The previous occupant took us into two wars without asking Americans to sacrifice anything, he instead asked us to go shopping. He also decided that that was a great time to enact a generous prescription drugs bill that wasn’t paid for and to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, those that the Republicans like to call the “job creators” these days. Well, they got the tax breaks, but they stopped creating jobs. Instead, they shipped jobs and profits (that would otherwise be taxed) overseas.
These tax-evading companies are scofflaws. They know precisely what they are doing. It’s legal. But it is wrong. They are funneling money into Ireland and Denmark and the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes on their HUGE profits, and there is no legal recourse that the United States government can take, because it’s all legal. Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.
The United States Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 decision earlier this year in the Citizens United v. FEC case that corporations were “citizens”, and therefore entitled to the first amendment protection to free speech, specifically as it applied to political speech. Well, if they are entitled to the right of free speech as protected by the Constitution, then they are also responsible to contribute to the general Treasury.
Why is it that wealthy folks who earn most of their money from capital dividends pay only 15% on their income when most of us pay a good deal more than that, on a percentage basis? Why is it that Warren Buffet himself has balked at the fact that his secretary and the rest of his staff pay a higher percentage of they pay in taxes than Buffet (a billionaire) does? Because he thinks it is fundamentally wrong, that’s why! And, he’s right. Why should his secretary be paying 25 or 27 or 29 percent when Buffet is paying a fraction of that?
As President Obama said in his Rose Garden speech earlier today, “This is not class warfare… this is math!” Indeed.
It is math. Plain and simple. And, it’s about time we start realizing that we can’t get something for nothing. That’s what the last decade was about. We’ll fight two wars, but there will be no sacrifice. We’ll enact a generous new prescription drug benefit, but there’ll be no sacrifice. We’ll cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but there will be no sacrifice. Who is – or who did – peddle myths?
It’s time to pay our bills. And, we are all going to have to gird our loins and tighten our belts. There is an old saying, “To whom much is given, much is expected in return.” It’s time for those who have profited from our corporate-leaning tax structure and wealthy-leaning tax structure to pony up a bit more to help our country recover and rise like a Phoenix out of our current ashes.
Namaste.
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