The End of Welfare as We Don't Know It

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Oct 13 10:32:06 PDT 1998


Carl Remick wrote:


>Re Max's: "Bottom line is that the rich will not finance
>socialism, social-democracy, or even national
>health insurance. Not even close."
>
>Well, that's it. Max has just "proved" this list is a waste of time and
>we can all go home. Doug, you want to turn out the lights?

They won't finance it voluntarily, of course, but Max, you're surely not arguing that the rich don't have money, are you?

Personal income for the first half of the year was about $7 trillion. Applying the Census income distribution shares, we can estimate that the richest 5% of the population claims about $1.5 trillion in pretax income, and the next 15% just under $2 trillion. So the top 20% of the population has about $3.5 trillion, or half of total pretax personal income. The top 1%, according to CBO numbers, claims about 13% of pretax income, and pays just 18% of personal income taxes right now. That could finance a lot more than national health insurance.

Not even close? You studying up for a job at Heritage?

Doug



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