More vacation for eveyone, Yay!

Okay, in an earlier blog I explained why all us overworked and underpaid grunts who actually keep the world turning can't just all agree to tell the government to force our employers to kiss our asses and give us, say, 12 weeks of vacation a year. While it might seem to work right away, we would actually suffer from either a proportional amount of lower pay, having to work faster, or simply breaking the law and working more than the regulations specify (or all of these). Most importantly, we would be throwing many folks at the lowest end of the pay scale out on the streets, or more likely, on the dole paid for from increased taxes on our deflated salary. Yuk!

So, if we can't all bump up our vacation time by compelling, through state/federal regulation, our employers to change their benefits package, how do we do it? How do we all spend more time kayaking in Belize or hiking the Rockies while not working our fingers to the bone, living on less, becoming criminals, and disregarding the working poor? It can be done. But let's take a closer look at the animal so we know what we're up against.

We might ask someone: "So, what kind of vacation benefits does your company offer?" But that's only one interpretation, and one favorable to the employer. By becoming an employee are we really giving away every day of our lives to our employer? That seems to be the assumption. After all, an employer can't offer anything it doesn't already have. You should be asking: "So, how many lovely days in the sun has your employer contracted out of your precious life annually?" According to Wikipedia, that's 242 give or take a few days. That's 10 days plus 8 holidays and weekends. And, in most cases, employees really don't get much freedom to choose which days they prefer to work and which days they prefer to not work.

Paid Vacation. Is it really? Absolutely not! Your employer knows the least number of days you will be working and offers/adjusts your pay accordingly. A salaried position with three weeks of vacation pays less than the same position with one week vacation (considering equal obligations). Since all workers expect vacation time, employers must offer it to be competitive and attract talent, and the result is that everyone's salary is lower than it otherwise would be. So, while you may technically get paid for days you are scuba diving in the tropics, you have actually already been penalized for those days with a lower salary. So ENJOY IT!

Employers don't own our lives, just our work. We exchange our valuable time and hard work for pay, and that pay is ours to distribute as we see fit (or on our slightest whim). Vacation/time off is a reward we earn and any restriction on that reward by our employer should be seen as a benefit WE offer THEM. After all, if we are committing 242 days to our employer, the least we should get is straight talk and an ability to take days off when we see fit. Today, since workers generally volunteer their whole lives to their employer's, the specific days requested for vacation might not be "approved." (After all, this is "paid vacation" - how gracious they offer it at all). Isn't submitting this veto power a valuable thing in itself?

We'd all be a whole lot better off if we demanded to be compensated according to shorter contracts and by merit rather than by signing our lives away to be dictated at the digression of our managers; pay well for work and leave the rest up to the workers. Yes, the full solution depends in part on each worker demanding terms he/she regards as fair - it's a vital piece of the puzzle. But, even if workers across the land suddenly adopted this brand of thinking, they aren't all necessarily good at negotiating. They are good at flipping burgers, coding software, driving zambonis or grading papers, not haggling with business types. So, how do we save us from ourselves without asking the state to do it? Unions? No way! (They've got a track record of screwing workers). IMHO, you can really only do it by placing employers in a position that allows them to realistically meet a demand for more vacation from their employees. You can probably see where this is going - please bear with me.

• In the United States, the federal corporate tax rate is 35%. (35% of profits go to the government). Of course, a corporation is just a piece of paper. This 35% burden is shared by real people; consumers in higher prices, the shareholders in lower stock prices, and, yes, employees in lower wages. To be safe, let's say, without this tax, demand for workers would force corporations to increase pay an average of 10%. (This doesn't account for the lower competition in labor. Here's a short explanation).
  
• Federal Income Tax. A married couple earning, say, $70,000 combined pays 10% on the first $15,101 ($1,510), 15% of the next $46,199 ($6,929.85), and 25% on the remaining $8,700 ($2,175). Thats a total of $10,614.85. That's about 15% overall.
• State Income Tax. 7.85% for the same 70,000. That's $5,495.
  

Now, I am very much in favor of a working government. We absolutely need a military, courts, and no children left behind, but we are paying for much more than that. For now, let's focus on just the income tax. Imagine you lived in the days before witholding - that's, for our example, a $10,500 check written out to Uncle Sam. I don't know about you, but that's the biggest check I'd write all year! We work about two months each year just to pay the Income Tax. In other words, if it didn't exist, we could all take an extra two months off work every year. (This would have none of the long-term negative consequences of government-regulated vacation.)

The income tax accounts for approximately one third of federal revenue. Eliminating one-third of the proposed 2007 budget would leave federal spending at 1.8 trillion - a sum greater than the budget in the year 2000. All we need to do is cut federal spending back to 2000 levels and we can ALL GO ON VACATION FOR AN EXTRA COUPLE MONTHS EACH YEAR!

Things we could do to cut federal spending:

• Withdraw our troops from Iraq and around the world. Huge savings here.
  
• Eliminate the IRS (a side effect of eliminating the income tax). Billions spent in enforcing and accounting could be saved (not to mention the savings corporations would see not having to pay lawyers to find tax shelters).
• Close the Federal Reserve - we didn't need it before 1913 and we certainly can't live with it now.
  
• Return the responsibility of education to the states. Eliminate the Department of Education.
• Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. We don't need it. Our military rocks.
  
• Eliminate the Transportation Safety Administration.
• Eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

If we only did a few of these things, money that would have gone to government would instead go into workers' pockets. It wouldn't all go into our pockets - some would go to wages of new employees as new jobs pop up. Some would go to shareholders as revenues rose. But, overall it would mean more pay for the same work which means more time for vacation without a decrease in standard of living. And then, if we eliminated those other taxes I mentioned we could prosper even more.

Basically we need to reassess the role of government and reconsider what is necessary and what isn't. I've asked many people if they can think of one thing from the federal government they depend on. It's usually nothing - roads are (mostly) from gas taxes, education is from (mostly) state taxes, snow plows are city. But if we did depend of the federal government, that would be an even bigger problem. Like I said, military is good, but not for inciting hatred around the world! Many feel less safe now than before the whole Iraq ordeal.

Whatever we are getting from the federal government, think about how it compares to everything else that constitutes your standard of living. Then, write out a check for 15% of your annual salary and take a look at it. What are you buying with this check? What could you do with it instead of sending it into the federal government? That would be life after the death of the Income Tax plain and simple.

Okay, I think I'm done for now and am relieved to remove myself from this soap box. This is obviously an inadequate summary for such drastic measures, but big problems require big solutions. Most importantly, when things get too complicated, everyone is afraid to change them because they don't understand them well enough. It always seems easier to just throw more money at a problem and hope it goes away. Unless there is a broad understanding of our perilous economic condition I'm afraid it will spiral out of control into something other than a "soft" landing. That will mean much less vacation for everyone.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -Thomas Jefferson