (although most of these people do pay other kinds of taxes). I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people in this category WISH they could pay income taxes, that is, they wish they had a job, or a good enough job, that their income warranted taxes. And if they did, they would gladly pay those taxes, partly because they would know that some their taxes would go to support other people who are temporarily down on their luck. The number who are gleefully accepting government largesse and just loving their life of poverty is vanishingly small; this it is obvious, because the GOP has yet to produce even one to support their thesis that there are hordes of moochers deliberately living off the government.
But there is another class of moochers who get much less press. These are also people (and corporations, now that corporations are people), who accept government services without making adequate return. There are many corporations who have used the tax laws to prevent their income from being taxed. The recent fad is to incorporate in another country, but companies have been dodging taxes for years. They dodge federal taxes, and they make special deals to avoid state and city taxes by threatening to relocate elsewhere. All perfectly legal. These companies are located in the US. They drive on our highways, maintained by the government; they are safe from attack due to our armed forces, paid by our government; they rely on our police and firefighters, paid by our government; they drink our water, purified by the government; they put their waste into our sewers, maintained by the government; they let their employees retire and have their incomes and health care covered by our government; in some cases (think Walmart) they underpay their employees and force the government to support them with food stamps and Medicaid; and they do their best to avoid paying the taxes that pay for all these services.
There are many individuals who fall into the same category. Consider people who reside six months and one day in Florida, and the rest of the year in Massachusetts. Because Florida has no income tax, these individuals have to pay no state income tax, even though half the year they are living in another state that is providing services to them. Consider people who get much of their income through capital gains: if they buy stock for $500,000 and sell it for $550,000, the $50,000 they profit is no less income than the $50,000 made by the guy who fixes their BMWs, but somehow they get to pay half the taxes on their income than he does. Perfectly legal, but the rich have been rigging the system for years so that their income is subject to less tax than yours. Poor people do not own stocks and do not earn capital gains: the capital gains tax break is specific to the well-off. Likewise, the poor do not have IRA accounts. Rich people do, and guess what? They do not have to pay taxes on them.
The thing is, unlike the “moochers” who do not pay because they are too poor, these are all people who actively manipulate the system to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. They can afford it, but they choose not to pay the same amount ordinary people do.
So you tell me, who are the moochers in today’s society: people who have lost their jobs (or never had one) and do not have enough money to live on, let alone pay taxes; or those who manipulate their finances so they can take advantage of all the benefits of American society without paying the same amount other people do?