[Imc-chicago-audio] AVAIL. FOR INTERVIEW: Thomas Geoghegan on why higher taxes equal happiness

[Erin Polgreen]

MEDIA ALERT| AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW

December 19, 2006 | For Immediate Release

Why higher taxes could make Americans happier

In “We Are All Waiters Now,” Chicago-based labor lawyer Thomas  
Geoghegan challenges assumptions about taxation and argues that the  
only way to save the middle class (and make us all happier and  
healthier to boot) is to raise taxes.

Geoghegan writes that the American failure to “rob Peter to pay  
Paul,” is partly because we’re taught that there are no benefits to  
taxing America’s upper crust. Modern Americans are socially  
acclimated to be like waiters always hunting for the bigger tip.

On top of that, Geoghegan contends, our new Democratic majority  
doesn’t have a clue. And most Americans are afraid of fighting for  
taxes that could improve their quality of life, especially upon  
retirement.

“In richer countries,” Geoghegan writes, “a strange thing happens:  
the higher the tax, the nicer it is to live there. And the more  
interesting life is. When we spend our GDP on ourselves (as we do  
with pensions), higher taxes increase our higher powers.” But instead  
of fighting for our higher powers, Americans fight to preserve a  
“classic plutocracy” in which the top 1 percent gets richer and  
everyone else gets poorer.

“The more money the rich take from us,” Geoghegan writes, “the more  
it changes our moral character—we lose the courage it takes to engage  
in self-government.”

Thomas Geoghegan is a Chicago-based labor lawyer. His most recent  
book is The Law in Shambles (Prickly Paradigm).

For the full text of this article, visit: http://www.inthesetimes.com/ 
site/main/article/2941

For more information, or to interview Thomas Geoghegan, contact:

Erin Polgreen, Advertising and Marketing Coordinator

erin at inthesetimes.com

773/772.0100 Ext. 225

  
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