Taxes

Debating about tax policy played a large role in the Presidential election. Taxes have been a major issue in every election since our nation's founding--in fact, even before that. President Obama plans to undo President Bush's tax cut for those making more than $250,000 a year. To many conservatives, this is part of Barack's larger socialist agenda.  A little research shows that since the US instituted income taxes, the wealthy pay less now than they have at any other time in history. The wealthy paid a higher tax under President Clinton, which unsurprisingly, along with a more fiscally responsible approach to governing, led to a budget surplus of a billion dollars when Clinton left office. In the last 8 years, President Bush has doubled our national debt--from 5 trillion to 10 trillion--and taken our yearly deficit from a surplus of 1 billion when he took office to a deficit of around 500 billion this year. This is a combination of war, tax cuts, and other irresponsible spending. How do conservatives expect us to pay for the war--which they support--and to fund the bailout, which a Republican administration pushed for? How do we fund the massive costs of researching and developing alternative fuel sources? How do we improve our public school system? A small portion of wealthy individuals control an enormous portion of the wealth in this country, yet more often than not, they pay a lower tax percentage than than those in the bottom income bracket. How? With all sorts of maneuvers that exploit the tax code. In 2006--the most recent data available--those earning the most (the top 1%) paid an average income tax of 19%, while the lowest wage earners paid an average of 21%. Anyone who assumes that the wealthiest Americans are over-taxed just isn't paying attention. The tax debate comes down to 2 simple points:

1) We have millions upon millions of Americans who work hard, but they can't afford health care. We should care about the welfare of our neighbors. We should care when good, hard working people are forced into bankruptcy because of health problems. We should care when older people spend every cent they have on medications so they can try and have a decent quality of life. Many conservatives are religious. They should ask themselves what their religion teaches about helping those in need. This isn't about providing lazy people with flat-screen televisions, it is about helping them, and even moreso their children, when they need to see a doctor. This isn't a socialist viewpoint. This isn't a call for nationalizing industry, and taxing the rich at a rate of 70%. It is about doing something we are capable of doing. Every other industrialized country in the world--except South Africa--provides some form of guaranteed health care. They treat it as a service, not a business; they choose not to let people go bankrupt so they can get the help they need. We should join them in providing health care for everyone in this country. It is the morally and ethically correct thing to do, and hopefully President Obama can get this done. 

2) Many of our schools are failing. Lots of schools are overcrowded. Teachers are expected to teach too many kids without the tools to do so. Lots of schools have horrible funding and they can't provide books and computers for the students. They can't pay teachers enough to stay around. It is hurting our country and most of all, it hurts those that are already hurting. The poor, impoverished parts of our country are the ones with the worst public schools, yet the kids that attend these schools are in tremendous need of a good education. We don't want a welfare state, but we also haven't provided the tools to help the segment of our society that needs schooling the most, so they can change their lives for the better and eliminate the cycle of poverty in their families. We need to put a lot more money into the school system--especially these poor areas--by providing more money for books and computers, paying teachers much more and recruiting the best educators out there to come to these schools. We need to build more schools and upgrade old, crumbling facilities, and make sure we provide a world class education not just to kids in the beverly hills school district, but also to those in the 9th Ward in New Orleans. 

There are lots of other issues, like are old, crumbling infrastructure, and the need for improving are industrial system so it harms the environment less. We need to develop better fuel sources, ones that are renewable and that harm the environment as little as possible. These kinds of things can't be done if we don't put money in our treasury. It's amazing that we can find conservative support for 700 billion dollars when it comes to banks and Wall Street, but that kind of money could have boosted the economy in other ways. We could have put that kind of money into schools, infrastructure, health care, and alternative fuels, improving our country and creating millions of new jobs in the process. We can't rebuild the middle class, and help those most in need, by taxing the richest among us at the lowest rate in our nations history. We need to make changes to the tax code that eliminate loop holes, and simplify things so that everyone pays the tax rate assigned to them. We shouldn't tax the rich at enormously high rates, but we should tax them in a way that helps America as a whole--a utilitarian approach. Republicans have pushed for lower taxes--especially since Ronald Reagan took office. The idea is that if we let the rich keep more of their money, they will reinvest it and create more jobs, thereby bettering all Americans. Well, this theory has been turned on it's head. Since 1980, the average real income (factoring in inflation) for the bottom 60% of Americans has dropped, while the income for the highest portion of American has risen by more than 300%. We have created an income gap only equaled by Russia--where most of the country rots, while a few billionaires live it up. We have created the kind of income gap last seen in our country in the booming 1920's, right before the depression. We knew then, and we know now, that massive income gaps destroy the middle class and that the rich don't let any trickle down, they keep it amongst themselves. Our tax policies should be created with all of America in mind, doing what is best for everyone, not only the rich. I hope President Obama can help restore our financial security, rebuild the middle class, provide basic, necessary benefits to the poor, and check the extreme excesses of the ultra-wealthy on Wall Street. This isn't a call for egalitarianism, it's a call to tax in a way that allows us to pay our bills as a country. It's a call to tax in a way that allows us to provide health care for everyone, and to improve our schools. That is not socialism. It is good, decent, humanitarianism. It is the approach we should all support. It is very achievable, it just calls for a little less greed, a little more kindness, a little less ignorance, and greater thriftiness by all of us.