What
are "taxes"? They are
the means by which the social contract is fulfilled. What is "the social contract"? It is an agreement among the members of
society to share the burden of living with one another: building and
maintaining infrastructure and social institutions, caring for all the people.
What is a "rhetorical question"? It is a question everyone knows how to answer. The answer to the Biblical rhetorical
question, "Am I my brother's keeper" always has been, and is still
supposed to be, "yes."
There
are two kinds of people in a society.
The first kind understands the social contract and is willing to pay his
or her fair share of taxes. In the
modern United States, these people are often called "Democrats." The
second kind of people have a different idea. They believe that they are rugged individualists and can
"go it alone." They
believe that taxes are an unfair burden placed upon them by the rest of the
society. We often call these
people "Republicans."
Rugged
individualists believe, on the one hand, that, even though they may own
businesses that require workers to keep them running, it is one's own business,
the purpose of which is to make as much money as possible. Owners ought to pay workers as little
as possible while charging consumers "all that the trade will
bear." One ought not to have
to pay taxes on the profits of that business because it is not the business of
the "government" to interfere with trade in any way, even though that
trade takes place within an area occupied by the entire society which has
installed a government to regulate the social contract.
Rugged
individualists believe in "family values," so long as it is their own
families we are talking about and not the families of other segments of the
society. Rugged individualists
understand that "charity begins at home," and they ought not to have
to pay for educating other people's children, or taking care of the impecunious
poor, or helping the helpless elderly who are no longer able to pay the taxes
they ought to pay. Rugged
individualists can afford to educate their own children and care for the
members of their own families.
Everyone ought to be able to do the same. "If I can do it, so can they."
There
ought not to be subsidies for anything — except for farmers, most of whom are
big-business people these days; except for airplane manufacturers, which make
billions from the "armed forces" of the government — what President
Dwight Eisenhower called "the military-industrial complex." Except for AIG when it nearly went
bankrupt, and except the other big lending institutions whose greed led them
into the “derivatives” pyramid scheme and the current bubble explosion. Except for the Savings and Loan
institutions of America when they finished milking their clients and did go
bankrupt, causing the American public to pay twice for making rich people
richer. Except for Enron, which spent a summer cheating the residents of
California and causing brownouts and untold hardships to the consumers and then
went bankrupt after feedng its profits to its executives and colluding with
Arthur Andersen accountants to cheat the government of its taxes.
Now
that the mortgage market and the stockmarket have crashed, plunging the United
States into what the dilapidated and discredited George W. Bush administration
is calling an impending “recession,” but what old timers (like me) recognize as
a full-blown Depression, What is going to happen? The wealthy members and
institutions of society are going to have to begin to pay their fair share of taxes, like those that have been
paid for years by the middle classes. Financiers don't like it, especially
those who make their money through owning property: the mortgage-holding banks.
These "rugged individualists" don't need the rest of us. If they can keep control of the
government, maybe they can stave off paying the taxbill instead of finding the
“loopholes” the corrupt Congress has set up for them in the tax code. What was the Republican "Contract
with America"? It was, and it
still is, an anti-contract. It is
an abrogation of the social contract.
It is a way of stripping the middle classes of what little money they
have and handing it back to the wealthy, where it "belongs."
Here
is another rhetorical question: Who voted for this failed (for the middle
classes) Bush doctrine these past eight years? The answer is, the elderly, who now find that Medicare costs
too much in taxes for rugged individualists to bear. The parents of children who now find that the mandated Bush
“No Student Left Behind,” and other un- or under-funded education programs are
going down the tubes. The middle class mothers and fathers of teenagers who
discover that the Republicans still want to destroy public higher education by
cutting “unnecessary public programs”
— "let their kids go to Cornell, Columbia, Harvard or Yale, like my
kids." There is no
bread? Let them eat cake.
And
now the Republicans want to hold onto the power. Who can blame them? That’s a
rhetorical question, too. The answer? The voters of the United States of
America.
Excellent! Thanks. I read “Contract” to a very passionate liberal
and it was the first time he ever stopped long enough to listen to me. We both
thought it was excellent.
Peggy
Lew, this is great! You've hit every nail on the head. I'm sending
it up to Alfred's computer so he can enjoy it too. Undoubtedly he will pass it
on to friends. He sent a letter to the publisher of the local paper last week,
on the importance of voting NO on Question 1, and subsequently was lambasted by furious anti-tax Libertarians who accused us both of being
"loafers" who want to live on public tax money while we waste time
playing with clay and writing poetry. He was instructed by one yahoo to
"buy your own clay, Al," and asked if his wife had received a
tax-payer-subsidized grant to edit his letter.
Alfred was tempted to reply, and I toyed with the idea of telling
the writer that I've never received — or asked for — a grant to write anything.
But we both decided that adding verbal fuel to the fire only encourages ideologues,
and tightens the logic-tight compartments around what passes for their
thoughts.
Besides, I approve of cultural grants and state support of the
arts, and don't want to be misunderstood as negative about them or the artists
who do apply for them, and who produce, thanks to them, valuable work that we
might not have otherwise. What I think is that arguing with people who value
their ideologies more than the society they live in and the people who live in
it with them is futile: they can't hear a word.
Rhina
PS: A friend of mine says, "Fine; people who don't want to
pay taxes should not have to, but they must be required to buy their own fire
engines." And I'd like to add, they must build their own streets, roads,
bridges and tunnels for their exclusive use, too.
Wouldn’t that take up quite a bit of space?
Lew
Yeah, but hell, people who can get The Market to correct itself
and do everything right must know how to work wonders with Space too, right?
And Time, for all we know! Just have faith, Lew.
Rhina
Lew - are you the author of this piece? Just wondering.
Ann
Who else?
Lew
Would you please mail it to the Ayn Rand Institute? I'm tempted to
ask them all to hand in their copies of Atlas Shrugged. It's not
bad enough that Rand's favorite writer was Hugo and that she imitated his style
— a beautiful irony, too — but the idea of the powerful elite going on strike
is laughable. Who the hell do they think is going to take out their garbage?
Paul
Thanks, Lew. Good
essay--good points. AND, not only
would they need to buy their own fire engines, they'd need the firehouse and
salaries for the firefighters and supplies for the volunteers or paramedics.
The little boats for water rescue, helicopter patrols, gasoline,
and pilot time ... usw.
There's a whole lot to it even in a podunk coastal backwater like this.
Cheers to you for so effectively pointing it out.
Ruth
Lew,
I
know I'll hate myself in the morning ...
but here goes ... first off, I am not well-versed in the area of
politics — so I never get into it with anyone — so if my question sounds naive
forgive me … do you think that the Democratic liberal
"grillion-aires" in Hollywood (La Streisand and her ilk) really,
really, really pay all the taxes that they're supposed to? ... don't you think
that they hire very expensive CPA's to find clever ways and enormous loop holes
within which they can find all kinds of write-offs? You don't honestly believe that it's just the
GOP'ers who don't pay all their taxes do you? Uh oh - here comes the Turco tsunami of liberal
verbiage ..... Duck!!!!!!
Ann
I
don’t know, Ann,
Do
you? Were Hollywood “grillion-aires” what I was talking about? I thought I was
talking about the social contract and how Democrats and Republicans differ in
their attitudes toward it.
I
take it that my essay annoyed you; may I therefore assume that you are a
Republican? If you are, may I ask you what you have in common with the wall
street bankers who are currently engaged in once more looting the public
treasury — my money and yours? May I ask if you think that the last eight
years have been competently administered by the current administration? Did you
enjoy being lied into the war in Iraq? Was any money or time wasted during the
aftermath of Katrina? Do you approve of the methods of torture used in
Guantanamo Bay (it was a nice place when you and I were kids and my ship
visited Bayonne and Cuba, and I visited you in New Jersey; I personally
wouldn’t want to be at Gitmo these days).
Your
reply to my article does not address any of the things I was discussing in it.
What you have done is to do what the Bushwhackers do: change the subject; talk
about irrelevancies; set up straw men to set afire. I don’t know, Ann, what the
Hollywood grillion-aires do with their money, I just know what I do with my
money: I pay my taxes with part of it, don’t you? And I don’t begrudge those
taxes, so long as we all play on the same level ground. Do you cheat on your
taxes? I never
have.
Lew
P.
S. “Liberal” is not a four-letter word. This is from my computer dictionary:
Liberal
Adjective
1
the
values of a liberal society tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded,
open-minded, enlightened; permissive, free, free and easy, easygoing,
libertarian, indulgent, lenient. antonym narrow-minded, bigoted.
2
a
liberal social agenda progressive, advanced, modern, forward-looking,
forward-thinking, progressivist, enlightened, reformist, radical. antonym reactionary,
conservative.
3
a
liberal education wide-ranging,
broad-based, general.
4
a
liberal interpretation of divorce laws flexible, broad, loose, rough, free, general,
nonliteral, nonspecific, imprecise, vague, indefinite. antonym strict, to the
letter.
5
a
liberal coating of paint abundant, copious, ample, plentiful, generous, lavish, luxuriant,
profuse, considerable, prolific, rich; literary plenteous. antonym scant.
6
they
were liberal with their cash generous, openhanded, unsparing, unstinting,
ungrudging, lavish, free, munificent, bountiful, beneficent, benevolent,
bighearted, philanthropic, charitable, altruistic, unselfish; literary bounteous.
antonym careful, miserly.
Lew
Yes!!!!
Matt
Caring
people come in all shapes, sizes, colors and from all
political persuasions. I know democrats who would give you the
shirts off their backs; and I know generous republicans who would
joyfully do the same.
Take
care.
Vivian
Vivian,
My
remarks to Ann's, above, apply to yours as well: They are irrelevant to my
argument which was not about personal qualities such as generosity, but about
the differences in attitude toward social responsibility between the Democratic
and Republican parties. Surely, you agree that there are such differences, don’t
you? Otherwise we wouldn’t need a two-party political system.
Don’t
you know businessmen who are personally very generous people, but who would cut
any corner, even cheat, to make a buck? I certainly do; one of them was a dear older friend (and former student) whose business behavior made me cringe. (I was his partner in one of his
more marginal, and altruistic, business ventures: A publishing company.) Don’t
you know other business people who would sooner fail than do something
unethical? So do I. Which party is more likely to condone the behavior of these
very different types of people?
Lew
Lew,
Excellent
piece — Thanks for writing it.
Alice
If being a liberal would make me such a kind and caring person and
I could be part of such a magnanimous society, why do I still wanna' be a
conservative? Uh, that's a
rhetorical question.
Ann
No, Ann, it’s not,
Because the answer to the question you pose is not generally
known. And liberalism won’t “make” anyone into a liberal person; in
order to be one, first you have to be a “kind and caring person.”
I personally have no idea why you would “wanna' be a conservative.”
I have never understood why any American of Italian background would wish to be
one, particularly in view of the model we have of Mussolini. I remember during
the Second World War how ashamed I was that Italy was run by such a pompous and
despicable ass. Here are some other definitions of “conservative” from my
computer dictionary which, again, you may check in a dictionary of your choice:
Conservative
Adjective
1
the
conservative wing of the party right-wing, reactionary, traditionalist;
Republican; Brit. Tory; informal redneck. antonym socialist.
2
our
more conservative neighbors may object to the modern architecture being
proposed traditionalist,
traditional, conventional, orthodox, old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool,
hidebound, unadventurous, set in one's ways; moderate, middle-of-the-road,
buttoned-down; informal stick-in-the-mud. antonym radical.
3
he
wore a conservative blue suit conventional, sober, modest, plain, unobtrusive,
restrained, subtle, low-key, demure; informal square, straight. antonym ostentatious.
4
a
conservative estimate low, cautious, understated, moderate, reasonable.
Lew,
Like I said, I'm a neophyte when it
comes to politics so I don't get into it on any level. I'm a fan of CNN, I've listened to the
pundits — I've listened to the talking heads — read the NYT's every morning and
my own regional newspaper — some are conservative — some are liberal. I weigh the input and make up my own
mind. But to sit here with you and
opine on a subject in which I cannot intelligently discuss would simply make
myself look stupid. (I was going to use "ass" but that would make me
a democrat). Yes, I know all the definitions of "conservative" — I
looked them up when you sent me the first list ... thought I'd find some that
weren't so "Red State" ... but didn't.
As
to Mussolini. My mom and dad and
their entire families (and other Sicilians I have talked with) all praised
Mussolini for cleaning up crime-ridden pre-war Sicily and ridding it of the
staggering number of outlaws and criminals. No question, the guy was an autocrat — but he did some
really good stuff for Italy/Sicily.
Of course his downfall was his hookup with Hitler. But I hope you're not
saying that all Italians should be liberals. Nonsense! I can
think of one important Italian politician who was ultra-conservative and he was
the best thing that ever happened to New York ... Rudy Giuliani. Sometimes you
just have to be a little iron-fisted to get things done right. There was a time
when New York was a drug and crime garbage dump and it was truly dangerous to
work in and visit New York — when he came into office that all went away
... the transformation was
spectacular. Yes, it's true,
not everyone agreed with his methods ... but he got the job done — and people
came back in droves — which put lots of money in the NYC coffers. So sometimes you can't have it both
ways ... I realize the drug problem still exists ... just as it does in every
corner of this country — but the level of safety, cleanliness, orderliness
during his tenure was outstanding.
Ann
P.S. when I used the term "ass" I
meant "donkey" ... hope you didn't take it the wrong way
I’m not going to comment on this one, Ann. It speaks for itself.
Lew
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