\nStephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&\u2019s Sake!
\nApr 30, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
\nThe iconic writer scolds the superrich (including himself\u2014and Mitt Romney) for not giving back, and warns of a Kingsian apocalyptic scenario if inequality is not addressed in America.
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\nChris Christie may be fat , but he ain\u2019t Santa Claus. In fact, he seems unable to decide if he is New Jersey\u2019s governor or its caporegime, and it may be a comment on the coarsening of American discourse that his brash rudeness is often taken for charm. In February, while discussing New Jersey\u2019s newly amended income-tax law, which allows the rich to pay less (proportionally) than the middle class, Christie was asked about Warren Buffett\u2019s observation that he paid less federal income taxes than his personal secretary, and that wasn\u2019t fair. \u201cHe should just write a check and shut up ,\u201d Christie responded, with his typical verve. \u201cI\u2019m tired of hearing about it. If he wants to give the government more money, he\u2019s got the ability to write a check\u2014go ahead and write it.\u201d
\nHeard it all before. At a rally in Florida (to support collective bargaining and to express the socialist view that firing teachers with experience was sort of a bad idea), I pointed out that I was paying taxes of roughly 28 percent on my income. My question was, \u201cHow come I\u2019m not paying 50?\u201d The governor of New Jersey did not respond to this radical idea, possibly being too busy at the all-you-can-eat cheese buffet at Applebee\u2019s in Jersey City, but plenty of other people of the Christie persuasion did.
\nLobbyist Grover Norquist responds to King and begs to differ, ‘for f@%&\u2019s sake!’
\nCut a check and shut up, they said.
\nIf you want to pay more, pay more, they said.
\nTired of hearing about it, they said.
\nTough shit for you guys, because I\u2019m not tired of talking about it. I\u2019ve known rich people, and why not, since I\u2019m one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing \u201cDisco Inferno\u201d than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar. It\u2019s true that some rich folks put at least some of their tax savings into charitable contributions. My wife and I give away roughly $4 million a year to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organizations that underwrite the arts. Warren Buffett does the same; so does Bill Gates; so does Steven Spielberg; so do the Koch brothers; so did the late Steve Jobs. All fine as far as it goes, but it doesn\u2019t go far enough.
\nWhat charitable 1 percenters can\u2019t do is assume responsibility\u2014America\u2019s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can\u2019t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny. That kind of salvation does not come from Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Ballmer saying, \u201cOK, I\u2019ll write a $2 million bonus check to the IRS.\u201d That annoying responsibility stuff comes from three words that are anathema to the Tea Partiers: United American citizenry.
\nPhotos: Rich People for Higher Taxes
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\nAnd hey, why don\u2019t we get real about this? Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don\u2019t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children\u2019s children. And what they do give away is\u2014like the monies my wife and I donate\u2014totally at their own discretion. That\u2019s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don\u2019t tell us how to use our money; we\u2019ll tell you.
\nThe Koch brothers are right-wing creepazoids, but they\u2019re giving right-wing creepazoids. Here\u2019s an example: 68 million fine American dollars to Deerfield Academy. Which is great for Deerfield Academy. But it won\u2019t do squat for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where food fish are now showing up with black lesions. It won\u2019t pay for stronger regulations to keep BP (or some other bunch of dipshit oil drillers) from doing it again. It won\u2019t repair the levees surrounding New Orleans. It won\u2019t improve education in Mississippi or Alabama. But what the hell\u2014them li\u2019l crackers ain\u2019t never going to go to Deerfield Academy anyway. Fuck \u2019em if they can\u2019t take a joke.
\nHere\u2019s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party (which has become, so far as I can see, the only wing of the Republican Party): the richer rich people get, the more jobs they create. Really? I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot\u2014as I have, from time to time\u2014and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don\u2019t think so, since I\u2019m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy.
\nTired of hearing about it, they said. Tough shit for you guys, because I\u2019m not tired of talking about it. I\u2019ve known rich people, and why not, since I\u2019m one of them?
\nAt the risk of repeating myself, here\u2019s what rich folks do when they get richer: they invest. A lot of those investments are overseas, thanks to the anti-American business policies of the last four administrations. Don\u2019t think so? Check the tag on that T-shirt or gimme cap you\u2019re wearing. If it says MADE IN AMERICA, I\u2019ll \u2026 well, I won\u2019t say I\u2019ll eat your shorts, because some of that stuff is made here, but not much of it. And what does get made here doesn\u2019t get made by America\u2019s small cadre of pluted bloatocrats; it\u2019s made, for the most part, in barely-gittin\u2019-by factories in the Deep South, where the only unions people believe in are those solemnized at the altar of the local church (as long as they\u2019re from different sexes, that is).
\nThe U.S. senators and representatives who refuse even to consider raising taxes on the rich\u2014they squall like scalded babies (usually on Fox News) every time the subject comes up\u2014are not, by and large, superrich themselves, although many are millionaires and all have had the equivalent of Obamacare for years. They simply idolize the rich. Don\u2019t ask me why; I don\u2019t get it either, since most rich people are as boring as old, dead dog shit. The Mitch McConnells and John Boehners and Eric Cantors just can\u2019t seem to help themselves. These guys and their right-wing supporters regard deep pockets like Christy Walton and Sheldon Adelson the way little girls regard Justin Bieber \u2026 which is to say, with wide eyes, slack jaws, and the drool of adoration dripping from their chins. I\u2019ve gotten the same reaction myself, even though I\u2019m only \u201cbaby rich\u201d compared with some of these guys, who float serenely over the lives of the struggling middle class like blimps made of thousand-dollar bills.
\nIn America, the rich are hallowed. Even Warren Buffett, who has largely been drummed out of the club for his radical ideas about putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to patriotism, made the front pages when he announced that he had stage-1 prostate cancer. Stage 1, for God\u2019s sake! A hundred clinics can fix him up, and he can put the bill on his American Express black card! But the press made it sound like the pope\u2019s balls had just dropped off and shattered! Because it was cancer? No! Because it was Warren Buffett, he of Berkshire-Hathaway!
\nI guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said , in effect, \u201cI\u2019m rich and I don\u2019t apologize for it.\u201d Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want\u2014those who aren\u2019t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money\u2014is for you to acknowledge that you couldn\u2019t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it\u2019s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It\u2019s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don\u2019t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that\u2014sorry, kiddies\u2014you\u2019re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay\u2014not to give, not to \u201ccut a check and shut up,\u201d in Governor Christie\u2019s words, but to pay\u2014in the same proportion. That\u2019s called stepping up and not whining about it. That\u2019s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn\u2019t cost their beloved rich folks any money.
\nThis has to happen if America is to remain strong and true to its ideals. It\u2019s a practical necessity and a moral imperative. Last year during the Occupy movement, the conservatives who oppose tax equality saw the first real ripples of discontent. Their response was either Marie Antoinette (\u201cLet them eat cake\u201d) or Ebenezer Scrooge (\u201cAre there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?\u201d). Short-sighted, gentlemen. Very short-sighted. If this situation isn\u2019t fairly addressed, last year\u2019s protests will just be the beginning. Scrooge changed his tune after the ghosts visited him. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, lost her head.
\nThink about it.<\/p>\n