A Story About Fairness

Gather around the campfire, it’s time for a short story about fairness.

Let’s start by imagining that we have two neighbors that live somewhere in the United States. The exactly location is not too important. For the sake of argument, also assume that they are both healthy and able to work. The two neighbors are currently hired by the same company, working a regular blue-collar or a white-collar job and pay taxes that support infrastructure, education, law enforcement, and so forth.

One of the neighbors, let’s call him Paul, decides to start saving part of his monthly salary. The other neighbor, let’s call him Joe, is more interested in living life to the fullest. Joe travels on vacations, goes shopping much more than Paul, and is spending more money than his frugal neighbor. Both styles of living are of course completely fine and the two neighbors are good friends.

After he has saved up a substantial amount Paul decides to follow his dream and start his own business. He starts out small, part-time in his own garage while he still retains his old job. After experiencing some initial success he decides to take the leap and become a full-time entrepreneur. Joe, on the other hand, is still living as he’s become accustomed to. He’s not too worried about the future and while he, too, would love to increase his income and become rich he has no intentions of starting a business of his own. Again, this is a perfectly legitimate position. Running your own business is not for everyone.

Paul proves himself to be a very able businessman, perhaps due to the fact that he works a lot and almost never has a “normal” 9-5 workday. He moves into a new office, hires staff, and continues to increase his revenue (most of which is re-invested in his business venture). While Paul is having some initial problems in making sense of the massive U.S. tax code, he realizes that he is consistently climbing up the tax brackets due to his success.

As it turns out, Paul is now contributing much more to infrastructure, education, and law enforcement than Joe, his friend and neighbor. Both Paul and Joe are also very content with their respective lifestyles, none of them feeling any resentment towards the other for choosing his own path. Sounds fair, right?

Now, enter the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama. According to today’s liberals, Paul is not forking over anywhere near enough of his money to the government. The idea that Paul and Joe both should be allowed to spend/invest/burn their assets as they see fit is apparently not applicable. After all, Paul didn’t build his business. Someone else did! The fact that Paul already is contributing much more in taxes than most Americans is completely irrelevant to President Obama. If you’ve been successful, you’re henceforth going to pay for it and the concept of rewarding success has apparently been thrown completely out the door.

According to the President, Paul should be forced to pay even more in taxes so that the government can sustain its high spending levels on everything from entitlements to cowboy poetry.

I’m left with one question: President Obama, where is the fairness?

Thomas can be found on Twitter under the handle @ThomasRatPol