Not a Bible parable, obviously, but one of the best analogies I’ve ever seen to explain the downfall of Socialist taxation policies.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes,it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’ Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $10!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I got!’
‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’
‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works!!
The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
[Found on the Internet, here's what Snopes has to say about the authorship. Regardless of who wrote it, it explains the concepts very well.]
The tenth man represents the top 1o% of income earners.
From 1993 to 2005 the total income tax share (as a percentage) paid by the “tenth man” has ranged from 59% in 1993 to over 70% in 2005:
tax year % paid by “Tenth Man” 1993 59.24 1994 59.45 1995 60.75 1996 62.51 1997 63.20 1998 65.04 1999 66.45 2000 67.33 2001 64.89 2002 65.73 2003 65.84 2004 68.19 2005 70.30
The Bush tax cuts, which the MSM (Marxist Socialist Media) called “tax cuts for the rich”, actually INCREASED the percentage of the total income tax share paid by the top 1o% of income earners…the “tenth man”. Don’t get me wrong…I think the Bush tax cuts are a good thing. They are like the bar owner reducing the price from $100 to $80. What I am against is the MSM distortion of those tax cuts as somehow “unfair” to the people who either pay no taxes at all or pay a very small amount. The MSM encourages the 9 men to beat up on the tenth man, and that’s just stupid. Here is a real-life example of what happens when the tenth man decides he’s had enough and he’s leaving…
“Spreading the wealth around” never results in a better outcome for people. It always results in destruction.
Case study: Zimbabwe.
There are two groups that can take money away from you:
thieves and the government.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
October 22, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I heard this first on Rush’s show and thought it a very appropriate analogy. Wish more ppl knew about it – pass it on -
October 22, 2008 at 11:17 pm
This is great!!! It’s so simple…yet BHO just doesn’t get it. Or…perhaps he does…get us all drunk (for free) and have his way with us. Count me out!!
October 23, 2008 at 11:20 am
While sitting at our coffee table with my 8th grader studying for an upcoming test, political news was on the t.v. in the background. My son was observing the treatment of “Joe the Plumber” and asked why people (media) were bashing him for asking a question. After my explanation, my son remarked, “Mom, that would be like me making 100 on my test, a classmate making a 25, my teacher taking points away from me, and giving them to the other student all so that our grades would be equal. But then we’d both fail.”
I replied, “Yes, but maybe that would be fair.” To which he replied, “Or maybe he/she didn’t study, or better yet, didn’t even care to study because he/she knew they would get some of my points. In that case, why should I study?” To which I replied, “Bingo son, you get it.”
P.S. Bless you for the “shout out” on MM! You’re terrific! I understand that this time of year she would be inundated with trolls, so I will continue to read and learn.
October 23, 2008 at 12:10 pm
sweetakin,
Your son is wise! You have taught your children well.
Thank you for your kind words.
Sincerely,
Red Pill.
March 28, 2009 at 11:05 pm
And, of course, the “Earned Income Credit” actually does pay the poorest to drink beer!
They don’t just pay zero taxes. They get paid money by the IRS!
Your tax dollars at work, thanks to the Socialists in Washington, D.C. who like to Spread the wealth around…
March 28, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Technically, there is a minor error in the parable above.
If you add it up, the discount was actually $21 dollars and the bill was $79 dollars:
If anyone wants to be a stickler and keep the discount to $20 and the bill at $80, what would likely happen is that the tenth man would now pay $50 (a 15% savings from his original $59)
And the other nine guys would still beat him up for getting $9 of the $20 discount.
May 24, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I read this to my classmates a my school. I am only a freshman and I understand this. I agree with the situation that was given. People who don’t have a lot of money shouldn’t get angry with people who are rich. The rich pay for most of the tax problems or requests. If it weren’t for them, where would you be? Instead of beating the wealthy, thank them. people who are not wealthy, or rich, shouldn’t get more money. Most who argue about the rich receiving more money, don’t pay at all. I don’t think that’s right. The ones that don’t pay at all, are getting the best. The rich are saving them from losing everything. If more people thought of others instead of themselves. We wouldn’t have this problem. I am only 14, and I think people who think that they deserve more than the rich, when they are unwealthy, are so immature and need to get a news flash. The thing is, the more rich people you hate, or beat up in this situation, the worse the tax and our lives will be. The rich are saving our lives. So i say, “Three cheers for the wealthy!” How about you?
May 25, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Danielle,
Thank you for your comment. I’m very glad you understand this.
Not only do the wealthiest ten percent (the “tenth man”) pay about 70% of the tax burden, they also contribute a majority of the money received by charities.
While there are “greedy” people at all income levels, the wealthy are often characterized as “greedy”, even when they give generously.
What is greedy is the current tax system. The whole “spread the wealth” concept is nothing more than greed…steal from the rich to give to the poor… Robbing Hoodlum, also known as Robin Hood.
Government is notoriously inefficient. It is much better to let people freely donate to the charities of their choice, which do a much better job of meeting people’s needs efficiently, than it is to raise taxes and have the government try to meet people’s needs.
The MSM likes to demonize the wealthy if they are conservative, but wealthy liberals (like Hollywood stars) are used as spokespeople for the Socialist agenda.
Rather than demonizing the wealthy, those who envy the wealth of others should do everything they can to study those people, learn the success habits that helped them become wealthy, and then go in business for themselves and try to create their own wealth.
July 24, 2009 at 1:46 am
I was watching an episode of The West Wing one time, back during the few seasons when things weren’t so “partisan”, and heard Rob Lowe’s character defend “the rich” to some of his fellow Democrats. He said that, before he worked in the White House, he’d been a high-rise, blue chip lawyer, and that he used to cringe whenever he would hear people talk about how the rich needed to pay their fair share; because, under the progressive tax system, he had paid the fair share of himself and 26 other people.
In another episode, two characters are debating the merits of the estate tax, aka the death tax. One points out that people wealthy enough to be affected by the tax have already paid taxes on their estates when they paid income and capital gainst taxes on the revenue that paid for the estate, and when they paid property taxes for the time that they owned it. Another character, defending the death tax, points out that the vast majority of estateholders would never have to pay the tax and that the ones who would are “loaded”. The first one comes back at him with “You think that, just because they can afford a tax, it should be levied?”
The West Wing may have been crewed by liberals and starred liberal actors and featured liberal characters, but there were quite a few conservative principles that managed to rise to the surface. Watching it all those years actually helped me shape my (mostly) conservative philosophy; especially on taxes.
July 24, 2009 at 9:41 am
Stephen,
Thank you for your comment.