Reconciling Trump's $750 in taxes with SF's high rents: a tutorial

Trump, we're told, paid just $750 in Federal taxes in 2016. You, I'm sure, have paid hefty rent since taking up residence in the Bay Region. How do we reconcile these two objective facts? And why would we try?

Try this on for size. You were born. Trump was born. Everything you've done, short of stealing, added to the good life of others. Every deal you brokered, every tool you used, every basket of laundry your hung on the clothes line did good for someone (don't exclude yourself!). And it's been the same with Trump. Every steak he sold, every room he rented out, every swing of a golf club he has enabled has done good for someone. Well, if everything we do does good for someone, why should we send down the taxman to tax away part of that good? If we want more housing, why tax carpenters and architects for designing and building housing? And if we want more good food to be eaten, why do we tax farmers for growing it, grocers for selling it, cooks for wok-ing it? That's just dumb, don't you think, come to think of it? Looked at that way that $750 Trump paid seems about right . . . maybe even $750 too much.

But now let's start at the beginning again. You were born. Trump was born. Born where? Planet Earth. Which nobody made, but which everybody needs in order to do stuff that's good for someone. So why should some people get away with charging other people to use the earth? Did those landowners make the earth? No. How can some own the earth into which we're all born?
How come you're paying hefty location rent to someone to use the earth of the Bay Region that is everyone's home? Maybe the rent of land ought to be the tax you pay to society for having used for a while something everybody has a birthright in.

You're invited to a teach-in about this very topic. It's free. It's upsetting. It's mind-blowing. But it's not out of this world. Click.