Please excuse my writing, Joe. Much like the company I keep, I’ve been reading and writing since my early youth. Not that I am the only one who has, but it does have a tendency to broaden one one’s vocabulary, I guess. I assure you, I exude no effort to impress nor even feel the need to do such. Nor does your appeal to dumb down present itself as a compelling reason for me to comply. I am what I am, and I need not the thesaurus but the dictionary!

Not trying to be mean, but , were I to in fact dumb down, I may actually believe that the percentages reported were something more than a manipulation of figures designed to evoke an emotional response based upon class envy. (weighing in, Fred)

But the logic does make sense; you cannot have a viable need for a redistribution of wealth without fist establishing an inequality thereof. Yet it remains nothing more than apples and oranges. Paris Hilton’s parents may pay a lower percentage of their wealth in taxes, but I’m betting it is relatively safe to purport they pay more in taxes than me, you, my neighbors, and your neighbors combined.

Don’t know about you, but I‘m not getting the wealth inequality vibe on that one!

Fred’s right. Wendy’s right. I just don’t see the need to further penalize the wealthy (who already stuff the majority of Uncle Sam’s coffers) and then ambiguously (maybe deviously) whine that “It’s not fair!”