This has been bothering me for a while. So here’s the deal:

Ten very close friends loved to spend a lot of time with each other, so they went out to dinner every night. Every night, the bill came out to $100. They all decided to pay the bill the way we pay our taxes.

The poorest four would pay nothing for the meal. The fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the richest would pay $59.

It seemed fair enough considering their background, so that’s what they did. The ten were quite happy with the arrangement and continued to eat at the restaurant every day under this setup.

One day, the Restaurant manager decided to be charitable, and unwittingly he threw them all a curveball.

“Since you are all such wonderful customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce your daily meal’s price by $20.”

The group’s 10 now only had to pay $80.

The first four men were unnaffected, they would still eat for free. But now there was $20 up for grabs. If they divided it equally among the 6 paying customers, some of them would actually be paid to eat. So the restaurant manager suggested it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and began to work out how much each would pay.

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings). The seventh would pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings). The eighth, $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). the ninth, $14 from $18 (22%). The richest person would now pay $49 instead of $59 (16%).

They were all quite happy with this, because all of the paying six were better off than before, and the other four still ate for free. But once outside the restaurant, they began to compare their savings.

I only got $1 out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the 10th man and exclaimed, “But he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved $1, too. It’s unfair that he got 10 times more than me!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? 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 10th and beat him up.

The next night the 10th man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate 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, 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 at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

(The entirety of that story was originally from “Tax Cuts: A Simple Lesson in Economics”, accredited to Proffessor David R. Kamerschen of University of Georgia.)

Not to say I think Georgie is ok, but “Tax cuts for the rich” are just tax cuts. That’s just how they work. Sorry to burst your bubble, but just because they say “i’m going to give you a tax cut” doesn’t mean you’re going to save as much as the person who’s paying more than you earn.

So stop looking for the president who’ll give us tax cuts, and start looking for the president who’ll use the taxes wisely.

~Tchau.