Fast forward through a decade of war spending and an economic collapse which is the direct failure to actually regulate markets, and the nation is looking around for a lot more money. Republicans did fail to make these reckless tax cuts (which are the single largest cause of our deficit, dwarfing our wars and the economic stimulus and the bank bail out put together) permanent and so are stuck arguing that allowing them to expire, as Republicans wrote the bill, is in fact a tax increase.
To say that this is nutty is to understate things. If a tax cut is passed that expires, then it is not raising taxes to allow it to expire, it is that the cut was temporary. Many things in life are, and this one was, again, temporary by design. There are some middle class tax cuts that probably should be preserved, but let's face it, the ultra-wealthy in this nation are really getting a free ride that they don't deserve.
There is no moral value attached to being wealthy. While there is something to be said about achieving great wealth the reality is that very few people earn it all themselves. The ultra-wealthy, for the most part, come from families who have accrued wealth over generations. There is nothing wrong with this, but to assume that somehow those who have lots of money are instantly more valuable as citizens is easy to dispute. Take a look at any of the idle rich and can see that just having a fortune does not make you a good or bad person by itself.
Yet this is the core of the Republican tax idea. That those who earn over $2 million a year are somehow better than everyone else; if given the chance to keep that money they will, of course, invest it in things areas that will create jobs and spur the economy. The thing is, that the highest profile conservatives who have this kind of wealth don't seem to actually focus on creating jobs in the economy. People like Rupert Murdock and William Koch spend lots of their fortunes on making sure that they are taxed and regulated as little as possible. I am even willing to say that there might be some job creation there, but it is really pretty limited.
There is no reason why those who measure their income in the millions per year should not be paying more of that money in taxes. Here is the dirty little fact, they get more from their citizenship than others without their wealth do. They benefit from the legal system more; both in the ability to have the very best representation in any action civil or criminal and the fact that our system of law has a large focus on property rights. When you have more property this becomes a larger benefit.
There is also the aspect of infrastructure. All businesses use the roads and sewers and electrical transmission grids that were paid for by the citizens of the nation as a whole for to aid their companies. As they go about their work they put more wear and tear on the over all system than any individual ever could. They benefit from the money generated by these activities, so why shouldn't they pay more back to maintain them?
We are nowhere near the highest level of taxation for these ultra-wealthy. In fact right now we are nearly at the lowest level of taxation for upper income citizens since the progressive income tax was instituted. There is no getting around the need for our nation to pay for the things we buy. A mere decade ago we were projecting a $880 billion (or thousand million) surplus for the years 2009-2011. Because of Republican policy prescriptions we are looking at a 1.4 trillion deficit in that same time period.
It is time to let the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. We have, in recent weeks, seen the first billion dollar plus estate pass to the heir's tax free. The loss of revenue was somewhere in the $4,500,000,000 dollar range. That is from one estate. There are not a lot of billionaires in the world or the United States, about 790 in 2009Forbes Magazine according to Forbes Magazine, but there are plenty of estates that are in the hundreds of millions that should not pass untaxed to the heirs.
All in all this put the Republicans in a trick bag. They are going to have to argue that either that they wanted these tax cuts to expire or that they knew if they put the whole cost in the original bill it would have never passed and then explain why it this cost should be passed on to now. This is not really a problem for a political party who has made cognitive dissonance a way of life, but we should not let them off the hook.
This is a mess of their making, the solution is clear, let the ultra-wealthy pay the taxes they were when we were all a lot more secure financially. The mythical jobs and prosperity did not appear. It is a unicorn, it is the Maltese Falcon, chasing it with tax cuts only ever leads to ruin. It is time to grow up and recognize that those with the fattest wallets get the best of everything in this nation. We seem to be okay with that as a people, so there should be nothing wrong with them paying more than the rest of us, since they are enjoying the best.
The floor is yours. |
