Virtually every government in the history of the world has taxed, and today’s governments continue to tax, their citizens. Someone has to pay for the roads, the schools, and the army. Every government is an expression of how a society organizes itself. They may have a king or queen, a czar or “President for Life,” or a President and a Congress (as we do.) That person make the rules that govern the society. They also decide how the wealth in the society is distributed. Usually, the king or President for Life will distribute most of the wealth to himself and his friends. Leaders will be generous to the army and police, to ensure they stay in power. Everyone else gets the crumbs.
In our society, we get to go to the polls and elect our rule makers. Well, kind of. We get to pick between whatever candidates the two major political parties [offer] us. People with money, many with inherited fortunes, are willing to spend vast fortunes to elect Senators and Congresspersons who make the rules, because they want rules that make them even richer and more powerful. They want more government benefits and less in the way of taxes. They want more of society’s wealth–even though they already have most of it. To get it, they have to take it out of your pocket.
Most of the super-wealthy do not like the Franklin Delano Roosevelt principle: “Those who benefit the most from our society should pay the most.”
This explains why investment income is taxed lower than income from hard work. The inherited rich do not work; they invest. They do not like inheritance taxes, so they call them a “death tax.” That is pretty absurd, since dead people do not need money. This also explains why the Republican Senate just passed a tax bill (euphemistically called “tax reform”), that cuts taxes on corporations controlled by the super-wealthy.) Those tax cuts do not expire. [However,] slightly cut taxes for the rest of us do expire in the future.
Worse, the Senate did this in such a way that our health care cost will go up–exceeding what few bucks we save in taxes. This is a net loss in income. So, the Republican Senate has been redistributing [society’s] wealth in favor of the already hog-rich [citizens,] at the expense of the rest of us, who are not rich enough to buy elections.
That is why I was protesting outside the Capitol Building in Washington, D. C., on Friday, December 1, 2017, with Democracy Is for People. As long as votes are counted and not dollars, we have a chance to restore our Democracy. But being able to vote is no solution, until we have reformed our political system–which is designed to keep power in the hands of a few. Nothing threatens the oligarchs more than the Bernie [Sanders] movement.
We still have a chance to save the Ship of State.
Editor’s note: In November, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed their version of a tax reform bill. Not a single Democrat in the House or Senate voted in support. When a Reconciliation Committee is appointed, both bills will be analyzed, and one version will be crafted. It will be returned to both Houses. A simple majority in each chamber’s membership will enact or veto the bill.
Where did Reconciliation come from? Reconciliation was created in a 1974 budget law, and its main purpose is to reduce the deficit. Since it was first used in 1980, there have been 20 reconciliation bills enacted into law and four vetoed.
Why do it? Budget reconciliation is very attractive, because it allows passage of a bill in the Senate with just a simple majority of votes. Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate, so they could lose three votes and still pass the bill.