As election results began pouring in on Tuesday night in Southern California, it quickly became clear that all eight of the propositions on the ballot (including those supported by the Governor, and this column) were being defeated.  While the television and radio pundits went on about the mood of the voters and the power of the unions, I began to think that they were entirely missing the point.  Increasingly, we are being divided almost down the middle into a group who pays into government and a group that takes from it.  Put differently, this means that half the voters are voting for someone else to essentially give them something for nothing.  Should government really act as the modern day Robin Hood?

The Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress reported in 1996 that the top 1 percent of tax payers paid 27.5% of all federal taxes.  The top 10 percent of taxpayers paid 57.2% and the bottom 50% paid 5.7% of federal taxes.  In other words, half the population paid more than 94% of the taxes.  While these numbers are by now a little dated, most recent figures actually show that the trend is accelerating, with estimates that the top 10 percent now pay about 62% of federal taxes.  In case you were wondering if you were in the top 10 percent, if you earn more than $74,981, you are.  

The specific statistics are rather beside the point, but the numbers make very clear that the burden for paying for society is increasingly falling on a smaller and smaller share of that society.  Otherwise known as a "progressive tax system," the idea that "the rich" pay more is a longstanding tradition within the United States.  The notion that those who have more resources can afford to contribute more to the general welfare is fairly healthy from a societal point of view.  After all, too large a divide between "haves and have-nots" leads to general strife, and if history is any guide, eventually revolution.  The problem with taking the idea of a progressive tax system too far is that there is a risk of removing the burden of responsibility for government from too many people.

A society cannot function for long if half the population believes it can simply "take" from the other half.  The 50% who are paying into the system believe that they are paying more and more all the time for services that are both eroding and that they are benefiting from less and less.  The 50% who are not paying into the system believe that they can live their lives as they choose while being subsidized by someone else.  In a direct Democracy system like the initiatives in California, the majority can also impose tax increases on the minority without feeling as if it will cost them anything.  In economics, this is known as the "free rider problem."  If the majority believes that taxes are increasingly "taking from someone else" rather than taxing one's self in order to solve a problem, the disaffected "paying minority" is likely to flee to a state they believe is more equitable, thus only exacerbating the problem.

The only way to bring responsibility back into personal politics is to ensure that everyone pays at least something meaningful back into the system.  This principle is at the very heart of our Democracy.  The problem is that both the major parties have it dead wrong on how to fix the problem.  President Bush, and most Republicans, are looking at a tax plan that will eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and, in order to pay for it, remove many popular deductions for home mortgages and state taxes.  This will effectively shift more of the tax burden from the top 5% of taxpayers to the top 50%, effectively forcing "the middle class" to pay more of the taxes currently paid by "the wealthy."  The Democrats are trying to do exactly the opposite by keeping AMT, raising capital gains, and estate taxes thereby shifting more taxes from "the middle class" to "the wealthy," essentially fewer and fewer people.  What both of these perspectives miss entirely is that they don't address the free rider problem.  With either plan you still have half the population essentially dependent on government programs and not paying into the system, while fewer and fewer people participate.

Fixing the inequities of the current system doesn't involve deciding whether to tax "the rich," the "middle class," or "the poor," it's about ensuring that everyone enjoys both the benefits of society's largesse as well as the burden of the taxes that provide it.  Democracy without responsibility is not Democracy, rather the imposition of popular authoritarianism.