The Beer-Tax Allegory

There's a fable making the rounds through some inboxes that purports to equate ten men going out for a beer to the current tax rates.  It's pure trailer-park Republican stuff, poorly understood and poorly presented and full of manufactured outrage.  But it's been around for a while, and it bothers me when liars try to explain things in ways that are clearly false and intended to obfuscate rather than lay plain.  So I'm gonna make up my own fable.
  First, let's ignore the fact that trying to equate buying goods - in this case beers - with paying taxes is a completely false correlation.  For the sake of comparison I'll preserve the beer-tax allegory.
   The e-mail tale assumes all ten men are already in the same bar.  But let's back up.  Let's assume all ten people - not necessarily men - work at the same company.  The CEO decides to go for a beer and invites nine of his closest friends.  None of them could make it so he slums it with his workers.
   The CEO gets chauffeured to the bar.  His driver does not figure into this as he's an illegal alien.
   The next two richest employees drive their import cars and valet park them.
   The next three drive their own cars and feed the meter and hope the CEO doesn't keep them so long that they get a parking ticket.
   The last four poorest can't afford cars or the insurance on them so they take the bus.  Which makes them 20 minutes late.  The CEO and the two valet parkers rail at the insensitivity of the bus riders, wondering why they couldn't get to the bar with everyone else.

Once all ten are at the door the bouncer decides where they can go based on their incomes.
   The four who took the bus get to sit in the unfinished basement.  The bouncer doesn't go down there so it's a very sketchy rat-infested space, not safe at all, and no one pays attention to what goes on.  Three of the four employees are single mothers.
    The three who parked on the street get to sit next to the bathrooms on the first floor.  At least it's lit, and relatively safe, but there are better places in the bar, they're just not entitled to go there.
  The two who valet parked get to sit right up front, at the bar, where they get very good service and everyone pays attention to them no matter how stupid what they say sounds.  Thing is, they can also see the stairs to the second floor.  They're not allowed up there, but they can see and smell everything, and it's delicious.
  The CEO goes straight to the second floor via an exclusive entrance he doesn't have to share with the other nine.  He's the only one up there, but Goddamn it's a fantastic place.

The bar is the US Biergarten.  Everyone is entitled to have a beer at the US Biergarten.  And because Sam, the owner, is actually related to all ten of the people - he's their uncle - he really does care that they have a good time and take advantage of everything the US Biergarten has to offer.  Since they're all family he lets the ten pay according to their ability, because he's really the one who foots the tab for the entire US Biergarten.  Beer for all ten of them costs $100, and each of them has to pay up front before they can drink a single drop.

   The four in the basement pay less than a dollar each, because they make about 1/174th what the CEO makes.
  The three who parked their own cars pay about $4 each, or $12 out of the $100, but then they make on average about 1/66th of what the CEO makes.
  The two who valet parked pay a little more than $5 each - $11 between the two of them - because even though they're doing really well, they still only make about 1/15th of what the CEO does.
  The CEO pays $75.  But he's the one with the chauffeur, with the private entrance, and the entire posh second floor to himself.  He makes the most money, he uses more resources of the US Biergarten than anyone else, and he enjoys special considerations the other nine don't, and so Sam decides he has to pay the most for a beer.

The end of the night comes, and it's time to settle the tab.
   Sam has seen the four in the basement and he knows times are tough for them, so he gives them back the tiny amount they paid.  It's not like they didn't pay, he's just refunding them their money because they've been handed such a raw deal compared to everyone else.
  For the three who street parked Sam returns a little of the money they paid, a few cents on the dollar.
  The two who valet parked show Sam that, in actuality, they didn't make nearly as much as their pay stubs said they did, with allowed exemptions their taxable income was much, much lower.  So Sam shrugs and refunds them about $2 each.
  The CEO shows Sam that everything he's enjoyed, from the chauffeur to the private entrance to the posh second floor, is really a business expense.  Sam scratches his head, wonders how this could be, but it's all proper according to the law, so he returns the CEO $35.

Sam now has $58.  For beer that cost $100.
  The four poorest employees did enjoy a beer, they paid for it but got that money back.  Yet they still had to sit in the unfinished basement with the rats.
  The three who parked on the street paid $11 out of the $58, or 19% of the tab, even though all three together make 4.5% of what the CEO makes.
  The two who valet parked paid $7 out of the $58, or 12% of the tab, even though they make 13% of what the CEO makes.
  The CEO had his tab reduced by 46%.  He didn't spend that extra $35 creating jobs or helping his employees drinking beer in the basement, he sent that money overseas and parked it in offshore accounts so he could retrieve it later, tax-free.

The tab for all ten still cost $100, so where does Sam get the $42 he's down?  Next time the three street-parkers come in he charges them more.  He wants to charge the richest three more, but they have well-paid attorneys who come in every day to argue against it, so Sam has given up that angle.  He also borrows money from other bars to cover the tab, and then has to pay interest on that money, which just raises the tab for everyone the next time.

And that, trailer park Republicans everywhere, is how the tax system really works, at least in the tortured metaphor of equating beer purchases to income tax.
   Just to be clear, all of you would be the four in the basement or the three parked on the street.  The valet parkers and the CEO don't give a rat's ass about you, they only care about fooling you with false analogies so you'll vote contrary to your own interests.