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Here's a holiday present

Here’s a holiday present – no important government programs require any hike in your taxes. Some politicians, particularly but not exclusively Republican, want you to believe that anything good that government does will come straight out of your pocket. But that says more about what they want to make happen than anything that necessarily or logically comes from running valuable government programs. It’s all about who the politicians want to make pay the taxes. RememberWarren Buffet who was outraged to discover that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did. That’s because some politicians have been lowering the tax rates of their rich friends for decades and therefore leaving it to the rest of us to pay to keep government working. There’s nothing about the American economy that wouldn’t support American workers the way it did a few decades ago – the difference is all in the tax rates. And it’s time Americans put an end to that tax theft.

Republicans have been cutting taxes to the wealthiest Americans since 1980. They’ve be giving us all sorts of explanations why that’s good for all of us. But the income of America’s working people of has been been stagnant for half a century while their buying power has been declining. That’s not trickle-down – that’s just a failure to serve America honorably.

There’s no reason for that to continue. There is plenty of wealth in America and it’s absolutely fair and proper for working men and women to share the growth in America’s wealth that they have made possible. The only reason they have not is called lobbyists. It’s not a failure of America’s working people. It’s a failure of Republican willingness to let America’s working people share the wealth. There’s no reason for Republican members of Congress to scare America’s working men and women that their Social Security won’t be there for them in order to satisfy their very wealthy campaign donors who do not and never will rely on those Social Secutiry dollars – especially given that those Social Security dollars have already been paid for as insurance. The same goes for Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.

Senator Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Sanders of Vermont and Senator Gillibrand of New York have collaborated on a modest wealth tax:

2% on the net worth of households and trusts over $50 million and

a 1% surtax on the net worth of households and trusts over $1 billion.

My retirement savings don’t come close to the minimum estate subject to the tax, though IRS rules force me to disgorge what I have regularly so they can get the taxes on what were tax free investments. It’s OK – paying my taxes is a privilege of citizenship. But if they can do that with my much smaller retirement savings, they ought to be able to do it to the sacrosanct wealth of America’s superrich. It’s hard for me even to imagine having a billion dollars.

What Warren, Sanders and Gillibrand are proposing will cover lots more than the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare insurance programs, and all of them will be good for America. Unlike the tax cuts Republicans are so attached to, improving the financial position of America’s working people does work, it goes straight into the economy which means their proposal will be good for everyone, unlike Republican trickle-down fantasies.

As Jack Metzgar wrote for Inequality.org, “Every time I hear that we as a nation cannot afford something — whether that might be assuring non-toxic water in Jackson and Flint or universal pre-K or an industrial policy with teeth — I have wondered how many dollars a national wealth tax might yield.” His answer is: “We Can’t Afford NOT to Have a Wealth Tax.”

Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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