This is a small painting, only 5″ by 6″ on canvas, that recently went to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria. I call this piece Everyday Hero and even though it’s small in size, it’s one that I find full of meaning for myself.
As they often do in my paintings, the fields of alternating rows of color represent the act of labor. The day-to-day sort of work of the people who toil every day with little if any recognition, trying to merely live their lives. They raise their kids, they pay their bills and they simply try to just get along without bothering anyone or being bothered.
These are the people who built this country. They built our infrastructure– the roads and bridges and the schools and factories. They worked in the fields and in the foundries and factories and manned the trains and trucks that brought the products to market. Moreover, these are the people who consumed the products that were made, moved and marketed here. These were the people who created the wealth of this nation.
I know that this is sounding like a 99% spiel and maybe it is. I have gotten so tired of hearing about the job creators and how they must be protected when very few are pointing out that the great wealth that these few possess came from the sweat and pocketbooks of the many. I may be missing something here but I can’t think of anyone whose wealth was created in a vacuum that didn’t depend on the sale of their product, be it a manufactured item or a natural resource. You might say that a hedge fund manager might not depend on the sale of a product but he only serves as a casino operator for those who wealth was created of the people. Without their wealth, he has nothing.
Now don’t get me wrong. It seems that when anybody makes the case for more equality of wealth, they are branded as being anti-capitalist and anti-business which is not the case. The greatness of this country comes from this opportunity to succeed in a huge way, to take an idea or an innovation and set the world on fire with it. You should be rewarded richly. But unless you have the people to buy the products or ideas, unless you have the infrastructure to carry that product to these buyers, unless you have the fire fighters and police to protect your homes and offices, unless you have have clean air to breath and water to drink— it will never happen.
You can be a hero to many by being a job creator but you must take some responsibilty for the everyday heroes who have made you wealthy, probably beyond anything most of these folks could fathom. It is part of the unwritten contract of our land. It is only fair.
Massachusetts Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren made a very passionate statement of this same thought recently in a video from a fundraising event that most of you have probably seen. It is as compelling and precise an argument as anyone I’ve seen make while standing up for the everyday heroes. Here it is:
Redtree Times 
What’s not fair about everyone paying the same rate? If you have more, you pay more. Joe has a hundred dollars, he pays ten dollars. Sam has ten thousand dollars, he pays a thousand dollars.
Or is the goal to leave both of them with ninety bucks?
That’s a good point but unfortunately most of the wealthiest companies and individuals are able to currently pay a tax rate that is much less than the average Joe. The most famous example is Warren Buffett whose pays a rate about half that of his secretary. And the current tax code has allowed corporations (excuse me, corporations that are people) loopholes and easy outs so that most pay absolutely nothing even though, as I wrote, the greater part of their wealth is derived from this nation’s people and resources. What is fair about that?
You want fair? How about this? Let’s get rid of the word “entitlements” and begin taxing benefits given to people: not only social security but food stamps, medical care, housing vouchers, child care and so on. Income in kind is income, after all, and it seems only fair they should contribute to the fund that gives them so much. Even if the tax were minimal, it would make the point: there’s no free ride.
It’s also time for the government to stop subsidizing cell phones, cable service, internet service (diapers!) and so on. While I cut back by cancelling my landline phone and the broadband modem I kept for my laptop, people I personally know are receiving such services from the government – with tax money collected from people like me. You know, the ones who actually get up and go to work every day.
Beyond that, a good bit of this discussion has been complicated beyond any understanding by the ins-and-outs of the tax code. I suspect many of the people who employ my services haven’t paid a dollar in “income tax” for years – but they pay plenty in capital gains, etc. And they plow money back into their businesses, in order to expand. And hire more people in the process.
I suppose if you define everyday hero as one who represents the act of labor, I’m one of them. And most of the other “unsung heros” I know feel exactly as I do: let us do our work, earn our wages and pay our fair share. But if you want to make things more fair for other people, enforce laws already on the books, revise the tax code and stop telling whole classes of people they’re “entitled” to this or that.
The fact is there never will be equality of wealth in this world. If politicians insist on continuing to take from those who “have” to give to those who don’t, we may well come to a day when we’ll have equality of poverty.
As for Elizabeth Warren – that woman gets on my last nerve. I’d love to have the opportunity to have her work on the docks with me for a couple of years. I think she’d learn a lot. 😉
You really seem to have an axe to grind with aid to the poor. I’m not saying you’re wrong on this– many of these programs need changes and better administration and enforcement of their existing regulations. I know it used to drive me crazy when I would see some people I worked with at the restaurant get back huge tax refunds, often several thousand dollars more they had paid into the system due to the Earned Income Credit. And there are certainly a fair number of people who exploit the system to their benefit. Probably more than those on the other end of the wealth spectrum who do the same for their own benefit. But neither is right. The difference is that the people with marginal incomes who have done nothing wrong have nobody speaking up for them. No tax lawyers. No lobbyists. No Politcal Action Committees. Hardly any politicians.
Those with great wealth employ all of these tools to protect themselves and make their goal of attaining even more wealth easier. Do you really think that the $ 9400 in Social Security that my 85 year old aunt lives on is the problem here? Do you feel the same anger over the trillions spent on two wars and the trillions taken from the tax rolls in the Bush tax cuts that were never paid for in any form? Or how about the huge fraud that is perpetrated in defense spending that is incredibly overpriced or the medicare billing fraud that dwarfs the number of people who are gaming the system. Or how about the 250 million or so dollars that Koch Bros will spend in the next year in trying to elect a government that will be more willing to get rid of things like regulatory agencies and clean air and water acts? i You’re right, there will never be equality of wealth. Nor should there be. But there should be an equality of fairness and a less gaping chasm between the haves and the have-nots. I don’t believe that asking a wealthy person to pay the same taxes that he paid from the 1990’s up until the Bush Tax Cuts is asking too much. If I am not mistaken, there were still many, many wealthy people back in those days and a more prosperous middle class.
I ahve to disagree with you on Elizabeth Warren. Maybe she could or couldn’t work on your dock. But neither could the vast majority of the nitwits that we send to congress. And she might surprise you.
I don’t have an ax to grind with the poor. I have an ax to grind with system-gamers at both ends of the spectrum, not to mention at the highest levels of government.
Also, I have a huge problem with a political system that seems to prefer fostering dependence on government in order to secure power for itself – that’s something that’s been going on for years, and something that appears to be completely bi-partisan.
I suppose part of what makes this all so frustrating for so many people – you, me, our kinfolk and neighbors – is that it seems intractable. At least I found one way to do my part. When I discovered billings to Medicare and insurance companies for services during my mom’s last illness that were dated after her date of death, I started accumulating the data and sending letters to everyone, including my Senator and Congressman.
It’s not much, but if all of us address what does affect us personally, it may help in some way we can’t predict.
Yes, we must address those malfeasances that we experience and not just shrug them off as business as usual.
My point in my response to both of the comments here is that, while I agree that there are problems in the programs that benefit the needy and there is a generational dependence that have evolved in them, they shouldn’t distract from our greater social responsibility. In short, you can’t throw out the baby with the bath water.