There is a story people like to tell that rich people hate taxes.
I do not think that is completely true.
Sure, some rich people hate taxes. Some people hate paying for anything. There are people who would complain if oxygen came with a receipt.
But a lot of wealthy people I know are not against paying more. What they hate is watching the government take more money and then somehow make everything worse.
That is the real issue.
It is not just, “How much are you taxing me?”
It is, “What are you doing with the money?”
Because right now, a lot of Americans look around and see the same thing:
We spend more, but schools do not always get better.
We spend more, but roads and bridges still fall apart.
We spend more, but the train never comes.
We spend more, but nobody can explain where the money went.
That is why people get angry.
Not because they are selfish. Because they are not stupid.
For years, politicians have said we need to ask the wealthy to pay more.
But Jamie Dimon made the point many people miss: many wealthy people are okay with paying more, but only if the money is spent well.
Dimon has said he has “no problem paying higher taxes” to help address real problems in society, but the money has to be used efficiently.
As he put it, “If you said raise taxes and directly give it to the people who need it, I'd do it. That doesn't happen. It goes to all these interest groups, and they give it to their friends ... which is why the people consider it a swamp.”
That is the whole point.
People are not against helping. Most wealthy people are not even against paying more.
They are against waste. They are against handing more money to a system that cannot prove the last pile of money worked.
Look at schools.
New York spends a fortune per student. Florida spends much less. But spending more does not automatically mean better results.
That does not mean we should spend less on education. That is the lazy answer. Massachusetts spends a lot and gets strong results.
The real lesson is simple: money matters, but results matter more.
If a school gets more money, kids should read better. They should do math better. Teachers should be supported. Classrooms should improve.
The money should show up somewhere besides a report nobody reads.
Mississippi used to be near the bottom in reading.
Then the state focused on teaching kids how to actually read. They trained teachers. They used phonics. They brought in reading coaches. They paid attention to whether children were learning.
And guess what? The kids got better at reading.
It did not take some giant fantasy budget. It took a plan that worked.
That is what people want from government. Not speeches. Not slogans. Not another politician standing at a podium saying, “We're investing in our future,” while the future is sitting in the back of the classroom unable to read the word “future.”
Then look at infrastructure.
New York's Second Avenue Subway cost billions per mile. Comparable subway projects in other developed countries have been built for a fraction of that.
Urban rail is hard everywhere. Tunneling under a major city is never cheap. But America has developed a special talent for making hard things absurdly expensive.
We hold meetings.
We commission studies.
We hire consultants.
We litigate.
We redesign.
We delay.
Then we announce that the original estimate was fantasy and ask taxpayers to clap because something might open fifteen years late.
At some point, the problem is not ambition. The problem is competence.
If you want a monument to America's inability to build the future, look at California high-speed rail.
This was supposed to be the big dream. A fast train from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Voters approved it in 2008. It was supposed to cost far less and be done years ago.
Now it is many years late, wildly over budget, and still not carrying passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
That is the kind of thing that makes taxpayers lose their minds.
China built thousands and thousands of miles of high-speed rail. Japan has had great trains for decades. Europe can build them.
America has meetings about meetings. Then the price triples. Then someone asks for more money. Then nothing opens.
That is not just expensive. It is embarrassing.
The real debate should not be: “Should rich people pay more?”
The better question is: “If they pay more, will anything actually get better?”
Will kids read better?
Will hospitals work better?
Will bridges get fixed?
Will trains get built?
Will the middle class feel less crushed?
Will regular people see any difference in their lives?
Because if the answer is yes, I think a lot of wealthy people would pay more.
But if the answer is, “Give us more money and trust us,” people are going to say no. And honestly, they should.
Government should have to show the public what it spent and what happened. Not with a 900-page report written in swamp language. Plain English.
Here is what we spent.
Here is what improved.
Here is what failed.
Here is what we are stopping.
Here is what we are copying because it worked somewhere else.
That is how normal people live.
If a family spends more money on a roof, they expect the roof to stop leaking. If a business spends more money on advertising, they expect more customers. If a restaurant buys better ingredients, the food better not taste like wet cardboard.
Government should not be the only place where spending more money counts as success all by itself.
I do not believe most Americans are against taxes. I think they are against waste.
I do not believe most wealthy people are against paying more. I think they are against being treated like an ATM for a machine that never gets fixed.
Taxing the rich may be part of the answer. But it cannot be the whole answer.
The money has to work. The public has to see results. And government has to prove it can still build things, fix things, teach children, help people, and stop lighting money on fire like it is hosting a bonfire for idiots.
The American people are not broke.
Their patience is.