The Politics of Tax & Spend and the Role of Government. Pay Your Taxes But Ask for Accountability too!

Should we pay taxes according to ability & earnings?

Ah, the tax-filing deadline is fast approaching. Have you done your taxes? You should file if you want to receive a "rebate" from our government, because this money (that we don't have but will borrow at great expense) will stimulate the slumping economy--or, that's the idea, they say, during this election year! Sure, why not. Our government wastes so much money anyway, what's a few hundred more billions of dollars?
What most people don't get is that our political system is responsive to those who get access to it--either to the multitude who decide to organize and participate, or to those who buy influence through lobbying and personal connections!

As humans see the benefit of organizing themselves into a civil society--hopefully with a good social contract--the question arises of what the role of the government should be. I think it should be to protect and empower the commonwealth, that is, for the benefit of the greatest number of people possible. Yes, of course, I recognize the principle of protecting the minorities, however small they are, so you can not exploit the few for the benefit of the many either.

This philosophical (and, I maintain, practical) approach to the role, scope and size of (our) government is one of the important differences between the progressives and the conservatives today! But, in order for our government to do all the good things for us, it needs money, hence the ..dreadful taxes. The reason to pay taxes is to establish such conditions as to give reasonable opportunities to everyone to reach his/her own potential. Empower & protect--that's my understanding of a good social contract.

Have you noticed who has the strongest voice against taxes? Those who are better off! They usually get their way of tax breaks and lower taxation as a percentage and ability to pay. This week, NOW produced an excellent piece on the tax policies many states have embraced--policies that place most of the tax burden on those who can least afford it! See, for example, what NOW discovered in Alabama [click on the link to watch the NOW video] one of the most regressive states in the US, where a family of four with as low income as $12,600 [recently raised from $4,500] has to pay taxes. That's pay not file for taxes. The connection to poverty & hunger is crystal clear.

Next Friday, the farm bill expires and Congress is working on a new one. In light of our huge budget deficit, this farm bill is "the most lavish subsidies in American history" the Wall Street Journal has decried! Yes, that Journal--not exactly a marxist publication. The Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) has acknowledged that the insurance companies and the commodities industry are the two most powerful groups that carry great influence with both parties in Congress. Most of the farm subsidies go to rich farmers, big corporations-- a practice which is both wasteful and unethical. This is one of the many cases where we have to stop and think, and ultimately call it as it is.

The smaller government advocated by conservatives means: a big enough government to maintain a trough that feeds the few, but small enough that cannot regulate, inspect, and ensure a more fair distribution of the public wealth! No safety net, because, hmmm, you should be "free from the nanny state!" This is the bottom line. Oh, OK, there's an exception regarding the size of the government: those conservatives that want the government to be strong enough to shove down our throats a particular religious morality they advocate. In this, you are a toddler and you need a ..nanny! Is this clear?

Why is there so much hunger in the US today? Why do we increase the farm subsidies to the rich farmers [there's a fight to limit payments to farmers making up to a $1 mil. instead of the present $2.5 ceiling] but we don't increase food stamps to poor Americans? Most rural poor that get food stamps have little food after the 3rd week of the month. We're talking about working people here, who simply do not make enough to feed their families. There's a great hunger in rural America, 35 million of out citizens, but this is not even an issue discussed in the current presidential race!

Bill Moyers has another excellent piece on the farm bill this week. Cash Cows and Cowboy Starter Kits from EXPOSÉ illustrates, some of the subsidies in the current iteration of the bill don't go to the stereotypical small American farmer — or even to farmers at all. See how the farm bill gives billions to people who don't farm, or "drought aid" to people who didn't suffer any drought conditions! Or, how people got money from the space shuttle explosion over Texas for a bogus "livestock compensation"!!! Poverty exists in the US and it's bigger than we want to admit or pay attention to. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just slipped a pork-barrel subsidy to owners of ..race horses!

There's another class, the missing class, of the near-poor. Katherine S. Newman has a great book on this subject. This video explains more about those Americans who are also forgotten, who live on the margins of the mainstream economy, and on the edge of economic disaster. We can cut hunger in the US by half in one year by eliminating the waste in just one area: farm subsidies. But, we need leadership and political commitment. Oh, yes, we also need a politically educated public, and that Americans start behaving as they are in the economic scale not as they'd like to be or "see" themselves in the undetermined future.

I don't know if it's a short attention span or by choice, but we often focus on a few issues and forget others that are equally important--which actually make a big difference in most people's lives.

We should have a serious discussion on the role of the government and to dispel some misconceptions about the infallibility of capitalism. The free marketplace is a great but imperfect mechanism and like a good car needs to maintained and occasionally steered in the right direction. We have to examine ways make it work for the commonwealth and not to privatize the profit while we socialize the risk. There is no rational or moral argument to continue doing what we've been doing on many levels of public policy. We should start re-examining our intense focus on being a very militaristic country and the costs associated with such a strategy, and then re-evaluate the priorities of alocating the resources to benefit the commonwealth. Having a long-term strategy would also be quite beneficial for the next generations (remember them?).