The Federal government considers me to be “rich” — I am in the 1%. Yet my wife and I rent an average sized townhouse in northern Virginia, have economy cars, are in our sixties, and don’t have enough to retire — not by a long shot. So “taxing the rich to help the poor” makes me very nervous. The Federal tax system does not differentiate between what is “rich” in one region versus another — and it varies enormously.

I have an anecdote: a friend of mine has a friend named Hugh. When they were teenagers they were in a car accident. Hugh ended up severely injured, and walked with a limp for many years as a result. He received a large insurance payout — not enough to make him wealthy, but enough to make him able to “get by” not working. So he didn’t go to college, and did not develop a career. It ruined his life — for a long time.

Then he met a woman who inspired him, and he turned himself around.

People often need a challenge: if you make things easy, or give them a safety net, they often don’t rise to what is needed to make something of themselves.

My step son is another example of this: I am pretty sure that if he did not have to work, he would stay in his apartment, which he shares with a friend, playing computer games all day. That is what he did as a teenager. His friend also plays computer games every free moment that he has. Neither wants to work.

At the local Starbucks that I go to, there is a couple — in their thirties? — and they sit there all day, seven days a week, playing computer games. I was told that they live in the local homeless shelter. They have nice laptops, and they look just like everyone else — but they are clearly addicted to computer games, and don’t work. The shelter (in Reston) allows them to stay the night, but they must leave during the day, so they go to Starbucks. The shelter also gives them something like $8/day for lunch. Why work? These two are content.

Again, it comes down to how many people would do this. I am just afraid that I would be paying for even more people to sit around than already do, getting by with current assistance programs. I don’t have any income to spare for those people.

My own books are technical. My first one was very successful. It is out of date and out of print now. It is here. The second edition is here — it is also out of date and out of print. The book I am most proud of is here, but it did not sell well — it was too cerebral. The self-published book is here — no one buys it.