Summary Of Divide By Stephen Schwarzman

Before college I graduated high school I realized that I was about to enter the real world and I was not a cultured individual. I was unaware of current world events, and this really began to bother me. Here I am a 17 year old young man who is about to enter the real world, but I do not know anything about what is going on around me. After I came to this realization, I made a conscious decision to try to be more mindful of the world around me. I started reading the news more, sitting down to watch the political debates with my parents and asking questions that would spark an insightful conversation. These slight changes to my everyday life made a massive difference in the way I saw the world. Furthermore once I discovered that I had the opportunity …show more content…
Many of the very wealthy individuals claim that the poor are not paying enough taxes. They have also gone on to claim how they pay too much for their taxes. “ You have to have skin in the game, I’m not saying how much people should do but we should all be apart of the system.” - Stephen Schwarzman. This statement here can lead to the backfire effect. If Mr. Schwarzman’s ideology of this concept were to be challenged, he would most likely firm up his belief even if correct factual evidence was presented to him. In reality it is the lower classes who are paying more taxes. Income taxes that all individuals pay are regressive, which basically means the more income one makes, the lower the proportion of their income they have to pay; so it is the individuals of the lower and middle classes who are bearing the brunt of the stick. To top this off those who make money find little loopholes to avoid giving back even more of their earnings. Those who are able to will acquire their income by capital gains, instead of salaries; which significantly lowers their income tax- rate by up to 10%. Not only this but the Social Security tax and the medicare tax do not affect capital income. Not only have the wealthy made false claims , they have found ways to avoid paying taxes which should be a strong indicator that the backfire effect is present. I find this very hypocritical, it should be the poor who should be complaining about how much they are paying because this disparity is very large. In 1950 the federal retirement made up 10.9% of federal revenues. 57 years later it comprised 33.9% of federal revenues. In direct contrast in 1950 the corporate income taxes comprised 26.4% of federal revenues. But in 2007 it made up only 14.4% of federal revenues. Something needs to be done about this