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Barstool Economics - The Graduated Income Tax System

The following analysis relates to the U.S. tax system, which is based on barstool economics principles.

But, is the answer blithely to go on, making the productive class pay for other people's beer? Or, is it to expect everyone to pay for his own beer?

And should the role of the bartender (the state) really be to decide how to apportion everyone's wealth... after collecting all available wealth for himself, that is: should the bartender be allowed to take from Peter to pay for himself and Paul?

Doesn't that concept predictably result in class conflict and eventual revolution ?

Wouldn't it be better that Peter and Paul remain friends and the bartender be required to confine his activities to merely tending bar and prohibited from selling any more beer than his independent, un-coerced customers (the 'free market') can pay for ?

"Oh, heavens, no!", you say. (Since passage of the graduated income tax, we've been taught that such an approach would be "communism"...)

Oh yes... left out of the good professor's 'barstool' analysis is where/how the ten men got the money in their pockets, in the first place...

That would be the Federal Reserve Bank and 'our' usury-based monetary system... the here-unconsidered "rest of the story"...

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 bar, 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!'
'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 their beers without him.
But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money among all of them for even half the bill !

And that, boys and girls, 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.

 
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible...

 David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics, University of Georgia