Our Observation

Tax day has approached and left during a time of record national debt, and the elephant in the room couldn’t be more obvious: The lavish dinner party is over, and somebody isn’t paying their fair share of the bill.

Those who only got the table scraps are growing louder when presented with their part of the tab, asking why those who took their fill and boxed up a second or third helping for later shouldn’t pay more. After all, our stomachs can only fit so much, no matter how many years we’ve been binging.

But lately that argument has grown to ridiculous extremes. Those who have taken more from the table aren’t agreeing that they should pay more to balance out the bill — they’re arguing that those who got the scraps should be eating even less.

Taxation for the wealthy hits home for those in Winter Park and Maitland, where the affluent famously came for the winter so long ago, and where many have come to stay permanently since the advent of air conditioning.

Take a look at Winter Park’s median household income and it’s easy to gloss over the seemingly average $49,000 figure, when the average household income nationwide crests $45,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But over in Maitland, which lacks any substantially poor neighborhoods, that figure is far higher than the national average, at $62,500.

It’s hard to claim you’re not eating well when you’re averaging nearly 40 percent more than the average American household.

But those median figures can be deceiving. Neither city is lacking in its share of millionaire residents at the top. Winter Park sports at least a dozen pro athletes who own a residence in the city. Take a trip to Luma on Park on a Saturday night and count the Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Italian supercars lined up outside.

The irony of the rich calling for cuts in spending rather than increased taxes couldn’t be more obvious at the corner of Park and New England Avenues. The food isn’t cheap. Neither are the cars. But there, the excess is celebrated rather than decried. There are no cries for fiscal responsibility there — no railing against the higher bills.

Should the rich be paying more? While most tend to turn a blind eye to the issue of higher taxation, even balking at the idea that higher taxes for the “idle rich” could help the economy, some on a national scale are literally begging for more taxes.

Enter the group calling itself the Patriotic Millionaires For Fiscal Strength, a cabal of dozens of the nation’s wealthiest asking President Barack Obama to end the Bush tax cuts on the rich. In an April 12 ABC News story aptly titled “Tax me! I’m Rich,” Erica Payne, the group’s coordinator, said that some of the nation’s wealthiest are tired of seeing the rich shirk their responsibility.

In an ad that ran last winter, the group laid its stance out as plainly as possible. “We don’t need more tax cuts, and we understand that cutting our taxes will increase the deficit and the debt burden carried by other taxpayers,” the ad read. “Letting tax cuts for incomes over $1 million expire is an important step in that direction.”

This past week, the group started round two, railing against the extension of the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $1 million per year.

“For me to be sitting and hoarding my money is insane,” film and television producer Linda Gottlieb said in an April 13 interview with the popular news blog Salon.com. “For rich people to moan and groan — nobody likes to pay increased taxes, but it’s not going to change your life in any important way. What it can do is help your country.”

The tab is still running, but this is no restaurant. Interest payments only go up the longer you wait to pay the principle. We can pay a little more now, or pay a lot later.