Recently in Taxes Category

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Conservatives like to say that taxes are theft. In fact it is tax cuts that are theft because they break a long-standing contract.

The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract. Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?

The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:

A beneficial cycle: We invest in infrastructure and public structures that create the conditions for enterprise to form and prosper. We prepare the ground for business to thrive. When enterprise prospers we share the bounty, with good wages and benefits for the people who work in the businesses and taxes that provide for the general welfare and for reinvestment in the infrastructure and public structures that keep the system going.

We fought hard to develop this system and it worked for us. We, the People fought and built our government to empower and protect us providing social services for the general welfare. We, through our government built up infrastructure and public structures like courts, laws, schools, roads, bridges. That investment creates the conditions that enable commerce to prosper - the bounty of democracy. In return we ask those who benefit most from the enterprise we enabled to share the return on our investment with all of us - through good wages, benefits and taxes.

But the "Reagan Revolution" broke the contract. Since Reagan the system is working like this:

Since the Reagan Revolution with its tax cuts for the rich, its anti-government policies, and its deregulation of the big corporations ourdemocracy is increasingly defunded (and that was the plan), infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are falling behind, factories and supply chains are being dismantled, those still at work are working longer hours for fewer benefits and falling wages, our pensions are gone, wealth and income are increasing concentrating at the very top, our country is declining.

This is the Reagan Revolution home to roost: the social contract is broken. Instead of providing good wages and benefits and paying taxes to provide for the general welfare and reinvestment in infrastructure and public structures, the bounty of our democracy is being diverted to a wealthy few.

We, the People built this country's prosperity and this built wealth. We reinvested that wealth, building the world's most competitive economy. Now a few people are gaming the system and breaking the formula, taking for themselves vast riches, leaving the rest of us to clean up the mess.

We must recognize and understand these tax cuts for what they are. They are a broken contract. These tax cuts for the wealthy are theft. And we must recognize the Reagan Revolution for what it has cost us. Our democracy has been corrupted and our political system has been captured. A wealthy few are taking all of the benefits of our efforts for themselves. The lack of investment in infrastructure, courts, schools and other public structures is making our country less competitive in the world. The Reagan Revolution is stealing our future.

Other posts in the Reagan Revolution Home To Roost series:

Reagan Revolution Home To Roost -- In Charts
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America Drowning In Debt
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America Is Crumbling
Finance, Mine, Oil & Debt Disasters: THIS Is Deregulation

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

How many ways can people be tricked about taxes? Here are a few tricks I have come across.

* The rich already pay most of the taxes. You hear variations of this, most recently the news that 47% of Americans don't owe any federal income tax. But the fact is that the rich take in most of the income and literallyown almost everything. You probably heard about 25 hedge fund managers getting $25 billion income last year? They get a special deal and don't pay income tax rates on that money. But regular people still pay Social Security, state and local and sales taxes on their income. In fact working people pay a higher overall tax rate than the super-rich, even if federal income taxes are not part of that.

One more thing - really, don't get me started - most income at the top comes from "capital gains" from things like stocks and property, but capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than income that comes from from actually working.

* The new Tea Party Contract From America has as item 4: "enact fundamental tax reform; Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words -- the length of the original Constitution. (64.90 percent)."

Think about this. Since the rich pay most of the taxes, guess what happens to their taxes - and yours - if we move to a single tax rate for everyone. Clue: their taxes go way down and everyone else's go way up.

* Raising taxes on rich unlikely to cut deficit. You often hear stories like this -- that there just isn't enough money at the top to pay off the debt, so why bother? First, even if it doesn't completely close the budget gap, it sure would make a dent. Next, think about those 25 hedge fund managers who brought in $25 billion last year but don't even pay income taxes. That's a please to start right there, and it's just 25 people. Then think about the$140 billion Wall Street bonus pool that was paid out last year - a recession and bailout year. That all went to just a few more people. There's lots of money at the top.

* Taxes "take money out of the economy," or otherwise hurt economic growth. Where do they think the money goes? Taxing the rich might take money out of the economy of the Cayman Islands, but when used to fund investment in our economic future (roads, schools, R&D, etc.), it actually grows the economy.

Please let us know about some tax tricks you have heard, in the comments.

And finally -- Take a look at CAF's Taxes: Myths And Realities