Friday, Feb. 10, 2012
Embracing 'Enough'
Of all the no-no's in contemporary America—and there are many—none has proven more taboo than the ancient doctrine of "dayenu." Translated from the original Hebrew, the word roughly means "It would have been enough." The principle is that a certain amount of a finite resource should satisfy even the gluttons among us.
I know, I know—to even mention that notion is jarring in a nation whose consumer, epicurean and economic cultures have been respectively defined by the megastore, the Big Mac and the worship of the billionaire. Considering that, it's amazing the word "enough" still exists in the American vernacular at all. But exist it does, and more than that—the term's morality is actually starting to suffuse the highest-profile debates in the public square.
After the financial meltdown, for example, Congress witnessed an unexpectedly spirited fight over enacting pay caps at bailed-out financial institutions. Beneath the overheated rhetoric, the brawl revolved around determining how much is enough to compensate Wall Street's government-subsidized scam artists.
Today, that conflict has metastasized into a battle over taxes. Marked by mind-numbing arguments over Mitt Romney's IRS returns and esoteric catchphrases like "Buffet Rule," the skirmish is really just a proxy war over how much individual income we are going to collectively deem "enough" before the next dollar of income is subjected to a less preferential levy.
Even at the state level, "enough" has gone mainstream, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) just signed an executive order barring state contracts from going to firms that pay executives more than $199,000 a year. Again, the idea is that such a salary is more than enough to attract skilled workers to taxpayer-funded firms.
Academia, by contrast, is playing host to the flip side of this long-overdue discussion, as tuition and athletic controversies highlight the absurdity of the "not enough" argument.
At the University of Colorado, for instance, oilman-turned-president Bruce Benson recently floated the "not enough" rationale in defending a $49,000 raise given to an administrator already being paid $340,000 a year. "I've got to pay for good people," he said, implying that such a huge salary boost, paid for by massive tuition increases, was barely enough to keep the university competitive.
Similarly, USA Today recently reported that new college football coaches now make an average of $1.5 million a year—a 35% year-over-year increase from their immediate predecessors' average of $1.1 million. Though Republicans regularly claim public employees such as teachers, police officers and firefighters are paid exorbitant salaries, the GOP almost never notes that coaches tend now to be, by far, states' highest-paid public employees. Coaches retain that status in the face of budget pressures because school administrators constantly insist that they never have enough coaching-salary money to retain the best talent.
In all of these conflagrations, the forbidden six-letter word—enough—is the omnipresent ghost raising necessary-but-uncomfortable queries such as: Is a million dollars enough before one faces slightly higher taxes? Is $199,000 a year enough for a government contractor? Is $350,000 a year enough to attract a "good" university administrator? Is $1.1 million a year enough for a college coach?
It's a shame such self-answering questions even need to be asked. But with Gallup's latest poll showing most Americans believe a $150,000 annual salary makes one "rich," it's clear most of us would probably respond with an emphatic "yes" to all of them. That's because most of us know what "enough" is. Now it's just a matter of openly embracing it and finally replacing the era's ethos of greed with a much-needed spirit of "dayenu."
David Sirota is best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. Email him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at DavidSirota.com.
I know, I know—to even mention that notion is jarring in a nation whose consumer, epicurean and economic cultures have been respectively defined by the megastore, the Big Mac and the worship of the billionaire. Considering that, it's amazing the word "enough" still exists in the American vernacular at all. But exist it does, and more than that—the term's morality is actually starting to suffuse the highest-profile debates in the public square.
After the financial meltdown, for example, Congress witnessed an unexpectedly spirited fight over enacting pay caps at bailed-out financial institutions. Beneath the overheated rhetoric, the brawl revolved around determining how much is enough to compensate Wall Street's government-subsidized scam artists.
Today, that conflict has metastasized into a battle over taxes. Marked by mind-numbing arguments over Mitt Romney's IRS returns and esoteric catchphrases like "Buffet Rule," the skirmish is really just a proxy war over how much individual income we are going to collectively deem "enough" before the next dollar of income is subjected to a less preferential levy.
Even at the state level, "enough" has gone mainstream, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) just signed an executive order barring state contracts from going to firms that pay executives more than $199,000 a year. Again, the idea is that such a salary is more than enough to attract skilled workers to taxpayer-funded firms.
Academia, by contrast, is playing host to the flip side of this long-overdue discussion, as tuition and athletic controversies highlight the absurdity of the "not enough" argument.
At the University of Colorado, for instance, oilman-turned-president Bruce Benson recently floated the "not enough" rationale in defending a $49,000 raise given to an administrator already being paid $340,000 a year. "I've got to pay for good people," he said, implying that such a huge salary boost, paid for by massive tuition increases, was barely enough to keep the university competitive.
Similarly, USA Today recently reported that new college football coaches now make an average of $1.5 million a year—a 35% year-over-year increase from their immediate predecessors' average of $1.1 million. Though Republicans regularly claim public employees such as teachers, police officers and firefighters are paid exorbitant salaries, the GOP almost never notes that coaches tend now to be, by far, states' highest-paid public employees. Coaches retain that status in the face of budget pressures because school administrators constantly insist that they never have enough coaching-salary money to retain the best talent.
In all of these conflagrations, the forbidden six-letter word—enough—is the omnipresent ghost raising necessary-but-uncomfortable queries such as: Is a million dollars enough before one faces slightly higher taxes? Is $199,000 a year enough for a government contractor? Is $350,000 a year enough to attract a "good" university administrator? Is $1.1 million a year enough for a college coach?
It's a shame such self-answering questions even need to be asked. But with Gallup's latest poll showing most Americans believe a $150,000 annual salary makes one "rich," it's clear most of us would probably respond with an emphatic "yes" to all of them. That's because most of us know what "enough" is. Now it's just a matter of openly embracing it and finally replacing the era's ethos of greed with a much-needed spirit of "dayenu."
David Sirota is best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. Email him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at DavidSirota.com.
© 2012 CREATORS.COM
I think teachers make a lot more than $46,000. Their health insurance alone is about $25,000. Then add on top of that the employers portion of payroll taxes, disability insurance, accumulated sick days, pension contribution, the time value of money for future pension payments and you see that $46,000 go to $100,000 very quickly. My guess is that $46,000 is the after tax and benefit take home pay.
You seriously think $150,000 is a lot? I think you can get by on that, live comfortable, live among good people, be in decent school district, drive a reliable car, pay for college and vacations, and such. But rich? No. You can't have a million dollar plus palace on Lake Drive, drive a Porsche, send your kids to Harvard, and own a second similar home in Phoenix. Thats what I would consider rich.
I think $46k is probalby a first year teacher out of college. Hell, you cam make $40k just being on welfare, collecting food stamps, earned income credit, and medicaid. Nobody is going to take a $46k job when you can make $40k doing absolutely zero.
And I suspect that 40K of welfare is the person who is actually sick enough, disabled enough to need all those extra medicaid or SSI benefits. It's like being crippled in an accident in order to get that million-dollar insurance settlement. Million dollars or not, a life that does not let me freely do what a healthy person can is not my idea of how to live the good life of a millionaire.
A lot of people stay poor on purpose. They work 32 hours a week in order to keep their food stamps, Earned Income credit, BadgerCare, and Food Stamps. If they work 40-50 hours it all goes away and they end up losing money. So why work 50 hrs week and make less money than when you work 32 hours. I guess a lot of poor people do learn to scam the system pretty well. They learn where the sweet spot is on how many hours they can work.
Last stats I saw, it only takes a 1040 income of 400,000 to be solidly in the top 1%. The "Buffet Rule" is target to the upper portion of that top 1%, those who really get their income from "mailbox money", the checks they get from dividends or selling off investments that made capital gains. In other words, money that was not made from punching a time-clock or even working a salaried job.
Yes, we do want to make it so the retired person can still get the lower 15% tax rate while drawing on retirement funds saved and invested from your working days. But why extend that lower than 35% top-bracket wages rate on capital gains and dividends exceeding millions? -- Like we already have a "Standard Deduction" on working class wages on the order of 10,000 (depending on filing status), why can't we have a similar kind of standard deduction on this investment income? Set that level at something like Obama's 300,000, allowing the retiree living a normal middle-class (or working class) life get that money at a low or nonexistent tax rate, but crank in the standard 35% top wage rate on that mailbox money in excess of this "standard investment deduction"! Two separate tax systems, for two separate types of income, just keep the top bracket rates the same so that there is little incentive to shift one type into the other for the top 0.1 %.
$400k is a good income. I would not guess it gets you in the top 1%. I figured it would be more in the top 5. Living out in Lakes Country we have a lot of folks in the $250k plus range. Most of them could not get buy on $150k. They have the McMansion, the SUVs, private school, college tuitions, country club memberships, second homes in warm climate, etc.
Most work hard everyday for that stuff. Some even drive all the way to downtown Milwaukee in the sun both ways. Then to tell them they have more than enough. Believe me, you get to $150k you will realize its not enough. You have enough when you live in a Las Vegas high rise suite, gamble away millions everyday, and never run out. Then you have enough.