My project for 2011 is to start a political movement: Tax the Rich. That’s it. One agenda, one plan, one three-word slogan. Tax. The. Rich. Simple, right?

Before you say that this would be OK with you except that you’re planning to be rich, let’s see you win the lottery or inherit big before we discuss it further. (I’ve had this conversation twice already.) In my opinion, the American Dream, known outside of the United States as wishful thinking, has a lot to do with the mess we find ourselves in.

I’ve got a rockin’ logo for a blog, and one of these days, I’ll have the time to figure out the vanity URL and get T-shirts printed, and off I go. But why would I bother? (Bone-lazy as I am, this question always arises.)

Basically, I was scandalized by the last election, during which so little of the attention of the electorate or the media seemed to be focused on anything that matters, including our pressing need for more revenue. We have a huge deficit and crumbling infrastructure, crappy schools, failing pension plans, legions of brain-injured veterans requiring painstaking rehabilitation, overflowing emergency rooms and not enough police, firefighters, etc. This is serious goddamn stuff.

So, we need more money in the public coffers. (Yes, we also need to administer that money better, but let’s take one thing at a time.) How about we get it from the people and companies who have lots of it?

The thing about the rich is not just that they have tons of money (that’s by definition); they have a rapidly increasing share of the money. If you don’t want to take my word for it—and, as a citizen of a democracy, you shouldn’t—see the Sept. 3, 2010, article on Slate by Timothy Noah, “The United States of Inequality” (at www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026). It’s got more statistics than you can shake a stick at organized into killer graphics by Noah and Catherine Mulbrandon that make appallingly clear what’s been going on with income share in the U.S. over the last century or so.

In broad strokes, what happened is that, largely thanks to good-old FDR and the national sobering-up initiated by the 1929 stock market crash, incomes in the U.S. became more equal during the Depression and stayed that way from about 1940 to 1973—the heyday of the American middle class—before they started becoming more unequal again. Since 1973, when the top 1 percent of the population had about 8 percent of all the money, their share has more than doubled: now the top 1 percent (those with an annual income of more than about $360,000) have about 18 percent of all the wealth in America. And without sweeping, determined, clear-eyed tax reform, there is no end in sight to the erosion of the American middle class and, with it, the destabilization of society and corruption of our institutions.

How did we get here? I recently heard that notorious leftie David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director and the architect of Reaganomics, patiently explain in an interview on NPR that the rich have plenty of time and energy and lawyers and friends with which to subvert the tax code and manipulate public opinion (the death tax! Arrgghh!), while the average Joe is busy making a living (and, poor schlub that he is, paying his taxes). And until the middle class sees what is being done to it, the rich will continue to keep more and more of their money, and leave more of it to their heirs tax-free. Eventually, the country will be bankrupted (Stockman thinks it’s likely) and become what the framers of the Constitution most abhorred: an aristocracy.

In an interesting recent development, some billionaires, led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, have been pledging to contribute half of their unimaginable fortunes to charity. (This is great, as long as the charities are legit.) But some billionaires reportedly object strongly to the whole project, in part because it calls attention to their existence. So many millionaires, so many billionaires, so many newly minted Daddy Warbucks-types, so many happy beneficiaries of the GOP’s friendship. They apparently think focusing the attention of the public on them, however fleetingly, is bad for them. Let’s hope it is.

Tell your senators (oh, wait, this is Arizona—never mind), tell your congressman, tell the president. Tell them often: Tax the rich.

This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2011.

9 replies on “Downing”

  1. I was just shocked at the immature, shallow writing and utter lack of substantive ideas here. This is simplistic, collectivist jealousy, and ignorant, to boot. Apparently the columnist labors under the misapprehension that the Democrat party has more integrity. Both “parties” are corrupt, and both are run by billionaires. So, “the rich” won’t ever be taxed in a manner sufficient to counterbalance the government’s wasteful spending. The writer’s hippie pipe dream cannot ever come true.

    HOW many liberally-biased TV networks and newspapers exist? Certainly more than conservative news organs. Please tell me which conservative news outlet gets a chunk of my tax dollars.

    If a person makes money, and pays taxes on it while alive, by rights, they should be able to pass it along to their descendants, without the state dipping its beak in again.

    It’s just so easy to spout Marxist tripe when you’ll never be part of the omelette in the first place. Some people spend too much time sitting in bad coffeehouses, ruminating over their own lack of initiative; why aren’t THEY punished for serially assaulting us with their weak hippie blather? Shame.

  2. Countryfeller: A lot of money that’s inherited isn’t escapes any taxation (even once) because it’s in the form of capital gains.

  3. Oops–there’s an extra “isn’t” in that sentence. Should be: A lot of money that’s inherited escapes any taxation (even once) because it’s in the form of capital gains.

  4. There’s that “Marxist” word again. During World War II, Frank Sinatra paid 90% of his income in taxes and he still lived better than just about anybody. And, he didn’t COMPLAIN about it.

  5. Tax rates on the wealthy are at ,or near, historically record lows. As a result ,the rich are gradually sucking more and more money out of circulation, leaving less money available to keep our general economy healthy. If the wealthy were actually reinvesting their money into the general economy (the famous “trickle down” theory) their low tax rate wouldn’t be such a problem. Unfortunately, the rich are recirculating their money back into the financial sector of the economy (stocks and bonds) instead of investing it into the general economy. The net result is that we’ve got a complete disconnect between the economy of Wall Street and the economy that the rest of us live in. The folks on Wall Street are making record profits during the midst of this recession while the rest of us are suffering. If the rich continue to fail to reinvest their money into the general economy, where it can be used to produce jobs, then we have no choice but to increase their taxes and reinvest that money into the economy ourselves. America is probably the only country in the world where the people at the bottom of the economic scale will consistently argue against raising taxes on the wealthy. That’s because we have this charming national fantasy that each of us is only one lucky break away from becoming a millionaire.

    Jay Quick

  6. I do have to wonder why we have to tax the rich FIRST, and THEN figure out how to better manage the money. I’m not rich, and never will be, but I also wonder what the rich are going to get for their money.

  8. Bone lazy for sure… Didn’t even check your facts. The top 1% has 22% of wealth in the US, not 18%. Why didn’t you mention that the top 1% pays over 40% of the total taxes collected in the US, or that over 50% of people don’t pay any tax. I am not rich, I would like to be, and I am trying to be… Unlike Miss Downing (who appears to want to get something for nothing) I am putting in 60 to 70 hour weeks in the business I own. A lot of rich people are rich because of hard work. Lazy leeches will remain poor because free money doesn’t fix “lazy”or money problems.
    According to the Tax Foundation, “the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1% now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95% of taxpayers combined”. Funny no one mentions these facts when they argue the people with the money should have to share it. My core question remains… Why shouldn’t the rich get to keep their money, it is their money? Next time I am looking for a new sweater on a cold day I am going to ask Miss Downing for one… If she has two and I have zero, she better hand one over because that is fair.
    Miss Downing is obviously too young and too inexperienced to write an opinion piece on this subject, in her defense I say shame on the editor.
    Miss Downing, your piece did it’s job and it made people think. It would have worked out better if you would have thought longer and harder before writing it.
    I appreciate your efforts,
    Tim

  9. Renee: I earn a lot of money. I pay a lot of income tax. I paid over $900k income tax for 2009, and I didn’t get Obama’s $600 gift last year. I don’t get any personal deductions, except charitable. Democrats like you don’t even allow me exemptions for my kids.

    I am in the 35% fed tax and 4.5% state brackets. I think my contribution to govt. is more than my share, because I don’t think folks like you pay enough tax. What did you pay in 2009? $4-5k? I don’t think people like you (I presume you earn low-moderate income) who suck up most of the govt entitlements pay your share.

    I opposed the Tax cut extensions, because that would require everyone to pay for the Wall St-AIG-GM bail-outs, and Obama’s stimulus. The ‘rich’ pay their share. People like you, with your hand-out for something for nothing, don’t pay their share.

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