Glenden BrownThe Liberal, American Story
People who work hard, who play by the rules, shouldn’t get the shaft.
Big businesses have immense power - look at the way Wal Mart treats its suppliers. Look at the way it treats local communities. Take a look at Micron. They demanded and received a host of tax breaks, incentives, promises and services from Lehi. They then didn’t follow through on their end of the deal. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the top 1% of Americans is an imbalance that only the government has the power to correct. We the people need the government to protect us from big business which values profits and nothing but profits.
We work hard, we pay our fair share. The wealthy and powerful - both individuals and corporations - have spent the last decade using their money to stack the deck in their favor. They don’t pay their fair share in taxes. Corporations have vast teams of lawyers and accountants who job is to make sure they don’t pay taxes. They have lawyers who set up one room offices in the Bahamas or some distant tax haven so they can claim they aren’t an American company and don’t have to pay American taxes. And they can do it because Republicans have let them write the laws since 1995 and they’ve written the laws to help themselves. The price is paid by average Americans who have to pay more in taxes.
That’s called gaming the system and they’re doing because they can and they will and all they care about is money. We need our government to serve our needs - to protect the citizens from the corporations gone wild.
That’s the liberal story - putting government into the service of the average American, helping us get educations and buy houses and know that when we are retired, we will have social security and medicare. Government, not corporations, is the entity in society that can and will protect us. We have to demand that it do it. And the Republicans won’t be on our side.
December 26th, 2006 at 10:33 am
There IS a place for ‘free markets’ and all that free market philosophy…. but it’s not in seeking the best public good. Great post, GB. Let’s hope the new year puts more power back into the hands of the people and less profits into the hands of the 1 -2 %!
December 26th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
How much should the top 1% pay before you can say they are paying their “fair share”? 20% of their income? 30%? 99%? 100?
How much should the lower 50% pay before they are paying too much?
December 28th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Thanks Lee! In the post-War era, government policy had the effect of reducing the power and influence of corporations and the wealthy. Since 1981, the conservative movement has been incredibly effective an undoing that. It’s time to restore the balance.
GC - I’m working on a post on tax policy so I’ll just offer a quick thought - the focus on % of income paid is a mistake. % is a quick measure of how much a person is/should pay but does not ask crucial questions about ability to pay. A family of 4 living on $30,000/year has less ability to pay 5% of their income in taxes than a family of 4 living on $300,000/year has the ability to pay 50% of their income in taxes. I understand some European nations have essentially created a cap on incomes - over a certain amount per year is taxed at 100%. Interestingly, social policies in those nations have led to greater general well being than we have in the US.