Reply #44: Because all animals are not equal, Snowball [View All]

[PurityOfEssence]

The Reagan Era taught--or should have taught--one great lesson: how easy it is to get the have-nots and the have-pretty-much-nothings to go at each other's throats.

In the Reagan era, being replayed today, it's mobilizing the working class against affirmative action and unions. Now it's an all-in onslaught against anyone of the working- or middle-class who has anything.

Some people have massive medical expenses, and to not allow them to write off those costs would destroy them, whereas to let them do so keeps them in the workforce. We're lucky: we have good health coverage, but an unexpected child and some personal health issues with expensive surgery have been costly even with good coverage, and shouldering such burdens would have been trouble.

Here's why I'm a Liberal: because the cost of human failure it too great for us all. It's all very funny and snotty for asshole reactionaries to say that "if you can't keep it together, you should fail", but what is the cost to the rest of us for personal failure? The cost is derelicts who contribute nothing to the economy, and a drain caused by them to their family and friends.

In a sickening way, the working poor are suckered into the same mindset: "why should you guys have any benefit when we don't?"

Home ownership and the attendant tax break has been one of the very few breaks for the little guy. So very, very many of us have premised our economic existence on this and this has helped society. We pay property taxes that sustain services.

Here's the big issue: radical change disrupts the system. Taking away itemized deductions immediately would cause widespread hardship, and not to the "haves", to the rest of us.

Some of us who are working professionals worked hard and long to scrimp together the 20% down for a mortgage one needed 20 years ago, and have been solid citizens with the understanding that this would continue. The home mortgage deduction was deemed pretty much sacred, and many of us structured our lives around this premise. It brought stability, something that EVERYONE needs in society. It came with great responsibility to pay taxes to sustain us all. To sweep it aside perfunctorily would plummet many decent wage-earners into major jeopardy and help further crash the housing market. At the very least, they would sharply curtail personal spending to protect their domicile, which would be another body-blow to our economy.

This doesn't help individuals, it helps the wealthy: as the house prices fall, they can snap them up and become landlords for a much smaller outlay. With little option to own, they can then jack up rental prices as they please.

I've got news for the angry members of this board who are renting and have little personal wealth: if you fuck what's left of the middle class, you will only destroy yourself. Let me repeat that: if you fuck what's left of the middle class out of jealousy and some kind of righteous indignation, you will only hurt yourself more.

Imagine a nation of renters. Imagine the disruption. One of the great advantages of home ownership is that you have some stability and predictability, both of which, as stated before, are necessary for a prosperous society. If everyone's at risk of being thrown out of a domicile due to the sale of the property or raising of rents, then disruption abounds. People don't show up for work on occasion. People leave town abruptly to go live with relatives. Chaos is the result, as well as a quivering fearful populace of serfs.

We should lose some deductions--some of which will affect me--but to sweep them aside en masse is to really fuck up society. Any student of history knows what happens in such cases: the rich win even more. I'm perfectly happy to see the deduction for second houses go, and, in truth, this doesn't affect me, but DOES make a distinction between those with a mere grubstake of property and those with real riches. I'd be happy to lose the child deduction for any child beyond 2, and this DOES affect me. I'd be happy to have capital gains taxed at the full rate, and this DOES affect me.

I'm perfectly willing to take some hits for the common good, but to be called out as some kind of bourgeois leech is galling to me and destructive to all of us. It would be calamity.

We are in fragile times now, so drastic action is not a particularly good thing.