Blog Action Day 2008: Rewarding Work

This post is a part of Blog Action Day 2008, which attempts to change the conversation for one day to an important subject that affects our world. In 2008, that subject is poverty.

A friend of mine responded to Obama saying that he might raise capital gains tax by saying that it represents the socialist ideology and asked my opinion.

Here's my response...

Raising the capital gains tax is a question of priorities.

Do you want to reward wealth or do you want to reward hard work?

A low capital gains tax rewards wealthy day traders that sit by one of their pools and trade stocks, while middle class families that work in factories, as nurses, as teachers, and own small businesses end up paying a larger percent of their income in taxes.

We must reward the hard work that creates wealth. People shouldn't pay lower taxes on the money they make from the fact they have money than families pay on the money they make from hard work.

There are many people who are working two jobs, yet still find themselves below the poverty level and unable to afford insurance. That shows that our nation's priorities are messed up.

It wasn't the wealthy that made America great, it was the hard work by Americans that made this a great country. We will not be able to help people get out of poverty and provide health insurance to all Americans until we begin to reward work once again.