Are We All Created Equal?

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote what has become one of the most quoted American principles, that in this country we believe that “all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights that among these are of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

What did it really mean?

When it was written it surely referred only to white men since women were not free to vote and people brought to our shores as slaves were certainly given only a very limited freedom with which to pursue happiness. Until the middle of the 19th century, slaves were still considered to be property. And surely American Indians were not considered equal nor were Chinese Coolies who were brought in to work on the rail system.

Well, now even though there is still discrimination based on race, gender or national origin, most Americans would say that they believe that all Americans and perhaps even all people are equally human and should receive equal opportunity to excel (as long as it does not interfere with our own ambitions and those of our loved ones). 

But are we all created equal?

Do we all have equal parents, equal genes, equal intelligence, equal attractiveness, equal health, equal education, equal experiences, equal financial security, equal integrity, equal talent, equal perseverance or equal faith?  Are all doctors, or athletes, or lawyers, or teachers, or parents equal?  Are all of our sub-cultures equal at least relatively?  Do we all have equal opportunity to succeed in whatever we attempt? Do we all enjoy life to the same degree or even close to the same degree?

Is the illegitimate child of a junkie living in the projects really equal in any of these respects to the child of a loving, well educated and well-to-do family that can send their child to the best schools and share the most enriching environments? Do children raised around the worst possible role models really have an equal chance at the future?

And when the children born of advantage manage to succeed, is that success and all that goes with it really theirs alone?  Should they feel free to look down at those who were much less fortunate for not turning their lives around?  Should the financially well-compensated resent having to give significant percentages of their generous incomes to help those who have not fared as well?  Should they cite survival of the fittest as their battle cry against sharing the wealth?

I think that these questions are relevant because we are now forced to consider raising taxes very significantly on the rich in order to help those who have inadequate education, health insurance, housing, nutrition and/or opportunity.  We must do it not only because it is the decent thing to do but because even if we do not really believe that each American citizen has an equal right to succeed, we each believe deep down that we are just as human as the next person.

We all have thoughts and feelings, we all have bodies that are mortal and vulnerable. We all need food, water and air to live, we all must sleep and eliminate our waste products and we all bleed when cut. We all feel pleasure and pain. We all want to survive and to live in relative comfort and security. We all want to love and be loved in return. We are all trying to maintain or improve our self-esteem - our reputation with ourselves.  

I think that this is the cause of most crime. The inherent feeling in the criminal that he is somehow equal to those he preys upon even though their lives seem otherwise. The car thief may be thinking that he deserves that nice car just as much as its rightful owner does. The businessman who cheats his clients may believe deep down that they don’t really deserve to have their money as much as he does. The suicide bomber, so common now in the Middle East, may figure that if he can’t be equal in this lifetime, maybe he can get a leg up on the hereafter.

Not that this is any excuse for improper behavior, but it is an explanation.

Is it then our society’s responsibility to level the playing field so that people in our country can have some real hope for success in this land of presumed equality?

To this end, should those fortunate enough to be able to earn and control tremendous amounts of money be obliged to share more of their wealth with the less fortunate to make up for disadvantages in health care coverage, education, housing and nutrition access? Would this discourage hard work, creativity and risk-taking among the advantaged while only making the unfortunates more dependent and less likely to succeed on their own in the future? Should we let nature work its evolutionary magic on the future of our people? Or should we institute a caste system allowing a certain segment of our society to remain above the rest and another that will forever be at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid?

We could then say that we are all equal but that some are more so than others as they did in Animal Farm.

I think that I have an answer for these questions.

Today, in America, its 300 million citizens, be they male or female, young or old, black, white, yellow, brown or red, rich or poor should be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness to their maximum potential and no American should be homeless, hungry, ignorant or without medical attention when needed.  Every American is at least equally deserving of these basic rights.

While each individual is responsible for his or her actions, it falls on society to seek concurrence about what the society should be like and what each member is expected to do toward that end.  While parents must teach their children, the parents must have a guide, a lesson plan.  That plan should come from the consensus and it should be taught in our schools and reinforced in the workplace and offices of government.

Without taking a nationwide poll, it is possible to come up with certain values that members of our society can agree on. We can agree that while business has the right to make a profit, it does not have a right to become greedy or gluttonous.  The profit a business makes must be a result of completely honest business practices.  Companies and individuals should be held accountable for maintaining high standards of integrity.

While we all can agree that some people deserve greater compensation for their work than others, the degree of difference must be within reason.  One person’s work product may be worth ten or twenty times that of another, it should not be thousands of times greater as it is now for movie stars, super athletes, financiers, CEO’s and opinionators (like Glenn, Sean, Rush, Bill O. and Savage).

Could we realize that while we each are different, excelling in some areas but not in others, we each are here for a reason and we are necessary parts of an infinite whole?  Just as the nose is better at smelling, the foot is better for walking and our eyes are better for seeing. Each part of the human body is different but necessary for the functioning of the entire body.  Every part deserves to get blood and oxygen even though some parts seem to be bigger consumers than others.

In our human drama, it seems that even the people with the least to offer have an important role to play.  If we were equal physically, there would be no cause for compassion. If we were all equally gifted, there would be no cause for kindness.  If we all acted equally there would be no cause for tolerance.

Let us strive to ensure that all Americans receive at least the basic ingredients for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Surely we are all equal to that much human dignity.

Ridding The World of Bad Words

Lately, certain words usually only referred to by using their first letter, have been identified for elimination.  What these words represent and the effect they have on people have made these forbidden words unworthy of human utterance.

There is the “N” word that is used extensively in America’s most famous novel, “Huckleberry Finn.”  Since this word appears more than 200 times in Mark Twain’s book, many schools refused to let their students read it.  Recently, a new edition was published substituting the “n” word with the word “slave,” considered a much more tolerable label for human beings.

During a recent governor’s race, someone in the background used the “w” word about a candidate during a telephone call made by his opponent.  The word was meant to highlight this female candidate’s willingness to do anything for money.  The woman feigned great offense to her new title in such a way that the name seemed too good to describe her. She claimed that the word was an affront to every woman in the state. But was it a sexist slur? Should it no longer be used?

Now there is a movement to get people to stop using the “r” word out of consideration for people with learning challenges.  Using this word with any reference should be stopped, immediately, advocates urge.

And then there is the word so bad that I don’t even use its letter.  It is the one between “e” and “g.” While it describes what most people seem to greatly enjoy, it is considered unspeakable.  There is now a record using the full word in its title and throughout the song.  Is this pushing artistic freedom too far? Can this word followed by the second person singular be used at least when listening to a terribly dishonest politician lie on T.V.? (I must admit that at times I get so upset at disingenuous congressmen that I sometimes yell out “letter between “e” and “g” to your second person singular” while watching them on T.V.  I can only hope that nobody has heard me.)

What other words should be limited to just their first initial if mentioned at all?

Surely all words that can be deemed racial or ethnic slurs could be banned or limited to their first initial.  We could have the “J” word, the “k” word (the worse, though lower case, version of the prior letter’s word), the “C” word (or the Ch if allowed two letters), the “P” word (all the jokes would be “P” jokes) and so on.

Then there are the words that denigrate character, like the “w” word that was so politicized recently.  There could be the initialization of the “l” word for people who don’t speak the truth, the “p” word for those who appear too gluttonous, and the “g” word for those of us who like airing the laundry of our friends and acquaintances. 

But then we come to words like the “r” word.  These words add insult to injury.  They help us point out and ridicule the physical or mental shortcomings of others.  Words like “stupid,” “ugly,” “moron,” “dumb,” “homely,” “short,” “stubby,” “coward,” “dimwit,” and “slug,” could be forever banned because of the hurt they cause those given these labels which are frontal assaults on their self-esteem and feelings of adequacy.

There is another solution, one that would save countless adjectives that could be reconditioned and used for peaceful purposes.  Rather than limiting the kind of words available for use, why not work on creating and nurturing a culture that has such understanding and compassion that such words lose their negative meaning?  Not only would we be beyond even considering expressing vulgarity or insensitivity, the victims of even the then very occasional use of these terms would see them only as sad reflections of the speakers, and have compassion for their ignorance and apparent feelings of inadequacy.

But can a culture change? This question has risen in the minds of many watching the events in the Middle East and Northern Africa.  Can these cultures change what seems to be their collective DNA?  Can tribal nations come together as one people?  Can education and exposure to the civilized world help them radically change their brutal attitudes, beliefs and behaviors?

The same could be asked about ours.  Can we wean ourselves away from the violence and greed that drives some of our worst behavior?  Can the elite learn to take less and give more? Can we spread intelligence and consideration to all corners and all aspects of our culture?  Can we come together to end poverty and its resultant crime in our land?  Can we come to learn that bigger is not always better and that more is sometimes less?  Can our politicians stop their petty squabbling and partisan rhetoric and try their best to solve our country’s pressing problems?

I think that the answer is “yes” for us and an almost “maybe” for some of the other cultures mentioned. Germany and Japan changed dramatically after World War II.  I think that we are seeing that happening in China and India.  Even in the Middle East there is the beginning of a recognition that their way doesn’t work anymore and probably never did.  It will take them a while to realize that first they must stop subjugating women even if that makes the men feel even more inadequate. Men there will not be free of their tyrants until they stop being tyrants to their women.

We will never to ban enough bad words to make all our people feel that their self esteem is not under assault.  But we can work harder to ban ignorance and perhaps, to give all our people reason to have high self esteem making using negative terms against others unimaginable.

Cherchez Les Femmes

Lately, we have heard much about men behaving badly, especially with women.  After we were starting to process the notion of celibate Catholic priests having sex with young boys, we became bombarded with tales of prominent people disgracing themselves with women.

Yes, many years ago there was the contender for the Presidential nomination of his party when he was caught on a yacht with a very attractive young woman on his lap. We got over that thinking that the woman could have done a lot better.  But while that was tame, it ended the man’s political career.

But then we were forced to hear all about our former and, for many, favorite President having sex with a young intern in the Oval Office.  And we had to watch and hear him lie about it again and again.  Why did he do it?  He said that he did it because he could.

During the prosecution of this President for impeachment, we learned that his accusers and his consolers were also involved in extra marital liaisons at that very time.  There was the Speaker who had an affair while his wife was dying of cancer, divorced his wife, married his mistress, then had an affair, divorced his second wife and married his second mistress.  Another major opposition leader was forced to resign because of his activities in someone else’s bedroom.  And the President’s spiritual consoler was at the time advocating repentance, while fathering an illegitimate child, much to his wife’s surprise.

But most recently we have had several governors caught having affairs while married and in office.  The Carolinian who claimed to be out hiking the trails while he was in fact in South America with the new love of his life. There was the New York governor who got caught paying a fortune for a high class prostitute but, the press was slow to note, he had been doing this for many years, not just once, and was doing this while at the same time prosecuting every other house of prostitution in his state.  There was the New Jersey governor who was forced out of office because of his infidelity to his wife with another man.  And now we have the former governor of the largest state admitting to an affair with his maid for an extended period of time and resulting in the birth of an illegitimate child. And, of course, there is the popular, populist candidate for President and Vice President denying reports that he too had cheated on his faithful wife who was dying of cancer.  He then admitted the affair but denied paternity of the resulting offspring.  He has since acknowledged his parental role in the child’s life and has been indicted on several felonies. The wife he betrayed is no longer alive to witness his complete fall from grace.

Recently we were informed of a sexual assault by a man of great importance in the world of finance, a possible candidate for the Presidency of France.  He is accused of attacking a hotel maid.  Not to be outdone, a high ranking Egyptian executive, ten years the Frenchman’s senior, raped another maid at another fancy hotel in the same town.

And then this:  A dynamic New York congressman has admitted sending strange but sexual pictures to six women who had contacted him because of his political appeal.  He was trying to turn it into another kind of appeal.  And all this from a newly and happily married man, soon to be a father and, perhaps, a bachelor. 

What does it all mean?

I think that it means that somehow the mechanism hard-wired into most males of the species to want sex to produce offspring, has gone out of control.  The male members must be  attracted to the female members for the the species to survive, but it’s going too far.

It seems that the more the stress of modern life has threatened this natural urge to merge, the more we have done to stimulate it. But as we have seen in other parts of the world, it doesn’t need stimulation and seems even greatest when repressed.  Besides the thousands of examples of this in the behavior of Catholic priests, we see this throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa.  There, the respective cultures tried to rein in this strong urge in their men by covering up the women.  The reason women there must sometimes be covered from head to toe even in hot weather is to keep the men from being so tempted by their feminine charms that they will try to have sex with them or at least try for some unwelcome physical contact.  As we have learned from women in Northern Africa that even when fully covered, women are repeatedly subjected to unwanted touching and feeling.

A group of radical religious followers is fighting our troops in Afghanistan.  People might ask themselves, what they are fighting for.  It is not land or power nor for money, glory or freedom - it is for the right to continue to treat their women like possessions - objects with no personal consciousness or rights.  The Taliban fighters fear that their women will become educated and learn about life in other places and no longer put up with the way they are treated.  The women will learn that they have alternatives.

And now while Arab men are rising up and demanding freedom from tyranny, they are unwilling to grant the same right to their women - their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.

We see the Western cultures also mistreating their women, albeit in much gentler, more subtle ways. While Western  men would never sanction the vicious forms of abuse reported in the Middle East and Africa, they think nothing much about looking at women as sex objects rather than as the subjects of admiration they actually are. Now the French are rethinking their attitudes toward and treatment of their own women.

Lately, we have heard about American men sending revealing photographs of themselves or, at least, of specific parts of themselves, in the vain hopes of capturing a woman’s heart or at least her body. These men don’t realize that women are not like men.  They are not into porn pictures of men.  If being one of the greatest quarterbacks in history is not enough to get you a cheerleader, a picture of part of your anatomy won’t make a difference.  And pictures of men naked above the waist are not even appealing to men who are into men. 

So what are we men to do? How can many of us help ourselves from thinking of doing things that we know we shouldn’t for the love of or, rather,  lust for women?

Perhaps, it would help to realize that what we are responding to is a vestigial impulse that is no longer necessary.  We do not have to impregnate many women in order to preserve the species. There are six billion of us humans now, we can slow down and each have, at most, one offspring.  Our desire to have our way with every woman who appeals to us no longer has a proper function.  We can remember what this column repeats frequently - that we can treat each person and activity as ends in themselves and not only as means to other ends.  We are all subjects as well as objects and should be treated accordingly.

And, we must always remember that women are the very flower of creation, G-d saved the best for last.

Punctuation Marks in the Grammar of Life

A long running cosmological theory is that the Creator spoke the physical world using the Hebrew alphabet.  The old Testament does begin with the Lord saying “Let there be light” in Hebrew. The proponents of this idea also believe that each moment still depends on His speech to exist. This cosmology introduces the idea of life being linked to language. The basic structure of language is grammar.  The primary component of grammar is the sentence consisting of a subject, object and verb as in “I love you” or “I eat food” or “I lost my gloves.” 

If you look at grammar and religion, the similarity comes more into focus.  The essence of Christianity is the Holy Trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Eastern religions believe that life’s duality is an illusion (maya) and that all is one. Judaism is also based on this premise: “Adenoi echad” - G-d is one.

So Christianity believes in the subject, object and verb. The Father, the Creator, is the subject and his creation - his son - is the object and the Holy Ghost is the verb, the act or process of creating.

Some of the Eastern religions believe that while there appears to be a subject and object, an I and Thou, there is just the one. Zen, however,  suggests that while  there is only one there are also two, hence the Koan “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” or “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is the subject who has consciousness and the object that cannot be said to exist without an awareness of its presence. A clap cannot occur without both hands - a subject and an object.

So when asked “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” the answer is “consciousness.”

We insert our own punctuation marks in the grammar of our lives.

 If we work Monday through Friday, then the weekend provides our period (.) after the end of our Friday work-day sentence.  If we work days, evenings supply us with commas and occasional semi-colons to get us through the week.
If we are students, our semester breaks are like new paragraphs, our year-end final exams mark the end of one chapter and the predictable beginning of the next.

Then there are vacations, holidays, illness, and daily lunch hours to break up our living sentences.  We also have our other meal times, rest periods and favorite T.V. shows to further divide up our daily labors (the way parentheses and “quotation marks” do in sentences).

If nights and weekends are commas, semi colons and periods, holidays might be highlighting, italics or underlining.  So when we celebrate a birthday, we are highlighting the importance that person is to us. We appreciate the person every day, but on this one day a year we want to emphasize that inclination.  Legal holidays are the macro version of birthdays. 

While we are, or should be, grateful for our lives every day, this feeling is put in italics on the fourth Thursday in November.  While we love one another as the reflections of ourselves at almost every moment of our waking hours, we feel it especially underlined on the 25th of December. The same goes for our daily  patriotism on July 4, May 31st, June 14th and best of all on the 11th day of the 11th month; our daily renewal on the first day of the first month of the year ( Jewish Chinese Americans can celebrate the new year three times a year); our unquestionable respect and adoration for our parents on the days set aside to honor them and our perpetual respect for our founding fathers on President’s Day and Columbus Day (now known as something else to some) and on Martin Luther King Day, commemorating the founding father of civil rights..

For those of us born on a holiday, that day is highlighted, italicized and underlined.

When we retire we find that we have and need fewer punctuation marks in our daily lives. What are evenings, week-ends and holidays off when you have nothing to be off from?  (Though we still have mealtimes, our T.V shows [for those of us who admittedly watch it], daily walks, bathing and eliminating waste products to break up our daily sentences.)

Our retirement should give us much more time to insert commas, semi colons, exclamation points, question marks and periods whenever we want to and to highlight, italicize and underline all of our celebrated feelings every day and then, at every moment of every day, so that each single sentence that we experience will be pregnant with our constant awareness and appreciation.   

The Israel Issue

Once again the U.S. is trying to get a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine.  Israel was granted statehood by the League of Nations (which became the U.N.) after World War II which saw the death of more than half the Jewish population of the world.  The general region referred to as the Palestine was under British rule at the time.  The Palestine has been under many rules, but never has had self rule.  Israel had been the home of the Jewish people since the time of Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and of Islam, more than 4,000 years ago.  The word Israel is in almost every Jewish prayer. The Jews believe that the land was given to their people by G-d.

The 1948 agreement gave statehood to Israel with the boundaries limiting it to about 8,000 square miles.  Israel is surrounded by Arab countries which have approximately 8.6 million square miles (1000 times the size of Israel) in 21 countries with a current population of more than 360 million Arabs.  Israel has a current Jewish population of 5.3 million about the same number as those who reside in the U.S. The number of countries with majority Muslim populations including non-Arab countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Indonesia, is 47.

When Israel was recognized as a state so were several other countries in the world and in the region.  Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Iraq were some of the newly formed and recognized countries created during that time as were Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, to name a few.  Boundary lines were also moved after World War I in other countries like Hungary, Poland, Germany and Romania and for the entire Middle East after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

Now, in 2011, the world has watched the "Arab Spring."  Arabs in Northern African countries are revolting against their dictators who have ruled them almost since many of the nations were first created.  The Arabs claim that after all these years they want democracy and freedom from oppression.  But these same young, brave freedom fighters do not want the same for their own women nor for the Jewish people.

It isn’t enough that this ancient people who have done so much for the world in science, philosophy, art, and literature should be restricted to a mere 8,000 square miles of what had been arid waste land, the reborn Arabs do not want Israel to exist, at all.

And yet, seeing all this some in America side with the Arabs.  These people consider the Arabs the underdogs because 63 years ago some Arabs living in Israel were displaced.  At the same time Jews living in what became Jordan were also displaced.  But they cannot see Israel as the underdog even though it has one 68th the number of people and one 1000th the land mass that the Arabs do.


Some people feel that the Jews should not have a homeland because no country should be religion-oriented. They must concede that Muslims have 47 countries.  They say that is wrong too.  They must be reminded that the Jews are not only a religion, they are also a people, a nationality like Arabs or Italians or Mexicans.  And like all the other nationalities, they deserve a homeland, Israel.  The Arab people have 21 homelands, why can’t the Israelites have one the size of New Jersey?

So what is the solution to their situation?  Our President and their Prime Minister said it differently, but clearly.  Israel must go back to its pre 1967 borders plus swaps to ensure Israeli security.  The swaps would be that Israel keeps East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which they took in 1967 after all the surrounding Arab nations attacked Israel and were soundly defeated by this small struggling nation.  In exchange the Israelis would return the West Bank and all the Israeli settlements there which now accommodate 300,000 Israelis. (They have already returned the Sinai to Egypt and the Gaza to Palestine as prior peace gestures.)   Under this plan, Israel with its 6.5 million people (including 1.2 million Arabs) would have 8000 square miles while 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza would have 10,000 square miles or twice as much space per person than Israel would have. 

The land in the West bank and homes for 300,000 would be given to the Palestinians who could house the descendants of those Arabs displaced from Israel in the late 1940s. These “refugees” have been mostly kept in refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries for the past 63 years.  Refugees, not welcomed and integrated into their new home’s society, for 63 years!

This agreement would end the problem.  Everyone involved knows that this is the deal.  But the Palestinians are a divided camp.  The residents of Gaza given their independence by Israel voted in Hamas to lead them.  Hamas is a terrorist organization whose goal is the elimination of the Israeli state.  They have now formed a coalition with Fatah, the governing power of the West Bank.  Even if Fatah wants to accept this deal, their partner can’t and at the same time say that Israel cannot exist.

I think that it’s high time that we realize who the true underdog is in this drama.  It is Israel, the little country,  one tenth of one percent the size of its hostile neighbors.

If the Arab states said that they would not longer use any weapons to attack others or even to defend themselves, there would be peace in the Middle East.  If Israel said that it would disarm completely and not fight even to defend itself, it would be destroyed in days.

Now who’s the underdog?

A Simple Income Tax

There is much discussion now about reducing the $14 trillion accumulated federal budget deficit and to begin by attacking the $1.5 trillion annual deficit.  There has been much huffing and puffing, with the Republicans trying to make it seem that they are forcing the President and his party to cut our debt by threatening to not increase the nation’s debt ceiling which would cause financial markets to collapse and probably lead to a worldwide recession.  The Republicans claim that they must do this now because it has been kicked down the road for too many years.

The deficit issue was dealt with by President Clinton in the 90s.  We were on track to have a $2 trillion surplus by now.  The deficit was caused by Bush II who got us into two costly and unnecessary wars while drastically cutting taxes, especially for the rich, his base.  The result was an economic disaster of epic or even biblical proportions.  His tax cuts did not add jobs to the economy but did make our richest much richer.

The tax cuts that Bush put in place were scheduled to expire this year but were extended for two years in a deal the President made with Congress.  These cuts cost us hundreds of billions a year in lost revenue.  Our two wars add another $200 billion a year and our more than 700 military bases around the world, cost us another $600 billion.  When all defense related costs are added in such as CIA military operations, VA benefits, State Department related costs, the total defense cost is more than One trillion dollars each year. While Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid  account for 40% of our budget, the cost of these safety net programs is paid from special trust funds that come from payroll taxes paid by past and current employees and their employers.  Their cost, therefore, does not affect our budget deficit, at all.

It is clear that the major budget cuts must come from defense spending which has been supplemented by vastly increased expenditures in our intelligence community since 9/11.  Fraud and waste in government programs as well as foreign aid, farm subsidies and tax breaks for large oil companies must be dramatically reduced.  But spending cuts are not enough.  The tax code must be changed to not only generate more revenue, but to also be simpler, fairer and less cumbersome.

I propose a very simple federal income tax for individuals.  It would be designed for one purpose - to collect revenue for needed government functions.  It would no longer be used to encourage or discourage behavior.  It would be as Senator John McCain described it - the redistribution of wealth.  That is what taxes are supposed to be.

Under my plan all income would be counted and combined for a single total.  So the salary, interest, dividends, capital gains, Social Security benefit payments, pensions and luxury voluntary fringe benefits (like optional Cadillac health plans or take home cars) would all be added together for each individual or family return.  There would be only a standard deduction, around $15,000 for an individual, $30,000 for a family.  There would be no other deductions.  The total net income, which would not include mandatory payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare, would then be taxed using only four or five tax brackets.

 As an example imagine that there is a couple that earned $50,000 in net salary, $20,000 in Social Security benefit payments, $10,000 in interest and $5,000 in capital gains.  The total is $85,000.  The couple would deduct $30,000 in a standard deduction, leaving them a net income of $55,000.  The first $50,000 could be at a 10%  tax rate or, in this case, $5,000.  The remaining $5,000 of net income would be taxed at 15% or, in this case, $750.  The total tax would be $5,750 or 6.7% of their gross income.

As another example, imagine there is a couple who earned $200,000 in salary and $300,000 in capital gains and received a free executive car for their personal use worth $10,000 in gas and depreciation.  Their total would be $510,000 (unless they opted out of the free car).  Using the standard deduction, they would net $480,000.  The first $50,000 would be at 10%.  The second $50,000 (from $50,001-$100,000) would be taxed at 15%.  The next $150,000 would be taxed at 20% and the remaining $230,000 (net income over $250,000) would be taxed 25%.  (Incomes over $1 million could be taxed at 30%.)  So in this case, the couple would owe $5,000+$7,500+$30,000+$57,500 = $100,000 in taxes. That equals a 20.8% tax on their gross income. 

The taxes owed could be figured and reported in a matter of minutes.  There would be no loopholes and there would be no attempt to use the code to encourage larger families by giving deductions for each child; to get renters to buy homes; to reimburse some of the cost of college tuition; to deduct some excess medical costs; to support the use of green energy; to provide earned income credit or making-work-pay credits.  It would be simple, easy, clear, fair and would raise our revenues by more than $200 billion a year by getting the very rich to pay more than their current average of about 15% and would tax more people who now don't  pay any tax at all. 

The only real loser in this plan is the income tax preparer.  People in this profession would have to focus on corporate taxes including for the self-employed who would still have business-related deductions and a tax code which is very complex and should also be streamlined.

There you have it.  My answer to the budget crisis.  Stay tuned for my plan to save Social Security and Medicare.

    

Numbers Count, Size Matters

One effect of our de-emphasis on math in this country is that we have stopped thinking with numbers, preferring descriptive adjectives that are more forgiving and less intimidating.  Instead of saying that it is 3,280 feet high, we say that it was very tall.  Instead of saying that the car was 183 inches long, we say that it is a compact. Instead of being told that our cholesterol is 150 or 205, we are told that it is normal and we accept that.

We now see this happening in the media.  San Francisco’s major daily has been moving away from numbers on every front.  First it was the stock market results.  All stocks traded on the New York or American stock exchange had always been listed daily showing their most recent prices as well as past highs and lows.  This was then abbreviated to showing only the major stocks. And now there are just a few highlights.  They then contracted out their entire business section to gain further distance from the tyranny of numbers.  They still use numbers to describe the weather but that also has been contracted out to a national service that seems to think that the San Francisco airport is in downtown San Francisco, especially for rainfall totals.

It turns out that somehow rainfall totals for San Francisco have always been contentious not to mention inaccurate.  There always seems to be a bias toward understating rainfall totals in order to prolong the illusion of a drought. In the mid 90s, as we were drowning in heavy rainfall, the media kept insisting that the drought was still with us.  (It ended the career of a respected investigative reporter when a she persisted to report the drought even as record high totals were being witnessed.)  This year, it took the State until the beginning of May to announce an end to the drought even though our totals for this year are as high as 150% of normal and our reservoirs are overflowing.  This year San Francisco is on track to have had a record rainfall year, but you don’t hear much talk about it. Some people, apparently, have something to gain by keeping the “D” word constantly in play.

Our same daily paper also has told its very small band of news reporters to refrain from using numbers in their reports.  (Sports reporters are exempt from this so far, but who knows?  They might have to start reporting just who won and who lost without using the actual scores.) Perhaps they want to avoid making factual errors or maybe they want to soften the effect hard numbers might have on their readers. 

But numbers have their place, especially when describing finite objects. Numbers help us make more precise evaluations so that we can make the best choices.  Sometimes a bigger number is better, but I find that, more often than not, size matters and smaller could very well be better.

We have seen this repeatedly with American fashion:  Remember when women’s shoulder pads that made them look like linebackers in uniform? Until recently men wore jackets that were several sizes too large. We are still designing and producing men’s shorts and bathing suits that are so long that they appear to be attempting to conceal as much as possible while making the wearer look as unappealing as he can be.  They cannot be described as “shorts” and should be referred to as “mediums” or “knee-lows.” There were times when men’s ties were clearly much too wide and suit jackets had lapels that were grossly oversized.  Now we have a craze among some to wear pants many sizes too large so that they settle much too low and leave the wearers looking clown-like in their baggy length.

And as mentioned in an earlier column, watches have gotten too big since Rolex underwater watches got popular in the 60s.

And, of course, there is the debate about our national budget crisis with no one providing the actual numbers to make the choices clearer.  No one mentions that though Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid take up a sizable part of our $3.5 trillion annual budget, all the money comes from separate trust funds and their costs do not add to our budget deficit and won’t for at least 15-25 years.  No one mentions that the biggest item is defense at more than $800 billion a year funding two unnecessary wars and staffing more than 700 bases oversees to protect the citizens of other countries from possible attack from a Soviet Union that no longer exists and a North Korea, which can barely feed its own people.

But what most concerns me at this moment is the size of American family cars and the public’s unawareness of the vast variations.  What American car companies call a compact car is what I consider a large car, but I use actual numbers to describe their differences. 

Family cars sold in America range in size from about 147 inches for the Mini Cooper to about 223 for the Cadillac Escalante.  That’s a 76 inch or 6.3 foot difference.  And like Goldilocks, I think that some are too small but many are too large and some are just right.  I believe that a small car should be around 165 inches long - about the size of a VW beetle, VW Golf, Honda Fit, Mini Coachman (the new four-door), the Audi A3, etc.  The next size still acceptable and roomier is around 175-180 inches long and is found in cars like the BMW 1 and 3 series, the Audi A4, the VW Jetta, Mercedes C class, Volvo 50, etc.

I think that the largest size should be no more than 190 inches.  There are many examples of this size as well.

The only problem is that America car companies are not producing quality small cars.  American buyers and car makers seem to not really see the problem. The large cars and SUVs many of us are driving are not only gas guzzlers and a danger to more reasonably sized vehicles, they are also much more difficult and less fun to drive than smaller cars.  And they are easier to park.

Yes, Chevy and Ford do have some smaller cars, but who wants them?  Who even knows what they are?  The Chevy has the Aveo and the Cruze. The former is 170 inches and the latter is 180.  Ford has the Fiesta at 174 inches and the Focus at 178. How do they compare with the smaller European cars named above?  

I strongly believe that the American car producers should begin the process, as they did in the early 60’s, of building high quality, attractive, and exciting, cars that also have great fuel economy and are small but roomy.  After the great VW Beetle invasion of the early 60’s, American car companies began making small and appealing cars.  There was the Pontiac Tempest/Lemans, the Chevy Corvair, the Oldsmobile Cutlass, the Buick Skylark, the Rambler Metropolitan, the Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valient, and the Dodge Lancer, to name a few.

But each one of these models either grew significantly in size or disappeared.  The Tempest/Lemans grew in every way to become the mighty G.T.O by 1964.  The Corvair was killed single-handedly by a young upstart named Nader. The Skylark, Valient, Lancer, and Falcon grew a little and then disappeared. The Metropolitan, which started in the 50s and was as cute as cute can be, just disappeared.

The American car industry decided to go the other way.  Instead of making excellent small cars, they decided that they would make high-powered, large cars.  Then they realized they could take cheap pick-up trucks, doll them up with more seats and a covered truck bed, call them S.U.V.s and people would be willing to spend big bucks for them choosing comfort, imagined safety and size over small and economic cars.

The Japanese and Europeans jumped in to fill our small-car gap.

I would like to see a small, elegant, attractive and economical model for each of the six car lines:  a 165 inch Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford and Lincoln as well as a 175-180 inch model in each line and maybe one top-of-the-line model of no more than 190 inches for the premium lines using their old premium names: Cadillac Eldorado or Fleetwood , Buick Roadmaster,  Chrysler Imperial and Lincoln Continental. The small Chevy could be called the Monza.

I have not included Dodge in this list because I think that it should and will be discontinued as a car line and become, like Jeep and GMC, a truck line.

I think in order for this reduced-size car plan to succeed, Americans must become more number conscious. 

But if we as a people are to become more number conscious, we must become more attentive to our everyday events and much more accurate in our descriptions.  This is not a bad thing.  It is nice to pay attention and to be able to clearly and precisely describe objects or events.

Numbers really do count and size really does matter, even if we are not aware of it.