The power to tax may well be the power to destroy, but the power to tax unfairly is the power to do worse--it's the power to enslave. With the increasing concentration of the majority of the country's wealth into fewer and fewer hands (2% of the population of this country now holds over 50% of its total wealth, and is moving to amass ever more), America is being turned into a fundamentally unfair economic oligarchy, not the government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" which the Founders envisioned.
Yet we seem paralyzed to do anything about it. Republicans want to keep cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, claiming that that's what will spur job creation and get the economy moving again, and that spending cuts will balance the budged. Democrats say that continuing to cut vital social programs will place the majority of the burden of government costs on the backs of those who can afford it the least, and that if we're going to cut spending, we must cut in areas like huge contracts to defense contractors, not areas like Head Start.
It is axiomatic that spending cuts alone will not balance the budget. The cuts the GOP wants merely nibble around the edges and are not big enough monetarily to dent the burgeoning interest obligations we have on the debt we've already incurred. Those cuts will, however, cause a great deal of misery for a great number of Americans, who are not looking for a handout, but for a hand, given that while income for the richest 2% of Americans has increased at least 20-fold in the past 15 years or so, income for the other 98% of us has remained stagnant (or even declined, in real terms, once inflation has been adjusted for) for the past 40 years.
Revenues must be considered. Revenues must be increased. But the current US tax code is a virtually impossible labyrinth of exemptions here and deductions there--in short, social engineering run amok. We seem to be at a stand-off. We've been at a stand-off for decades now, and positions are only hardening. People seem less and less willing to give a little to get a little. I include myself in that group, because, frankly, I do believe that "if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk."
I honor the notion of compromise. I do believe it is the genius of our system and that it is what has made America work for as long as it has. But the problem with compromise is that everyone has to play with the same understanding. If you define "compromise" as "getting 100% of my own way," well, that's not compromise. And alas for us, President Obama has been "compromising" with a GOP which does define "compromise" as "my way or the highway." Yet even he has his limits, and he has shown rather more backbone of late. The GOP, of course, calls that partisanship. Face it: it is impossible to reason with anyone who thinks they should have things 100% of their own way and the rest of us can go hang.
Yet if we don't want the country to collapse into anarchy, we urgently need to move the discussion into productive channels instead of continuing to hash and rehash and re-rehash the same stale, non-productive rhetoric. Hence the following immodest proposal:
Median annual income in this country is now $35,000 per person. Under the new system I propose, that first $35,000 will be entirely exempt from taxes. Every penny above that will be subject to tax at the rate of 1% [or 1/2% even--whatever will increase net revenue without being so high as to be seen by any rational observer as objectionable. Look: we have to have some taxes, just as we have to have some government. Justice Holmes was right. Taxes ARE the price we pay for civilization--Ed.]. No exemptions. No deductions. No subsidies. No exceptions. Corporations would pay the same. They were so insistent on being treated as "people" for purposes of campaign financing, and a bare-bones majority of the US Supreme Court was so accommodating to them in its Citizens United decision, that they have no valid grounds on which to complain. Fifteen to 20 percent of all such revenues will be set aside to fund Social Security and Medicare and will be untouchable by anybody in government for any other reason.
The net result will ripple throughout the government. Without all the subsidy programs, the Dept. of Agriculture can shrink, thus greatly reducing its long-term operating costs. The Internal Revenue Service can shrink, too, as it will no longer need such an extensive enforcement arm as it now maintains. Even the Social Security Administration can reduce its size, as it will no longer need so many people to work in conjunction with the IRS to get and process its revenues in the first place. Individuals and corporations both would still have more than enough income to go about their daily "lives."
There is no downside to this proposal. The only reason for opposition would be greed, plain and simple. But it has the proverbial snowball's chance of getting enacted. For every exemption, deduction, subsidy, or perk in the present system [except for those few still remaining for real, individual people of modest means--Ed.], there's an army of lobbyists in Congress ready and rich enough to defend it to eternity. That's sad, and more than a bit frightening. Why are people so willing to be against their own government but totally pro-big corporate power? With government, at least in our system, you have recourse if you are done wrong. But with a corporation, if it does you wrong, you are essentially SOL . . . unless you have access to a governmental entity with enough teeth to protect you. I surmise that greed rules here, too. Everyone seems to think he's going to become the owner bee and not be a worker bee. Ain't gonna happen, folks. The 2% of the people in this country who hold more than 50% of the total wealth of this country will make sure of that--but they'll dangle the hope of its happening in front of you until you are mesmerized by it and stop paying attention to what they're really up to, which is amassing ever more money and power unto themselves and taking it all away from you.
I am inspired to this day by John F. Kennedy's call to "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." THAT is what America is, and should be, about. And by my "country," I mean my fellow citizens. And if that means "Social Security," great! I'm all for helping the vast majority of us, the 98% of us who wield increasing less power and influence as real money is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. I'm not alone, either. Tom Toles had an editorial cartoon in Friday's Washington Post wherein a 6-lane interstate, under a highway sign saying "what you can do for your country" was totally devoid of cars--while a two-lane exit ramp, labelled "ask not," was jammed to a standstill with cars overfilling both lanes. I'm not the only one who "gets it," as it were. But we seem to be in an infinitesimal minority. Nonetheless, we have to keep trying. For unless we can change the terms of the debate and start offering new solutions, workable solutions--unless everyone is willing, for the sake of the country, to give a little--we are too soon going to be pledging allegiance to the Corporate States of America. And that will mean the end of the American Dream.
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