[IMC-Boston-Editorial] Column on President's Tax Reform Panel

[Sofia JarrinT]

hmmm, I don't particularly like the article, jamie,
but if someone feels strongly about posting this, I
wouldn't oppose it.

cheers,
Sofia

--- "pressroom at faireconomy.org"
<pressroom at faireconomy.org> wrote:

> Greetings,
> Would you be interested in running this column
> responding to the President¹s
> Tax Reform Panel from United for a Fair Economy?
> Thanks for considering it,
> Betsy Leondar-Wright
> 
> 
> Tax Reform Tango:  More Shrink, Shift and Shaft
> 
> President Bush¹s Tax Advisory panel completed almost
> two years of work
> earlier this month and presented their
> recommendations.  The results
> areŠinteresting.
> 
> Though politicians talk a lot about ³tax reform,²
> substantial restructuring
> of the tax system happens just once in a generation,
> like the sighting of a
> rare comet.
> 
> Genuine tax reform, like the overhaul passed in
> 1986, requires a unique
> constellation of political and economic stars to
> line up, including
> Presidential leadership. In 1986, Congress cut a
> remarkable deal after six
> years of public pressure to close corporate
> loopholes, broaden the tax base,
> and reduce tax rates.
> 
> It is hard to image the current Bush Administration
> and its right-wing
> allies in Congress following the recommendations of
> this report. For five
> years, they have advanced a simple program: reduce
> taxes for the rich.  Tax
> cuts for their donor patrons are reasonable in any
> season or economic
> circumstance, according to these
> ³starve-the-government-beast² activists
> whose political program is best characterized as
> ³shrink, shift and shaft.²
> 
> They rhetorically claim they want smaller
> government, but in reality they
> only shrink the functions of government that help
> people and ensure equality
> of opportunity. Meanwhile, they enlarge the Big
> Brother state and ensure a
> steady flow of corporate welfare subsidies and
> payments to Halliburton and
> other military contractors (not to be confused with
> defense).
> 
> They want to shift the duty of paying for government
> off of progressive
> taxes and onto regressive taxes, off the feds and
> onto the states, off big
> corporations and onto small business, and
> insidiously, off of today¹s
> taxpayers and onto the next generation. This
> explains their obsession with
> steadily reducing taxes on the wealthy in the form
> of tax cuts on capital
> gains, dividends, inherited estates, and high
> incomes.
> 
> This shafts the majority of taxpayers who get tax
> shifts, not tax cuts ­ and
> leads to budget cuts that worsen the quality of
> their lives.
> 
> We expected the President¹s Tax Panel to recommend
> more shifts and shafts ­
> and this was largely true.  But it could have been
> much worse as well-funded
> anti-tax groups have been gunning for decades to
> replace the progressive
> income tax with a national consumption or flat tax. 
> But the panel carefully
> studied these options, rejected them, and reaffirmed
> the centrality of the
> progressive income tax, dealing a tremendous blow to
> tax shifters.
> 
> The panel made a number of recommendations for tax
> simplification that
> should rightfully win immediate passage.  And they
> even courageously propose
> reform of the ³mansion subsidy² provided by the Home
> Mortgage Interest
> Deduction.  More than half of last year¹s $90
> billion in homeowner subsidies
> went to the 11.8 percent of taxpayers with incomes
> over $100,000.
> 
> How did this happen?  One charge to the panel was
> that their overall
> proposal be ³revenue neutral,² meaning that it could
> neither raise nor lose
> more money than the current system. This is a
> constraint that the President
> and Congress abandoned starting 2001 when the first
> round of Bush tax cuts
> blew a hole in budget.   Making the 2001 and 2003
> tax cuts permanent would
> add over $1.8 trillion to the deficit by 2015.
> 
> There are significant problems, however, as many of
> the Panel¹s
> recommendations will worsen America¹s already
> festering economic divide.
> First, they assume that the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax
> cuts become permanent
> ­which institutionalizes massive windfall tax cuts
> for the rich.  The tax
> panel would also increase the ³worker penalty² by
> worsening the unequal
> treatment of income from work versus income from
> wealth.   A middle-income
> worker will pay a 25 or 30 percent tax rate on their
> earned income ­ while a
> trust fund baby will only pay 15 percent or less on
> unearned income from
> their investment dividends and capital gains.
> 
> It is unthinkable that Congress and a weakened
> President would expend a lot
> of political capital on a tax program that doesn¹t
> further their ³shrink,
> shift and shaft² agenda.  Even with its regressive
> features, there is too
> much common sense underlying the Panel¹s
> recommendations to stir the bile of
> the extreme right-wingers.
> 
> The Panel has done their job.  They¹ve started the
> discussion and framed the
> key issues.  It is up the rest of the country to
> press our elected officials
> to simplify and increase the fairness of our tax
> system. It¹s a once in a
> generation opportunity.
> 
> Anisha Desai is Program Director and Chuck Collins
> is Senior Fellow at
> United for a Fair Economy (www.faireconomy.org
> <http://www.faireconomy.org>
> ).  Collins is co author of the new book Economic
> Apartheid in America.
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> > _______________________________________________
> Boston-editorial mailing list
> Boston-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
>
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> 



		
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