~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Dear Senators, Congresspeople and other federal, local and state government elected employees of all political persuasions, please tax us all.
Do not let some of us, including yourselves (for example, members of Congress have written into law for themselves a $3,000 annual income tax deduction for maintaining a second residence*), escape paying taxes. Taxes are good; they keep a democracy going (a democracy being the only decent form of government for the biggest number of citizens, those, in fact, who elect you and who read the Constitution, as some of you seem not to, as it mentions establishing justice and promoting the general welfare to all us human equals).
All of us who pay taxes because taxes are taken out of our paycheck before we ever see the paycheck are willing, as we have no choice. If we had a choice, like the wealthy often do, our federal government might have no money at all. The obligation of citizens of a democratic nation to pay taxes to make the nation work is a good idea.
I would like it a lot if the ones who do not get paychecks – I’m not talking about the indigent, the very poor, the incapacitated but the ones who are wealthy enough to write off all their income – would quit being so Scrooge McDuck and just pay their fair share.
Fair is fair.
I understand that we don’t live in a fair world. But we could. And why not? Just do it, wealthy people, pay your taxes. If you don’t, we could wind up like Greece, a rich country that is perennially underfunded because of so many citizens getting away with not paying their fair share.
We U.S. citizens who live paycheck to paycheck do so.
I understand that more than 50 percent of the population think that the wealthy should/could pay their fair share of taxes. From what I understand, many who belong to the corporate class (in the early days of the republic known as the planter class) do not pay any taxes at all. Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, to name a few, pay little to no taxes compared to their wealth.^
They have plenty of money; we don’t. And what money we earn – after taxes of course; a fact of life they never seem to have to encounter – we spend on day-to-day living; sometimes we have savings accounts that earn 1 percent interest.
So, we are the ones contributing to the bustling economy of the Mom and Pops, the secondhand clothing emporiums like the Salvation Army and various non-profit church boutiques, as well as the local bookstores and the local vegetable farmer and the local pub. We are not those whose money goes into a hedge fund or an off-shore hide-the-money bank.
Some of the wealthy say they give to charity. Good. So do we. I, for example, contribute to four charities each year. Because my income is marginal, the amount of dollars I contribute is minimal; but I feel it is my duty to spread the wealth (or, in my case, the miserly leftover of my budget) to entities that I think help people and the planet: The Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, The Nature Conservancy, Trees Forever.
If the financially endowed – the born-with-a-silver-spoon wealthy, the earned wealthy AKA the hard-working entrepreneurs who strike it rich wealthy, the CEOs and CFOs of non-tax-paying corporations – paid taxes commensurate with their income, perhaps we’d all have children attending excellent schools that actually have enough books for everyone, working toilets, well-paid teachers and school buildings that are not dilapidated.
Perhaps we’d have money in the municipal coffers to: fix our roads so our cars and their tires are not damaged, thus forcing us to the auto mechanic for repairs; maintain our bridges so we are not in danger of falling in the river on our way to work; establish a healthcare system that does not bankrupt us if something awful happens to our bodies; pay for living expenses of the truly indigenous who are ill, disabled, mentally damaged from life, war, bad diets; offer free Wifi to all to equalize the playing field.
This pay-your-fair-share-of-taxes talk could come to realization if Congress itself were beholden to us rather than to those who don’t pay taxes but give lots of money to them (elected officials) to do the bidding of said wealthy – like giving them tax breaks.
- *National Taxpayers Union Foundation
- ^Pro Publica report, June 8, 2021
