I sympathize with the French yellow-vest demonstrators. Not the rioters, but the demonstrators. From what I've been able to determine, they are primarily the working-class French. They are the producers. The middle class and lower middle class. The ones who pay most of the taxes, which go to support the non-producers, as well as an increasing number of foolish government globalism schemes (like taxing fuel to fight climate change).
The poor pay no taxes and the rich pay proportionately fewer taxes. The middle class is the tax-producing herd that government systematically milks. All such herds will only take so much before they jump the fence and stampede.
Thomas Jefferson knew this. He referenced it 242 years ago in his brilliantly worded Declaration of Independence...
"...all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
According to This 2016 Article France has the highest taxed population in Europe. "Tax Liberation Day" for them is July 29. That means the average worker in France must work 210 days a year just to pay his taxes. That's a considerable demand on a person's time and life force, just to pay the perpetual demands of an overgrown government.
Does the government in France serve the people, or do the people serve the government?
Here in America, "Tax Freedom Day" is April 19. The average tax-paying American must work 109 days a year to pay his taxes.
Personally, I'm sure I work longer than 109 days to pay my taxes. As a self-employed person I'm responsible for paying twice as much social security taxes than the taxpayer who is an employee.
Most of my income comes from selling products that I make with my hands. I invest time and a lot of monotonous hours into producing things. If I don't produce, I don't make money. And when I write out a check for my federal and state taxes every quarter, it not only makes me angry, it discourages me greatly.
Approximately half the people in America do not pay any income taxes at all. Near as I can tell, it is about the same in France. The poor don't pay, and the wealthy pay proportionately less. I have a friend who owns a larger and much more profitable business than me and he tells me he pays very little in income taxes. There is something seriously wrong with a country in which half the population is expected to pay all the bills.
As an American producer who pays dearly and disproportionately with my time and energy to support the growing socialist welfare state of America, I'm ready to protest in the streets. I mean that sincerely.
The French middle class has been much more patient and "disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable" than I am.
I wish them well.
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By the way, those yellow vests are a story in themselves. Every motorist in France is required by law to have two such vests in their vehicle at all times. Taxes are only one burden inflicted by an overbearing bureaucratic technocracy.
Elizabeth L. Johnson said, My husband is self-employed and takes every deduction possible by law. It's pretty expensive living in California: fuel tax (more than half of every dollar; gotta pay for he high speed train somehow. Might as well rip off the citizens), insurance, etc. Well, you know how this state is. Property taxes are high. In our county, to purchase a building permit takes a minimum of $20,000! People are leaving the state because of things like this. Taxes are high and our governors so liberal they write in laws without even asking the people for a vote.
ReplyDeleteI'm encouraged to see the people of France finally rising up against the elites that keep them in their thrall. However, I hope they are also willing to embrace a greater level of responsibility for their retirements, health care, etc., that they have delegated to an all too willing elite, who then maintain ever higher levels of confiscation.
ReplyDeleteThe same goes for us over here in the States. Too many of us act as though we believe "Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote" is Commandment 8a! After all, one of the biggest supports to these corporacrats in every town/county council, state house, and at Corporate HQ in DC, is our insistence that our lives be made more secure, convenient, and comfortable, at our neighbours' expense (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, public education, property taxes, etc.). The Christian agrarian vision you have advocated, brother, is an antidote to much of this thinking.
Blessings,
David Smith
Christian Agrarianism.
ReplyDeleteHow to apply it in third world countries, or countries with limited land and sometimes with hostile non-Christians?
Your blog mostly aimed at Americans, I know. But your readers are worldwide and some definitely want to know how to implement some of your ideas in their context.
God Bless!