THE POWER NOT TO TAX

Over and over hear people say they are disgusted with our government. They site income disparity as the number one reason for their unhappiness closely followed with their unhappiness with Congress, followed in turn with distaste for politicians, who we vote into office; thus, completes a circle of sorts; the people who hate the government are the very ones who decided who they want to run the government. Everyone knows this a “do nothing government”; the truth is that it is doing what we want in a most obvious way. This is confusing and mind-boggling at the same time. To understand all of this, we have to understand the basis of the problem as convoluted as it is.

We have income disparity because people are not spending money, as they should. They are not spending money because they do not have the money to spend. They do not have the money to spend because they do not have jobs or if they have work, they work for a low wage, which ends up giving the same result. In addition, by lowering wages increases profits and makes more jobs, employers can get the job done but require more workers. As well, if people do not have the money to spend, they seek lower prices even though they realize there is a moral cost because to have prices they can afford. Manufacturers respond by shipping jobs overseas where there is no cost for environmental control and starvation wages, child labor, and workers safety costs, which gives us what we want, low prices and what they want, which is high profits. At home, massive marketers, such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, drive small concerns out of business; thus, cutting the number of employees required and lowering marketing cost per item. The logical solution is to create more jobs, which means cutting taxes for job creators to increase profits, which politicians did in huge way. However, politicians were reluctant to either increase taxes or cut them because they need money to spend operate the government; nonetheless, the thumb was clearly on the scale on the side of lower taxes. Cutting taxes, which workers them selves wanted, resulted in higher profits for the job creators so they too supported tax cuts.

By lower operating cost, we created the economic elite; however, the rich are people too; they did what everyone else was doing, which is to want to earn more and keep the money they “earned” which includes not creating more jobs but causing less jobs and lower earnings. Obviously, the workers and their families have less and less money to spend. The step needed to break this vicious cycle—in fact reverse the cycle—is for politicians to lower taxes on workers but also raise taxes on the rich—everyone call this progressive taxation. It will result in people spending more money because they will have more to spend. In addition, it will ameliorate the income disparity. If it is so simple, why don’t politicians do something? If taxes are low and they do not raise them, the results are as just described—low taxes caused the problem so the solution is obvious.

Obvious or not, it will not happen for one reason, it is not personal. I talked to a young adult who was bitter about the amount of taxes taken out of his paycheck. He hated the government for collecting taxes—that was personal—but he failed to mention his low wages, or indicate he understood income disparity which are things that are distant; thus, don’t seem to count. He is against helping any other countries or children crossing our southern boarder, food stamps, or emergency management in natural disasters. He has rent and insurance to pay and food to buy; that is what counts. He does not like any kind of government and will vote for anyone who tells him they lower taxes without giving a tinker’s damn on who it is lowered on; he can identify with anyone who pays taxes. To raise taxes on anyone for any reason cannot be good governance; tax and spend is anathema to good government and beyond his comprehension.

People know that progressive taxation is something loved by Democrats and hated by Republicans, who express their hate for by calling it wealth distribution. It is wealth distribution but it is wealth distribution by wages and taxes, which is how society works. You cannot have “money” unless you earn it and you cannot have good government unless you are willing to pay for it. You cannot have good government unless you have democracy. That is the good old flag waving American way!

Almost no one, but especially Republicans, will vote for politicians who support progressive taxation. Because of the necessary use, but high cost of media, and the lack of control over truthfulness of political ads, modern politics centers on economic support for candidates, which translates into the person with the most money wins, a lie told enough time turns into the truth. If politicians want voters to elect them, he or she will end up voting the way the biggest campaign donor wants them to vote. The person with the money is the one earning the highest profits. People ask why I am so against the “Citizens United” decision and why I say the United States Supreme Court has corrupted our Democracy by “making money words”; they did it with one purpose in mind, to destroy equality in the electoral process.

I say individual politicians’ “lust for money” or greed has corrupted democracy just as the economic elite have corrupted politicians. The objective of the rich is to cut taxes until the government is so small they, the economic elite, can “drowned it in a bathtub”. The irony is that historically we feared “the power to tax is the power to destroy”; our founding fathers have protected us against that by creating a government of equality; by “one-man one-vote”. As it turns out, an equal danger is the power “not to tax”, which is what will destroy our country. Our Constitution of 1776 for the first time in the history of humankind took the power from royalty and the economic elite and put it in the hands of working people, now, two hundred thirty eight years later they are using it to take power back; the rise and fall of a great empire in less than a quarter of a century. This can only happen if you let it happen.   

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