"Truly I tell you," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."
The moral-authority-free Marty Wisckol shared this nugget today: the highly-regarded California Budget Project has just released a study showing that:
- The lowest 20% of Californians in family income pay 11.1% of their income in state and local taxes; while the top 1% of earners pay only 7.8%. (Given the huge amounts we are talking about with the top 1%, that 3.3% differential represents a sizable shortfall in revenue, not to mention pure regressiveness – the opposite of what we generally think of as Tax Justice.)
- Between 2001 and 2008 Californian’s median wage rose 25.6% (which as one commenter pointed out, translates to 7.3% when adjusted for inflation) – while over the same period the income of California’s corporations rose 411%.
- While the above was happening, so was this: “Over the past two decades, the cost of funding state services has shifted from corporate to personal income taxpayers. The Department of Finance estimates that personal income tax receipts will provide 53.2 percent of General Fund revenues in 2009-2010, up from 35.4 percent in 1980-81. Corporate tax receipts are expected to provide 10.7 percent of General Fund revenues in 2009-2010, down from 14.6 percent in 1980-81.”
NO FREAKING WONDER our state is becoming a Banana Republic, hemorrhaging education, healthcare and infrastructure. Let’s get some folks into Sacramento this year who will:
- Institute an Oil Extraction Fee here in the only oil-producing state that doesn’t have one (AB 656)
- Close those corporate tax loopholes Arnold rammed through last year
- Get the highest brackets paying at least as much as the rest of us; maybe even a little more as they did back in California’s Golden Age
- and bring back California’s Estate Tax!
Sounds like it’s time for a FLAT SALES TAX.
Really do any of you work??
Your logic is so ridiculous – Poor people do not hire people!
If you continue to tax those big corporation – most corporations being small businesses this state will not survive…
Taxing people who work hard to give to people who don’t is completely ridiculous!
But i suppose your logic is the same logic that has this state in such a mess..
Hope to God my logic prevails – less taxes and more help to the people who do all and get nothing – the worker and business owner..
Get the underserved and vulnerable paying taxes and their own health care whether it is through their employer or out of their own pockets!
End all entitlements to those who ask to be served instead of serving!
Bring back the estate tax?. are you serious? Get the highest tax brackets paying like the rest of us?. Well first off Hollywood actors and SAG employees are California’s highest paid making $1 million plus salaries with lots of play money to give to Mr. Jerry Brown for his Gov Campaign. As far as the estate tax goes I bought a house in 2005 for $500 grand. I am paying $11 grand in taxes and you want to bring back the estate tax?. Do you realize I will be paying as much as $13 – $15 grand annually because of that. New taxes are always a complete failure. Re asses the current taxes before adding new taxes. How about do away with the 95,000 union federal employees that make $90,000 + doing nothing but milking the tax payers. The writers for the juice blog are highly progressive and support Jerry Brown and have no idea that the tax increases you are asking for, you will get only 10 fold. Jerry supports the AB518. Google that it will piss you off. He wants 90,000 new parking meters installed in all metropolitan cities to steal tax payer money for pork spending use.
You want to fix the problem. Downsize the Government. California spends $13 million annually on the C.A.R.B (California air resource board) that should be the EPA’s job. Do away with OSHA. Scrap the CAPI (Cash assistance for immigrants)program, cut welfare 50%. Liberals claim blue states are donors to red states but explain why this red state out spends triple the cost of any blue state.
Well first off Hollywood actors and SAG employees are California’s highest paid making $1 million plus salaries
Yeah, and they could afford to pay a higher rate (as they did ten, twenty years ago) and many of them would agree. (Maybe not Wesley Snipes.)
Jerry supports the AB518 [sic – SB518.] Google that it will piss you off.
I don’t need to google that, I already wrote a post against it a couple months ago here; I think I convinced Solorio to oppose it like Correa did: http://orangejuiceblog.com/2010/02/assembly-dems-should-kill-sb-518-the-end-free-parking-in-calif-act/
When you say “tenfold” I believe you’re trying to say the opposite, “only ten percent?” Because of the various loopholes and dodges the wealthy and their accountants are always so good at finding? One of the biggest reasons this story’s premise is true! Maybe more enforcement, less loopholes?
One little item from the study that I left out, to keep my post short:
The report rates California a “moderate tax state,” noting that in 2008-09 it ranks 21st in the U.S. in terms of state taxes as a percentage of personal income.
I’m waiting to see if some of my progressive allies jump on this thread; if not I’ll respond to some more of what #1-3 have said.
Yeah, all those evil corporations do is provide jobs so thousands of people can pay their bills, including their taxes. They must be punished.
Not punished, Rick, just pay their fair share. Why do you righties find it such a punishment to help out a little with “the price we pay to live in a civilized society?”
It’s great to do business in California, where your corporate profits have risen FIVEFOLD over the decade while your taxes have kept going down. But we’re in a revenue crisis now, and it really is in corporations’ best interest to help with California’s higher education and infrastructure.
You are taxpayer’s.
And this is Uncle Sam’s farm.
If you are sore at the taxes you must pay then ask your US reprsentive to repeal the 16th amendedment.
Or move off the USA farm and live elsewhere.
Now lets hear it for the cattle who will write their checks and put it on the mail on the 15th. Moo moo moooo.
“and bring back California’s Estate Tax”
Great plan for Democrats. We can then say good bye to every last old person in the state with any wealth.
Yeah right. The list of well-off people who are gonna leave this beautiful state because of a tax hike is nearly as long as the liberals who were gonna leave America because of Bush’s election.
Or the doctors who are going to leave their practice and go into construction because of Obama’s modest insurance reforms.
So, good news and bad news. The good news is, oil megacorporation ExxonMobil had such a profitable year in 2009, it contributed $15 billion to the world’s tax coffers.
The bad news: Not a cent of that went to the IRS.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/04/exxon-mobil-paid-zero-income-tax-offshore%20shelter-wal-mart-general-electric-forbes
Frankly, the “percentage” of someone’s income is going to taxes is only relevant if you believe, as apparently Vern does, that tax parity must be proportional to someone’s earinings and those that are wealthier should pay more simply because they are, in fact, wealthier. That is the typical commie line. My view of tax parity is that those USING the resources should pay more taxes. Last I checked, CEOs and higher wage earners didn’t use many social services that have ballooned our state budget to ridiculous levels.
Last I checked, CEOs and higher wage earners didn’t use many social services that have ballooned our state budget to ridiculous levels.
Ah, but they did, NLFTP, they did!
They relied heavily on employees who got educations – K thru 8, high school and higher ed, to be able to do the jobs they need done if their corporations will be profitable and innovative.
They rely heavily on California’s infrastructure, her now crumbling infrastructure.
I could go on…
http://www.parade.com/export/sites/default/news/what-people-earn/slideshows/real-people-salary-2010.html
The average american is well under 100K. The top earners or 1% listed are in the 50 million range,…A YEAR!
to bring them up to the tax rate the rest of us pay…what’s it gonna do to them?
They’ll just fill there swimming pools with a domestic sparkling wine instead of Dom Perignon.
Vern, pass the Kool-aid.
Vern, old buddy, at a time when businesses are leaving California at a record pace, this is precisely NOT the time to raise taxes on anyone! As they leave the state because of it’s onerous taxes they take with them thousands of jobs. Even the Auto Club of So. Cal. apparently moved 1,000 jobs to Texas recently! Nope, raising taxes, instituting an Estate tax any other new tax is 180 degrees from what should be happening. Our gutless law makers simply have to learn to SPEND LESS – at every level of government.
I knew you’d use the education argument. And I hoped you would. You’re right, but education is primarily funded with property, not income, taxes. It is essentially a flat tax.
Most of the things you could go “on and on” about are not the primary reason the state is on the road to bankruptcy . . . INfrastructure, while keenly important, isn’t the rat hole down which our taxes go. Education expenses unrelated to actually educating children, exhorbitant pensions driven by public employee unions, medical costs, social welfare costs . . . those are what are driving the state off the cliff.
Taxing economic engines and producers of wealth to fund things they don’t use is bad enough. Making them pay more than those that use the services is thievery.
You’re right, but education is primarily funded with property, not income, taxes. It is essentially a flat tax.
I’ve read these sentences a few times, and I’m assuming they’re true, but still I’m trying to figure out how they are an argument, for your side, or for any side.
Education definitely needs more funding right now. AB656 is a good proposal for that. Obviously this “flat” property tax isn’t cutting it right now.
I’m sure something needs to be done about the public employee union pensions, which were negotiated in better times (and at the expense of wages that would have been competitive with the private sector.) Not my area of expertise.
But the exorbitant fee hikes our college students are being asked to pay, and all the cuts to our K-12, aren’t good for the future of our state and her businesses. I’m guessing some of them may be beginning to understand that.
Remember how I said, in #12, “I could go on…”
How about employers like Wal-Mart, who make their staggering profits by paying the lowest possible wages and minimal-to-no benefits, relying heavily on NLFTP’s “ballooning social services” to keep their employees functioning? I think those companies can pay a little more – at least to keep those services solvent.
#14 Gericault and #15 Potstirrer! You fell into spam! Art, that’s been happening to so many people – including me sometimes. I rescued Gustavo out of spam the other day, and I have to go in and drag out Francisco regularly. I wonder if we can fix that?
I knew there had to be SOME things we disagreed on, Potstirrer. You being an honest conservative and all. I think you are hearing too many scare stories about jobs leaving because of California’s high taxation, it just statistically doesn’t happen much. People and businesses love to be here, and let me repeat: We are a “moderate tax state,” … ranking 21st in the U.S. in terms of state taxes as a percentage of personal income.” All things considered, we could bump ourselves up to #15 or so and make the state much greater.
Gericault, like Dr. Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Plan likes to say about his highly-paid specialist colleagues, “They may have to resign themselves to driving just two sports cars instead of three.”
Education does not need more money. It needs to spend money better, and to wrangle itself from the teacher unions.
“I knew there had to be SOME things we disagreed on, Potstirrer. You being an honest conservative and all. I think you are hearing too many scare stories about jobs leaving because of California’s high taxation, it just statistically doesn’t happen much. People and businesses love to be here, and let me repeat: We are a “moderate tax state,” … ranking 21st in the U.S. in terms of state taxes as a percentage of personal income.” All things considered, we could bump ourselves up to #15 or so and make the state much greater.”
MQ Says:
Two of my closest friends have moved to chicago – different companies..
Three of my neighbors have moved out of state all different companies
Much to your delight my husband and i are thinking of moving to Texas because we can not sustain paying the taxes. Even our employees are thinking that moving out of state…
O yeah, a lady i have known for years who works at my local store, just move out of state.. her kids have jobs else where – they moved out a year ago..
So Vern, the question is do you get out much??
stop trying to loot others wealth by claiming you have a right to it.
Quinn! You’re going to Texas? You’ll fit right in! Hope you don’t mind the 95-120 degree heat 9 months out of the year.
Stay away from Austin though – LIBERALS! And drop us a line. Once a week will do.
#8,
“and bring back California’s Estate Tax”
“Great plan for Democrats. We can then say good bye to every last old person in the state with any wealth.”
Yeah, I can see the exodus now, wealthy old Californians abandoning their oceanfront/view villas, desert compounds and oak-strewn ranches for the freezing mid-west, butt-ugly Texas and Nevada and humid, bug-ridden Florida, LOL!
MQ,
“Much to your delight my husband and i are thinking of moving to Texas because we can not sustain paying the taxes.”
You HAVEN’T BEGUN to pay your fair share of taxes in California, as an immigrant who came here as an adult and then proceeded to have children, you OWE California for the goods and services you have received and benefited from, good riddance, go leech off Texas.
PS QUINNY – if you know two people who are moving to Chicago, it ain’t for lower taxes dear.
I’m still chewing over something NLFTP said in his first comment, #11. It is like a piece of gristle that won’t go down:
[Vern believes] those that are wealthier should pay more simply because they are, in fact, wealthier. That is the typical commie line. My view of tax parity is that those USING the resources should pay more taxes.
So. The poor people who get Medicaid because they can’t afford insurance and medical care, should somehow PAY for that Medicaid. The parents whose kids go to public school should somehow PAY all the expenses for those schools like the rich parents do for the private schools they prefer.
I gather that to you the whole idea of taxation itself, of a social contract, seems “commie.” And you will never understand why it exists. I think it’s basically because this nation was built by Christians and humanists who cared about one another, rather than Randian eggheads and paranoid survivalists. Is that just commie of me?
A little walk or drive down memory lane…or Corporate Welfare lane…and American taxpayers dollars flying out the window:
Corporations have benefited greatly at the expense of the American Taxpayer. They might be larger, but in the aggregate the real engines of economic growth have been small businesses.
1) During the Savings & Loans scandals of late 1980’s early 1990’s we BAILED out the Savings & Loans (corporations) at a tune of about several hundred billion dollars.
Why? Because we wanted to INSURE the integrity of our FINANCIAL institutions.
In Sept 2008 (about 18 years later from the S&L bailouts), we BAILED out the FINANCIAL Institutions again, but at a much higher tune. This time we BAILED them out at a tune of $1.1 TRILLION in DIRECT Cash grants, and about $18 TRILLION in INDIRECT guarantees which eventually become a TRUE liability for the American Taxpayer. To put in perspective the size of the give-away…The TOTAL US economy has generally hovered around $13-14 Trillion.
And Why did we DO a second FINANCIAL bailout???? Because, again we wanted to INSURE the integrity of our FINANCIAL institutions and loosen up credit.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/09/22/tracking-the-19-trillion-bailout-funds.aspx
examples:
*AIG got $185 BILLION(one of their top executives got a $100 million Bonus).
* BofA and Citigroup each got about $50 Billion and EACH paid about $5 BILLION in bonuses to their top executives, made possibly because of the American Taxpayer bailing out the banks.
http://www.newser.com/story/79978/bofa-doles-out-4b-in-bonuses.html
2) After the tragic events of Sept 11 Corporations (primarily the Airline industry) received Billions in Direct and Indirect handouts.
The link to the article below talks about $15 Billion…but this eventually became about $24 Billion.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_41/b3752735.htm
Now a stated reason for handing out about $6 Billion in Cash to the the airlines was to encourage travel…”come on again? Really?”
f they wanted to encourage travel they should have given the $6 Billion to the American Taxpayer/TRAVELER in travel vouchers/credits to encourage travel and to visit their families. The airlines got this money for FREE…they did NOT have to do anything for it. (and prior to 9-11 they were already on a cyclical downward spiral…so they used the tragedy of 9-11 to line their pockets).
3) For further background on Corporate Welfare & a further walk on memory lane see:
TIME’s magazine “Corporate Welfare” article of November 9, 1998 (Donn Barlett & James Steele – two author who have also written several books “America What Went Wrong” & “America who Pays the Taxes” THESE ARE GREAT READS)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989508-1,00.html
4) But MORE IMPORTANTLY, not only do many corporations make BILLIONS in profits, but they also PAY ZERO or NO TAXES, and in fact because of ACCOUNTING rules may in fact either receive Any TAXES they paid in the PAST, or may DEFER their profits into the FUTURE, thus avoiding taxes (because of a concept called Net Operating Losses Carry Backs & Carry Forwards)…so a corporation can SIMULTANEOUSLY report a “BOOK” Basis PROFIT (to report to their investors)and a “CASH” Basis LOSS (to report to the IRS or other taxing authorities.)
For example, You and I as individuals taxpayers pay more in taxes than an individual corporation that makes more than $10 Billion in “Pre-tax” profits… see link below:
http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2010/04/07/exxonmobil-35-billion-in-profit-zero-in-corporate-taxes/
I could go on and on with example after example, but you get the point.
So CORPORATIONS benefit not just from the necessary investments in education and infrastructure, but also from the direct and indirect Corporate Welfare readily handed out to them by our “representatives”, and from their ability as a CORPORATION to recover any taxes paid in the past or to defer income into the future to avoid paying taxes, which we as INDIVIDUAL taxpayers can NOT do.
So asking them to pay a fair share, seems well, only Fair!
Francisco “Paco” Barragan CPA, CIA (My opinions and not those of any group)
Professional Profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/franciscobarragancpacia
MQ, I confess I have not stood at the eastern border and personally checked outbound moving vans… I have, however, read numerous credible articles over the past couple years about the exodus of residents and businesses from California to friendlier pastures – east and north. A good start would be a Google search for “leaving California” and just start reading… Tax increases proposed here will only force more folks to consider leaving our state. I HAVE lived in Texas and there are some wonderful venues that folks are considering, including the hill country near Austin.
Ah yes, the Enchanted Rock, Hippie Hollow, Bee Cave…
But knowing Quinn as I do, I’d suggest Lubbock.
A reason that people (legal or not) are leaving the STATE or the USA is the bad economy.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/06/a_bad_sign___illegal_immigrants_are_leaving/
Exactly Paco. Of course the folks here who are religiously anti-tax will try to say the economy is bad because of too much taxes.
I’ve just been thinking… most of the people arguing here against raising taxes on the wealthy and the corporations are probably not in the top 1% themselves, or even in the top 10%. Nobody here is arguing about raising their taxes, in fact they could probably be lowered a little. They are arguing, out of habit or conviction, for the continued coddling of folks who are a lot better off than them, while those people laugh all the way to the bank.
“You HAVEN’T BEGUN to pay your fair share of taxes in California, as an immigrant who came here as an adult and then proceeded to have children, you OWE California for the goods and services you have received and benefited from, good riddance, go leech off Texas.”
MQ says:
YOU do not like me much – do you?
Just because I get under you and your union’s skin – I think paying for the underserved and vulnerable and a disgraceful school system (run by you and the rest of the hacks) is worth staying for… I don’t want to miss you getting let go from your golden ticket from taxpayer heaven… Title 1 school district.
Feel free to hate my guts, it makes me smile – but remember hate and being in a teachers’ union are not good for the soul!
Sorry Texas – a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do:)
Corrected by Vern. You’re welcome!
Given the massive accumulation of wealth for the richest Americans and corporations, where are all these jobs they have been creating?
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1
“Obama’s modest insurance reforms” – Vern, you’re not an entertainer for nothing. Well-regarded? Says who? Wiskol does say that while the CBP’s methodology and research are usually sound, they have a history of presenting data that supports your side. He also noted that the report doesn’t contradict our mantra that the problem is with spending and not income, but I understand why you’d leave that part out being the fair and impartial guy you are. And if the lower income classes actually want to pay taxes (I’m sure you missed the report that 47% of Americans don’t even pay taxes), then I’m happy to pay my fair share. And I’m also happy to close some of the corporate tax loopholes if you get the crazy environmentalists on your side to allow corporations to build and expand. But that’s just me trying to be pragmatic again.
“Obama’s modest insurance reforms” – Vern, you’re not an entertainer for nothing.
Don’t forget, millions of us (NOT a majority, granted) want a single-payer system. A MAJORITY of us want at least a public option, or expanded Medicare, that we could buy with our own premium dollars when forced to get coverage. What we ended up with was a very timid compromise – even if it did make some of you lose several lunches.
Well-regarded? Says who? Wiskol does say that while the CBP’s methodology and research are usually sound, they have a history of presenting data that supports your side.
Funny that, huh. I like it too. Imagine – a group with sound methodology and research tends to come up with data that supports us liberals. What could account for that?
He also noted that the report doesn’t contradict our mantra that the problem is with spending and not income, but I understand why you’d leave that part out being the fair and impartial guy you are.
I’m not bound to give equal weight to every opinion Marty jots down – it’s just his opinion, and in fact: 1) I believe he has the common journalistic syndrome of trying to be “fair” to both sides even if that means not making sense; and 2) I didn’t see anything in this article or study about spending, it’s all about taxes, so he just pulled that comment out of nowhere.
And if the lower income classes actually want to pay taxes (I’m sure you missed the report that 47% of Americans don’t even pay taxes), then I’m happy to pay my fair share.
Somebody in this country doesn’t pay taxes?? What? They live off the land, in a cave, they hunt and gather, collect rain water, bathe in the stream? HOW COOL! … Wait – 47% of Americans are doing that? NOW you’re pulling my leg.
And I’m also happy to close some of the corporate tax loopholes if you get the crazy environmentalists on your side to allow corporations to build and expand.
Well, if you want to bring up specifics… maybe I would be agreeing with you right now!
Good day Newbie.
Don’t forget, millions of us (NOT a majority, granted) want a single-payer system. A MAJORITY of us want at least a public option, or expanded Medicare, that we could buy with our own premium dollars when forced to get coverage. What we ended up with was a very timid compromise – even if it did make some of you lose several lunches.
Vern, all you got was a mandate that people buy insurance from companies you hate, with no regulatory controls, at the cost of trillions of dollars. Nice timid compromise.
Funny that, huh. I like it too. Imagine – a group with sound methodology and research tends to come up with data that supports us liberals. What could account for that?
All I was asking was for you to prove your comment since you like to call out Crowley and others for misrepresenting what the article says. I’ll take your deflection as the answer I expected.
Well, if you want to bring up specifics… maybe I would be agreeing with you right now!
I’m happy to bring up one huge example: turn the pumps on in the Delta and allow our farmers a chance to earn a living rather than hold their water hostage over a tiny fish and short-sided judge.
All I was asking was for you to prove your comment since you like to call out Crowley and others for misrepresenting what the article says. I’ll take your deflection as the answer I expected.
NOT a Bingo! My post is not ABOUT Wisckol’s little item, I merely gave him what we bloggers call a “hat tip.” My post was basically MY reaction to the study that Marty pointed me to. Again, no reason for me to painstakingly report all of Marty’s reactions. This is not at all what Crowley sometimes does that I object to – claim that an article he links to says something completely different than it really says if you bother to read it.
I’m happy to bring up one huge example: turn the pumps on in the Delta and allow our farmers a chance to earn a living rather than hold their water hostage over a tiny fish and short-sided judge.
You know… I’ll look into that one. I know that Sean Hannity has taken it up as a big cause celebre. And some Democrats, notably Dianne Feinstein, are on the side of these (big) farmers too. But then I’ve also heard there are a lot of jobs at stake on the other side – fishing jobs. If I remember right, the loss of these stoopid tiny fish is starving off, or driving off, bigger fish. Sounds like a complicated issue. No wonder I’ve been ignoring it. Want to post a couple links?
“I’m sure you missed the report that 47% of Americans don’t even pay taxes.”
Not according to the CBO. “Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html?scp=2&sq=taxes&st=cse
MQ,
“Feel free to hate my guts, it makes me smile – but remember hate and being in a teachers’ union are not good for the soul!”
A) I don’t care enough about you to actually “hate” you, I do however like to call you out on your hypocrisy and ignorance, both of which you freely spew all over the OJ Blog.
B) I am NOT now, nor have I ever been a teacher, a union member or a government employee, just a little more of your MQ idiocy and ignorance shining through.
Anonster. Hopefully we can all get past hatred and conduct an active debate on the posts themselves
Thanks Vern- you’re a star:)
” I am NOT now, nor have I ever been a teacher, a union member or a government employee, just a little more of your MQ idiocy and ignorance shining through.”
MQ says:
You are the UNION – relax don’t take it so hard!
I’m just calling you out on what you are and how you come a cross!
All i can say is, “the poor will never create one single job”.
If the people who work hard keep getting hit to pay for the poor then they will just stop working – what is the point of busting your butt to enable some drug addicts habit or another countries failure to provide for its people!
What will the poor do when they can no longer get their food stamps and Calworks check??
MQ. While not a perfect illustration to say you are mistaken, let me share this true story from another. web site. PS: Many, many years ago I worked at Emerson Radio in Jersey City, NJ. My boss’s boss, a VP named Harvey T., lacked a high school degree yet climbed the ladder of success due to his hard work. The following is another true account of a self made millionaire, Chris Gardner, who started with nothing.
““A slow walk to Wall Street is how others describe my life,” says Gardner.
Once he had decided to become a stockbroker, Gardner immediately set out to find an investment firm that would give him a chance. In one brokerage firm, Gardner finally found a manager of a training program who was willing to give him a shot. However, when Gardner showed up for his first day of work, the manager who had hired him had been fired and no one else had ever heard of Gardner or his new position. He left with his hopes disappointed.
Nevertheless, Gardner didn’t give up on his dreams. He continued to seek out investment firms, taking odd jobs to pay the bills in the meantime. Dean Witter, a San Francisco-based brokerage firm was interested in Gardner but refused to bring him on board before putting him through ten months of interviews. It would be a grueling ten months.
In this seemingly short period of time, not only would Gardner’s girlfriend run off with their son and all of his belongings, but Gardner would also find himself penniless and in jail. After running Gardner’s car license plates, a police officer discovered that he had $1,200 worth of fines for unpaid parking tickets. Gardner was sent to jail for ten days, with his release date just one day before his final interview with Dean Witter.
Gardner showed up for his interview in a T-shirt and dirty jeans. He could have fabricated some heroic story to explain his appearance. Instead, Gardner decided to tell the truth. In plain terms, Gardner told his interviewer that the mother of his son had ran off with his child, that he was broke, and that he has just gotten out of jail the day before. As luck would have it, the interviewer had recently been through a nasty divorce and could sympathize with Gardner. He was immediately given a position in the company’s training program.
Soon after landing his new job, Gardner’s ex-girlfriend returned with their 18-month-old son, leaving him with his father and promptly taking off again. Since the house Gardner was staying at didn’t allow children, the pair found themselves living on the street. “The truth is, I was homeless before Chris came, I just didn’t know,” says Gardner. “I was just functionally homeless – living with friends, staying a night over here, a couple of days over there. Now, with Chris, I had to face it.”
Eventually, the father and son began to scrape by in a $10-a-night motel, while Gardner continued to study for his broker’s exam. “I was homeless, but I wasn’t hopeless,” he says. “I knew a better day was coming.” They were given refuge in a shelter for single mothers until Gardner had earned his license, after which time his persistence in cold calling earned him the attention of executives at Bear Stearns, who offered him a job. After the company went public in the late 1980s, Gardner saw his sphere of influence shrink and decided to strike out on his own.
In 1987, Gardner launched his own brokerage firm in Chicago, Gardner Rich. “If you look around the country, no city has fostered more Black entrepreneurs than Chicago,” he says. Gardner quickly began to land major clients for his new company, including the pension fund of the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Since then, his business has continued to take off and Gardiner hasn’t looked back.
“It’s not just my story,” says Gardiner of his autobiographical book, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, which has also recently been turned into a major motion picture. “It’s the story of a lot of people who grew up and took a lot of crap – and decided, ‘I’m going the other way.’”
ww –
You’re right, I should have said paid no income taxes. But the concept is correct. Even the article notes that the 47% number is not wrong. The liberal writer of the article you linked to just didn’t like that number, so he used the CBO data (the CBO didn’t actually come up with the writer’s 10% number, so-called “tax experts” he talked to did) to advance his 10% number which is more palatable for his “progressive” mind. By the way, we all know how reliable the CBO data is. After all, they have “predicted” that Obamacare will actually reduce the deficit.
Vern/#22, I just returned to the computer after several hours and so I am responding to your comment up the chain a bit. I am glad that I gave you some gristle to chew on.
To answer all your questions: Yes, people who use services should pay more than those that do not, be it Medicaid or public schools.
Your post insinuates that those who are wealthier should pay more simply because they are wealthy, regardless of how much or whether they use certain service. That is, in my trite terms, “commie” (or at very least the textbook definition of socialism, to use a less baited term). I reject the worldview that one person has a right to the product of another person’s labor without paying for it, regardless of whether it is in the form of taxation or some other wealth redistribution scheme. While I think many Americans would say that they share that basic sentiment, poll after poll shows that many people think they do in fact have a right to other people’s wealth – whether it be use of taxes to bailout banks, borrowers of so-called toxic loans, the auto industry, the poor, the unemployed, the uninsured . . . and my list could go on. Unfortunately the America we now live in is more of a socialist state than some very notable socialist states.
As for the social compact you point to, we are not England. We do not have an unwritten constitution; ours is written and it is the only compact worth discussing. Problematically, most decision makers in our country do not really feel it is a limitation on their power, nor do average Americans think it creates limits on the goodies that the government can bestow on them at the expense of wealth creators. Indeed, until 1913 we didn’t have a federal income tax, and the constitution had to be amended to impose it.
I believe if you look back at the Foudners as our guide to what government should be (since you cited to them), as opposed to what it has become, you will find their vision of government and the proper place of charity in society (which I guess would be a social compact too, but a non-mandatory and voluntary one) is much closer to my position and less close to yours. You’d have to wait for FDR to come along nearly 150 years later to see any true inkling of the social compact you believe exists.
Personally, I’d love to see the government continue to spend money like the drunken sailor it is and spend itself into oblivion and bankruptcy. Since the American public seem to have no restraint to stop spending or urging their representatives to do so, that day may in fact come.
Well, sir, we differ.
Gotta run… (someone else take over?)
Hi Larry,
Great story – What this story and my own story proves that poverty is a state of being.
I believe as i said., “the poor do not great job’s”. Industrial people do!
You are asking what is the difference?
Most poor people live a poor life (content with their situation) and industrial people may not have money but they have a goal and and desire to be all they can be in this world.
I like Mr. Gardner have something in common – desire and a goal to make life better for our kids. His motivation was his son. My motivation to well in this country is to give my kids a life that i could have only dreamed of!
So what i think i am saying is, “Having no money does not make you poor.. I think Mr. D. Trump would agree, he has been broke many times!
I think the below statement by Mr. Gardiner says it all:
“I was homeless, but I wasn’t hopeless,” he says. “I knew a better day was coming”
Sorry for the typo’s larry:(
Good night and all the best:)
Vern can you fix my post??:)
NO! I like you talking about “industrial people.” It makes me picture a tribe of indestructible Horatio Algers, Chris Gardners, and Will Smiths with gears and motors for hearts and livers, and iron claws for hands, Ministry tracks blasting forth when they open their mouths.
With all my awesome new responsibilities and duties, I’m not feeling industrious enough to correct your comments!
You’re right – maybe industrial – strength would be a better way to put it!
And its ok that you not feeling industrious enough to correct me – it really takes industrial – strength for me to write on this blog most days.. It scares me so many people out there in this world think like anonster and in some cases like you!
Good night Vern – I wish you all the best of luck with your awesome responsibilities:)