If you can at all afford to do so, please contribute to help the displaced victims of Katrina! You can also contribute here or here to help fund the rescue and care of the thousands of displaced pets in New Orleans and elsewhere.
The last ten days have been difficult ones, as the Katrina disaster has unfolded. The problems and lack of preparation were scandalous. See this discussion and this one. As the weak, the poor, the sick, and the elderly suffered in desperation waiting for governmental aid that should have been at the ready, we--and the world with us--recognized the price we are paying for the tax policy of the last five years. Tax cuts have gone predominantly to the benefit of the wealthy, and health and environmental safety nets have fallen by the wayside. Tax expenditures and special breaks have flowed to the oil companies who are making a killing out of high oil prices in the midst of an inventory surplus. Even as Katrina hit, Congress was planning how to cut taxes for the wealthy even more by making the dividend rate cut and millionaire's estate tax repeal permanent. To pay for those tax cuts, Congress was also planning cuts in medicare, food stamps and other programs for the neediest of the needy.
Katrina has made it all too clear that such reckless fiscal policies create only Third World conditions. The wealthy in New Orleans were able to flee safely to hotels or new apartments. The mostly poor, mostly black and frequently sick or elderly who were left had no car, no bank account, and no way to find shelter. We all saw their desperation and felt their need. The poor, at least for a few days, are no longer invisible in America.
Instead of passing more tax cuts for the wealthy, likely to be invested in offshore banks and overseas businesses (that steal even more jobs from ordinary Americans) or used to pay high-priced accounting firms for a tax shelter scheme to avoid taxes altogether, Congress should roll back the tax cuts and embark on a renewed commitment to use our combined wealth to re-create the land of opportunity that we claim to be. We have to think openly and deeply about tax policies, and realize that the many government functions that are supposed to protect us and make possible a sustainable market economy and civilized society cannot work without taxes to support them. This discussion goes on now among academics and increasingly in the blogosphere as tax experts argue the merits of tax policies in ways little seen on the floor of Congress these days. See, for example, this post by fellow tax professor James Maule.
It is time for the discussion to go on in Congress and throughout the country, time for our tax policies and our aid policies to reflect the long term needs of a country with increasing income disparities. Let us enact a new program of college grants for the needy, to ensure that every American can receive an education that permits them to move ahead. Let's fund the program by taxing capital gains and dividends the same as ordinary income. Let's ensure that every American has the right to adequate health care. Let's fund that program by taking back the billions in corporate tax breaks passed in the 2004 Jobs Act and 2005 energy bill, among others, from allowing corporations to expense capital expenditures to permitting them to cross-credit most foreign taxes. Let's invest now in energy conservation, not environmental degradation, as discussed in this article by environmentalist McKibben. For once, let's start to think about the long term well-being of this country and all its citizens, and let's make the hard decisions and shared sacrifices that sustainable well-being requires, including enacting higher progressive rates on those making $1 million or $10 million or more.
Recent Comments