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If I’m not able to freely choose that which contributes to my health and wholeness – whether it be healthy, mutual relationships, nutritious food or enriching activities – then I’m not truly free because something or someone else enslaves me. That enslavement, addiction or distraction impoverishes me because it keeps me from being able to choose freely for those things which will keep me healthy and sustain my life.
Justice begins within.
If you think you have a good idea about wealth distribution in the United States – watch this short video gone viral on Wealth Inequality in America and then tell me if your understanding squares with reality.
Likewise, read “Exceptional upward mobility in the United States is a myth.” Check the results of this new study from the University of Michigan here.
Lest you believe the often repeated – but false – meme “But the rich create jobs,” let me remind you that the rich have been subsidized with lowered income and capital gains tax rates since the mid-nineties and jobs have not been created. In fact, in subsidizing the rich with billions in government welfare (lowered income tax rates) millions of people have become unemployed.
The truth is that the rich do not create jobs. Merely having money does not cause one to start up a business. Rather, it is demand that motivates new business start-ups. Demand for goods and services creates jobs. A strong middle class, therefore, stimulates demand and in doing so creates jobs.
You may also be surprised to know that small business owners are the largest employers of our economy – not big corporations. Helping the middle class helps them expand and create jobs.
If you want a healthy, job-creating economy, support tax policies that provide basic necessities for those who are vulnerable (mostly women and children) and strengthen our middle class. Eliminate massive government welfare for the rich and corporations inherent in income and capital gains tax subsidies.
How to do this? You may also like Eliminate Capital Gains Tax Subsidy and Time to Tax Wall Street.
Note: This post was originally published Oct. 24, 2012, but seemed timely to revisit now.
In my last post I asked why neither candidate ever proposes eliminating the capital gains tax subsidy (increasing the capital gains tax rate) as a way to decrease the deficit. Today I will remind readers of another way to reduce our deficit – that is by using a financial transaction tax. Why not tax Wall Street? After all Wall Street bankers didn’t hesitate to use predatory lending and dubious financial instruments to take the home equity savings of millions of Americans.
A financial transaction tax would tax those who can afford to have investments – namely the well off – and easily create funding for those who struggle – namely the working poor.
It is estimated that a paltry 50 cent tax on every investment transaction over $100 would result in additional tax revenue of $350 billion each year! That’s enough to cover our annual budget deficit and then some.
Not surprisingly, the EU has already realized that a financial transaction tax would be way to take back some of the money hijacked by the financial industry and currently ten countries are working toward instituting a transaction tax. Read more here and here.
The banking industry has been a draining trillions of assets from the American people for far too long in the form of bailouts and artificially suppressed overnight bank lending rates. Time to return some of these ill-gotten gains to the public purse.
But ask yourself, “Why is taxing Wall Street never discussed as an option?” “What happens when our government representatives are over privileged elites who consistently vote in their own interests rather than considering the common good?”
You may also like another topic not discussed by either candidate – Extreme Weather – and it’s impact on everyone, but especially on those made poor.
Note: This post was originally published Oct. 23, 2012, but seems timely to revisit now.
With so much talk about our annual budget deficit, national debt, income inequality, reducing benefits and raising income taxes by both candidates – I’m surprised neither party ever mentioned eliminating the capital gains tax subsidy by returning the capital gains tax to the income tax rate. It’s a logical option. Why should the profits made on investments be taxed SO MUCH LOWER than income earned through hard work? It’s a huge tax subsidy given to those who need it least and whose corporations use our government funded infrastructure the most – paid for through the courtesy of the rest of us.
Other options for raising tax revenue like adding sales taxes or a value added tax (V.A.T.) will always be regressive – that is – hurting those made poor who must spend nearly all of their earned income. Likewise raising earned income tax rates hurts those made poor rather than those who are over privileged (i.e. the rich) who don’t actually earn income, but receive money from profits on investments.
Those who have the luxury of living off their investments can most afford to pay more in taxes. Eliminating the capital gains tax subsidy by increasing capital gains tax rates is a logical way to increase revenue from the group most able to pay it.
I’m not the only one who thinks so – read more here and from a recent Washington Post article here.
But ask yourself, “Why is raising the capital gains tax rate never discussed as an option?” “What happens when our government representatives are over privileged elites who consistently vote in their own interests and in the interests of their biggest campaign financiers rather than considering the common good?”
Next up: Another way to reduce the deficit that presidential candidates never mention.
You may also like Luck or Privilege? and Myth of Objective Reporting.
During the holidays, I saw a couple of newly released movies at the theater. The most recent one was Les Miserables. Now this is a classic story that I enjoyed seeing years ago as play. However, this time around I couldn’t help but think how tired I was of viewing the same old plot line that exists for too many movies. It goes like this: systemic injustice (for example vast wealth inequality in 19th century Les Mis and today too) creates horrific suffering which is then personally alleviated for a few characters by one over-privileged white male who saves – pick one – his family, the United States or planet earth.
Hollywood clearly knows about the underlying systemic abuses and injustice that causes so much of the suffering in the world. But then Hollywood too often misses the point: one person alone will never change systemic injustice. The “one person will save us fantasy” – is just that – a fantasy. It’s particularly a fantasy when that one person is a white male, since patriarchy (men having power over women, children and people of color) is the root cause of the wealth inequality, discrimination and abuse in the world.
Worse, believing this fantasy short circuits our motivation to do what is really necessary. Each of us is part of the human family and each of us has a responsibility to work for long term change. Real changes in the way we provide for basic needs, distribute resources and care for those who are vulnerable requires a community willing to use all its imagination, empathy and creativity.
Why can’t Hollywood use their abundant resources, ingenuity, creativity and imagination to highlight real and useful systemic solutions for the poverty and abuse that we see in our local communities, on our continent and around the world? Possibilities and opportunities for solutions exist. They are many and often easily accomplished. Examples abound. Why not build powerful stories around these ideas?