Graduated tax is discriminatory

There is nothing honorable or fair about the graduated tax. It’s just another way for the government to redistribute wealth from those with ambition to those without.

We have to stop punishing the successful while preserving the welfare state. Government has made it so easy to be poor; incentive to pull oneself out of poverty is lacking. Subsidized housing, subsidized food, subsidized health, subsidized phone, subsidized Internet, subsidized day care, subsidized school — you name it and the taxpayer subsidizes it.

What is unfair about asking everyone to contribute, the adage of having skin in the game, goes a long way and a flat tax is the fairest method available. This is how it works: Someone making $100,000 at 5 percent pays $5,000; someone making $10,000 at five percent pays $500.

A service costing $5,500 is distributed this way: the higher-income individual paid 91 percent of the service while the lower-income person contributed 9 percent.

That seems pretty fair to me, and extremely honorable on the side of the higher income person, who, in most cases, will not qualify for the service they’re funding, while the lower-income person will.

Joseph J. Carroll

South Elgin