The poor need to pay their fair share: enact the Equal Entertainment Act

Most of us know by now the startling fact that 47% of Americans who file tax returns annually have no net federal taxes due.  In other words, 53% of Americans pay all federal taxes seen flowing into the IRS coffers.

This is because our onerous, lumbering gargantuan tax code that has been patched together over the last 80 years or so by politicians trying to gain favor with voters via this tax code highly favors low income earners.  It's a progressive system - the more you earn, the higher your tax rate.  The lower you earn, the lower your rate.  And now once you are making no more than approximately $34,000 annually, this federal rate becomes effectively zero. 

Most of us taxpayers (us '53%-ers') would love to see this system scrapped in its entirety, and replaced with a national sales tax, a fair tax, a flat tax, anything but the current system.  And most of us taxpayers know that because politicians are who they are (spineless, gutless cowardly invertebrates), this will never happen.

There is, however, a solution: in order to get those 47 per centers (let's call them the poor) to start coughing up their fair share in taxes, the feds need only enact one law: The Equal Entertainment Act.  Every cowardly, spineless invertebrate politician could gladly support this law, since we all love entertainment.

The poor, like most Americans, need entertainment, and will pay for it regardless of the cost.  Drinking liquor is one of the favorite forms of entertainment for the poor.  They spend much of their money on this form of entertainment, many to the exclusion of some necessities like rent and utilities.  Jack up the taxes on this form of entertainment, and you will see the percentage of poor folks's taxes flowing into IRS hands increase significantly. 

Another form of entertainment that the poor love to engage in is gambling.  The poor love get-rich-quick schemes, and buying a lottery ticket will make someone very rich instantly.  Of course the poor never do the math on how that works, since the odds of winning a mega-million dollar lottery are much, much worse than getting struck by lightening 7 or 8 times.  Much worse.  But that doesn't matter in this discussion, since the poor love their lottery tickets, casinos, horse tracks, etc. so much that they spend enormous hunks of their disposable income on this form of entertainment, at times neglecting their child care payments, car payments and alimony payments. 

Simply install federal lotteries, federal casinos and federal horse and dog tracks in every community, large and small.  Build a casino on every corner.  The poor will flock to these like hungry southern mosquitos to a snow bird on a Florida beach.  The federal revenues will increase many fold, all on the backs of the poor.  And what is absolutely great about the Equal Entertainment Act, most of us 53%-ers don't have to pay this tax at all, since we can simply opt out of paying this tax and not buy lottery tickets, not go to the dog track, or not trudge on down to the local Costco to pick up a pallet of cheap vodka.

This legislation is guaranteed to solve the revenue problem of the 47%-ers not coughing up their fair share. 

Now, all of the social problems that will result in these poor people blowing all their money on entertainment, that's a discussion for a different time and place. 

Enact the Equal Entertainment Act Now.