Why Tax the Rich When You Can Tax the Poor?

As reported in USA Today, states across the country are increasing existing tolls on roads/bridges/

tunnels as well as charging tolls for the first time on roads that have always been free.  A toll is a tax and one that falls disproportionately on the middle class and poor.   It is a very regressive tax.

I understand that states and localities are strapped for money and that they need to raise revenues somehow in order not to have even deeper cuts in services.  But to raise revenues in a very regressive manner … hitting lower income people harder than upper income … is socially unfair and contrary to progressive principles.

This is especially egregious when the tax is on something that is a necessity for many.  For people commuting for work within large metropolitan areas, public transportation is not generally a very realistic alternative.  It either just doesn’t exist, or it doesn’t take you where you need to go. 

For many people in the lower-middle income categories, a raise in tolls could mean that commuting to work is no longer financially reasonable.  If they have to quit their jobs that means higher unemployment with greater strain on local government services.  Regardless how you look at it, it’s bad government policy.  Other examples of bad taxes to raise would be sales taxes and gasoline taxes, both of which are regressive and impact the ability to acquire necessities.

And there are alternatives that are not regressive.  The one is obviously to raise income taxes on the wealthy.   It’s anathema to the Republicans, but it’s the right thing to do.  The tax rate for the richest Americans is lower than it has been since before the Depression.  Another option would be to place or raise a sales tax surcharge on luxury items.

Then there are alternatives that, while regressive, do not impact necessities … although granted that’s all in the eye of the beholder.  I’m referring to sin taxes … taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. While these definitely hit lower income people disproportionately, cigarettes and alcohol are not necessities and in quantity are actually bad for people. So if a state has a clear social policy of discouraging the use of cigarettes and alcohol, I could support such a tax increase.  But only then,

We live in a culture where the rich and big business have access to the people who hold the levers of power in government.  The middle class and poor have no such access.  As a result, the rich and big business are catered to; the rest are mostly given lip service.  It is unjust.  It is against the American social contract.  It is un-American.

Is It Class Warfare or Is It a Cry for Justice?

Over the past three decades this country has experienced rapid growth in income inequality.  While the incomes of those in the top 5% have increased exponentially, especially during the past decade, the inflation-adjusted income of production and non-supervisory workers has actually decreased.  The 2010 census found the number of Americans living in poverty to be higher than at any time in the past 51 years that records have been kept; the poverty rate … 1 in 7 Americans … was higher than it’s been since 1994.  The rich have indeed gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.  The middle class has been eviscerated.

Yet in Congress the Republicans, who say they speak on behalf of the average American, instead fight any efforts to regulate the financial industry excesses that brought about the recent/current recession, resist any tax increases on wealthy Americans (although current tax rates are lower than at any time since before the Depression), and in general continue to support government subsidization of industry while seeking savage budget cuts in programs that support middle income Americans and the poor.  All in the name of reigning in the deficit.

This is the context in which Mitt Romney and other Republicans are crying “class warfare” at the protests taking place against the financial industry and at Obama’s call for the rich to pay a minimum tax at least equal to the taxes paid by middle income Americans.

Call it mendacity; call it hypocritical.  But beyond deceit, as Rick Perry so aptly stated when criticizing his fellow Republicans for their stand on immigration, these people have no heart.  Not only have they no heart, they have forgotten the American social contract which has benefited them greatly and under which they have an obligation to support the government’s efforts to help those less fortunate.

It is not class warfare to ask that the rich pay their fair share to support the government.  It is not class warfare to ask that industry be regulated so that the public good is protected.  These demands are a cry for social justice.  They are consistent with the balance that our nation has historically struck between private right, the public good, and government. 

The Republicans seek to fundamentally alter that balance.  They are making war on the American social contract and on the middle class, the poor, and the environment.

Pastors want to have their cake and eat it too

The New York Times has reported that there is a movement afoot by evangelical and other pastors to flout the IRS rule that prohibits churches, as tax-exempt organizations, from campaigning in elections.  They are going so far as to send the IRS tapes of their sermons.  

Clearly they wish the IRS to take action so that they can then sue the IRS.   As the Rev. James Garlow was reported in The New York Times as saying, “There should be no government intrusion in the pulpit.  The freedom of speech and the freedom of religion means pastors have full authority to say what they want to say.”

Of course … and they do have the right to say what they want to say.   There’s only one problem.  They have sought to be exempt from taxes by filing with the IRS as 501c(3) non-profit organizations.  One of the many rules for being entitled to this status and its exemption from taxes is that organizations cannot speak out for or against a candidate in an election … in effect, no campaigning.

It is important to note that the IRS provision does not prohibit all political speech.  Churches can be involved in educating their members on the issues in a non-partisan manner and individual members, even pastors, can speak out directly for or against a candidate if they do not do so using the church’s financial resources, facilities, or personnel and make clear they are speaking on their own behalf, not the church’s.

This rule applies to all 501c(3) organizations … not just churches.  It has nothing to do with freedom of religion.  If pastors want to be free to campaign from the pulpit and get their church involved in campaigns, then they just have to withdraw their churches from 501c(3) status.  The choice is theirs.

House Republicans Abdicate Governing Role

With the Republicans having a majority in the House of Representatives, they have a critical constitutional role to play in the governance of this country.   What transpired this past Friday, however, shows without any question that the Republicans have abdicated their responsibility.

Friday was showdown time.  House Speaker Boehner had not been able to secure enough votes from the most conservative Republican (Tea Party) representatives in his caucus to pass his debt ceiling legislation.   At this point he had two options. 

The first was to work with House Democrats to craft a bill that could pass both the House and the Senate.  This would have required attracting at least some support (around 30 votes) from his caucus, but given the stakes and his leadership that was certainly not an unrealistic scenario. 

This would probably, however, have set the Speaker up for a leadership fight from his disgruntled Tea Party colleagues.   Given their numbers and proven willingness to flex their muscles, his leadership position would have been in serious doubt.

The second option was to cave in to this most radically conservative element in his caucus, which is what he did by adding a requirement that in order for the second stage of debt ceiling relief to be implemented, Congress would have to pass a balanced budget amendment.  Given that a 2/3 vote in favor is required for a constitutional amendment, there is no chance that such an amendment would pass even the House, let alone the Senate. 

Thus his revised bill basically told everyone, no more debt ceiling relief.  His bill would have set the country up for a very serious economic crisis.

Now some readers might ask, what’s the problem with a balanced budget amendment?   It sounds so reasonable.   The problem is that even the most fiscally responsible government cannot always have a balanced budget. 

For example, if such an amendment had been in place at the time of the 2008 economic crisis, none of the actions taken by the Bush and Obama administrations to avoid a full-fledged depression would have been possible.  Or they would have only been possible at the cost of cutting a huge amount of government spending in other areas, which would have meant either directly or indirectly cutting millions of jobs, thus countering the impact of any stimulus.  A balanced budget amendment at that time would have held the country hostage and we would have descended into an economic nightmare that would have made the current recession or recovery look like a walk through that park.

The majority party’s responsibility is to govern by passing necessary legislation.   If the party cannot do so because of the recalcitrance of its own members, then it has an obligation to act in a bipartisan manner. 

House Speaker Boehner should resign his post.  He has abdicated his responsibility and thereby jeopardized the economic stability of the country.

Arise America – Take To the Streets and Let Your Voice Be Heard!

I have not written a post for many months.   The reason being that I found I was talking about the same small set of issues over and over again because that’s where we were stuck as a nation.  Having nothing new to say, I said nothing.

But now the time has come for the current silent American majority … centrists and liberals … to be silent no more. It is time to take to the streets and peacefully protest against the actions and goals of radical Republicans.  This is a cause no less important than ending the Vietnam War was in another era.  We need to use the social networking media that worked so effectively in the Arab world to generate a massive protest movement.  The time is now!  The need is urgent!

Republicans, both in state legislatures across the country and in Congress, are trying to destroy almost everything progressive that our national and state governments have done over the course of the 20th century.  During that time, government was transformed from one that protected business interests almost exclusively to one which recognized the need to stand behind those in our society who had no voice and no power … the middle class, the working class, and the poor.

Whether it’s the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, the entitlement programs … Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security … the right of workers to organize, progressive taxation, or countless other programs, these Republicans seek to use the looming deficit to cut everything that they detest from the role of government and leave people to fend for themselves.  Well, not quite all people. Despite all their talk of the need to cut deficits, Republican support for business and the rich remains undiminished


I fully agree that the deficit needs to be cut drastically.  It is the Republicans' lack of balance in who shares the burden, the lack of fairness, that is so egregious.

The most galling example of this is Republicans’ refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy, or in the Federal case let the tax cuts expire so the rates would return to what they were before.  The canard they trot out is that it would be irresponsible to raise taxes during a time of economic crisis.  

Despite the fact that this “trickle down” theory, or what some call “voodoo economics”, has been irrefutably shown to be without any basis through our actual experience during both the Reagan and Bush II years, they continue to argue that the rich use their money in a way which will help the economy.  Yet at the same time, they have no compunction about cutting billions of dollars of federal spending and aid to the states that will both directly and indirectly result in millions more people losing their jobs and truly stall our shaky economic recovery.

It is amazing to me that, with the exception of the demonstrations in Wisconsin against the busting of state worker unions, Americans have basically been silent in the face of this relentless Republican onslaught.  Polls show clearly and consistently that the Tea Party does not speak for most Americans.  While most Americans think the deficit is a problem and needs to be cut, they are for increasing taxes on the wealthy and are against cuts that would harm our economic recovery.

They are also against any cuts that impact them directly … such as Medicare or Social Security.  To put our country back on the road to fiscal health, however, some adjustments to these benefits are most likely inescapable,.  But those most vulnerable and least able to afford such cuts need to be protected from such pain by spreading the impact of deficit reduction measures across all segments of society, with those being most able to afford it shouldering the greatest burden.

Every old-fashioned conservative, centrist, and liberal American should contact their friends, contact the organizations both secular and religious that they belong to, and create a groundswell of action that shows the Republicans that they do not have the support of the American people.  In addition to taking to the streets in protest, inundating Republican legislators with email and phone calls would be very productive.

Do not let this moment slip by.  Do not let the foundation that has made America great and strong be destroyed by the radical Republican ideological purists.  In this sense, the current batch of radical Republicans have more in common with their Islamist enemies then they would care to acknowledge.  They are as untrue to the historical underpinnings of the Republican Party as Islamist extremists are to the Koran.

Arise America!   Arise!

Demonizing Hamas Is a No-Win Policy

The United States’ initial reaction to the announcement of a deal between Fatah and Hamas to form a temporary transitional unity government prior to elections next year shows once again, as I have oft noted, that our foreign policy is clearly in the hands of the establishment with little of the progressive influence promised by President Obama. 

The reaction was, the United States “considered Hamas a terrorist organization that would not be a reliable partner in peace talks with Israel.”  This echoed the statement of Israel’s P.M., Benjamin Netanyahu.

There is no question that Hamas is a terrorist organization that historically and now calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.  That much said, it must be remembered that it was the elections foisted on the Palestinians by the Bush administration, against both Fatah’s and Israel’s wishes, that provided Hamas with its legistimacy.  There can also be no doubt that there can never be peace between Israel and the Palestinians unless it is with a government that speaks for all Palestinians and unless the new state includes both the West Bank and Gaza.

But during the period since those elections and the later expulsion of Fatah from Gaza, the United States and Israel have acted like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.  They have been pursing a divide and conquer fantasy.   Thinking that somehow there could be peace without Hamas and without Gaza.  Wishful thinking is never a good perspective in developing foreign policy.  Better to be a realist.

Netanyahu even had the chutzpah to say to Fatah that they had to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas; that both were not possible.  Given that Netanyahu has shown absolutely no sincere interest in a viable peace with the Palestinians and has only thrown up obstacles, it is no surprise that Fatah has finally decided that the existing route to peace with Israel was not going to work.

The question, of course, is how to turn Hamas into a peaceful actor that recognizes the State of Israel.  I do not presume to suggest what the answer is.   The only thing one can say for sure is that the strategy followed to date … to force Hamas to submit by strangling Gaza … is not working and will not work.  Instead, it has played very much into Hamas’ hands on the international stage.

Had Obama stuck to his guns on the settlement issue with the Israelis in the U.N., we may have had more credibility in brokering something with Hamas.  As it stands, we have none.

Obama should direct the staff of the Naitonal Security Council and the State Department to put their thinking caps on and come up with a plan to transform Hamas into an entity that we and Israel can work with.  I have no doubt that if they have that as a charge that they can pull it off.  Perhaps even the road to peace lies through Hamas.  Stranger things have happened.

The Republican's Hubris

Forget about the social inequities of the Republican budget plan ... how in typical Republican fashion it takes from the poor and the worker, and this time even the elderly, and gives to the rich ... what I find mind-boggling is the House passage of their budget blueprint with no committee hearings and virtually no debate.   

This is one of the most important legislative documents in many years.   In its details it will go nowhere.   But in the scope of its bottom line insistence on restoring the country to fiscal sanity and soundness, it most definitely sets the target for deficit reduction that any other plan will be held up to.  No wimpish effort will be acceptable.

Without the Republican's throwing down the gauntlet, it's quite possible that no political force would have risen to tackle this most serious national problem.  Certainly President Obama was not forthcoming on the issue when he prepared his 2012 budget, being more concerned with his re-election campaign.   As I said in a previous post, his lack of leadership on this issue has been very disappointing.  

But now that the Republicans have given him political cover, he has come up with his own plan, which it's reported borrows heavily from the recommendations of the bipartisan commission he appointed on cutting the deficit.  Members of the Senate are reportedly also busy devising their own plan.

Commendable as their effort may thus be from this perspective, the process they have followed makes a mockery of considered government.  The Republicans of 2011 are no different than the Gingrich Republicans of 1995 ... they are consumed by a hubris that will result in their graceless defeat at the hands of the very voters that lifted them to power.  In that respect, I am grateful for their hubris.