Take it from a broke writer who has heard well-off folks’ sob stories: America’s higher-net-worth individuals need a tax increase—in ways that they can’t currently imagine. 

Winding down the decade…aww yeah. 

Winding up the chatter about tax increases for corporations and wealthier individuals, using that money to pay for needs like infrastructure, education, healthcare…aww fucking yeah. 

Before we proceed any further, I should state this disclaimer: the blog post’s headline is, “Financial security. Emotional and spiritual insecurity.” For the record, the writer of this post is financially insecure, as well as emotionally and spiritually insecure. 

Just putting that out there…making sure we’re all on the same page…as the corporate types would say. Don’t want to come across as holier-than-thou. 

That said, now I need to talk about how a tax increase might be the best thing for America’s richer folks. 

That phrase “Money can’t buy happiness”…it’s spot-on. 

How do I know this…especially as a non-rich person? Because America’s white, middle-income+ non-readers are the one demographic group who hears about my writing and responds by telling me how miserable and unfulfilled they are. No other segment of the population gets the sadz like this segment does.  

Along with stirring up an existential crisis in some, other members of this higher-earning socioeconomic subset suddenly flash their fascist tendencies.

Upon hearing about my writing, the mood changes happen suddenly, too. It’s like an eighteen-year-old after her fifth sip of her fourth wine cooler…the mousy, smiling girl from ten seconds ago is now lunging at the nearest human, claws out, screaming in a rage.

While no well-off, white non-readers have tried to claw my eyes out, many do shoot daggers out of their eyes.

People barely making ends meet? None of them have never given me the whimpery “must be nice…not to be trapped…” pouty-faced nonsense that I’ve gotten from people who do not experience poorer folks’ financial stress. 

Obama-supporting techbros with six-figure incomes respond to my writing with more paranoia than working-class MAGA-hatted fellers. Like the majority of other people who don’t read, Trumpsters who aren’t financially well-off don’t show any interest in my writing. We find something else to talk about. 

(Don’t get me wrong: I know that there is some type of “Execute Order 66” command that the 1% will transmit to the MAGA-hatted crowd when the time is right. Could be any day now, you never know.) 

But non-reading white people in higher tax brackets, no matter their political affiliation—news of my crazy writing adventures kills their mood. And it shouldn’t. I don’t write fiction for people who don’t read, so interacting with the worst of the non-readers prompted me to write this. High-net-worth folks who look down on the act of reading make me think they might be wearing invisible armbands. Even the ones who don’t develop passive-aggressive chips on their shoulders still experience downward mood swings that are dumb to witness. 

Talking to this crowd, it’s like they think I started my crazy writing adventure just to piss them off.

And again: only non-reading, middle-income+ white people act like this. 

As we close out the second decade of the millennium and realize that income inequality is worsening, it needs to be stated that the country’s rich people have not found true satisfaction from trickle-down economics and lower taxes. 

And we don’t talk about this fact much. 

Here’s a thought: individuals on the higher end of the income spectrum can “un-trap” themselves by paying more taxes. I’m betting that their psyches will thank me in the long run.

What a crazy way to solve richer folks’ lack of fulfillment issues: by having them pay more taxes to help the masses get more fulfilling things…like food.

Speaking of fiction, check out my new #scifi series. This is the story site. 

Along with fiction, I also write movie reviews from the year 2028 during the reign of President Eric Trump. Check them out here.

I also post at Medium.