In one week, this election will be over, and the task of governing will fall on the winning candidate and the reshuffled Congress. At the top of the list of issues to address in the early months of 2017 should be reforming our broken tax code.
Why should tax reform take center stage among the many issues plaguing the country?
Because Americans desperately want to see rising inequality addressed. Concern over the issue drove the insurgent Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and is top among issues of importance to Democratic voters.
Lest one think Sanders’ primary loss gave the green light for inaction on inequality, note that the socialist senator from Vermont is currently the most popular politician in the country.
The growing divides between the rich and the rest of us rank consistently among the most pressing issues facing all voters, not just Bernie supporters. In short, the public’s appetite for action is high, and the next president as well as Congress would do well to listen to them.
There are a number of drivers of inequality, but none are so obvious and so fixable as the deeply unfair tax code.
A review of tax returns by the New York Times last year showed the top one thousandth of 1 percent — the richest of the rich — pay just 17.6 percent of their income in taxes. For context, the top tax rate in the country, intended to tax these very people, is more than double that figure, at 39.6 percent.
Perhaps the most egregious poster child for the broken tax code is Donald J. Trump. The billionaire appears to pay zero federal income taxes. In other words, the major party presidential candidate has contributed nothing to the development of our roads and bridges, our schools and public parks, or any of the other essential public services that taxpayers make possible.
But Trump’s far from the only offender.
Wealthy households and their armies of lawyers and accountants are able to dodge paying their fair share through loopholes they helped put in place. The same goes for the most profitable corporations, many of which have also dropped their federal income tax rate to zero. Plenty of these corporations are exploiting offshore tax shelters to avoid paying over $700 billion in taxes.
It’s now commonplace for these elites to spend millions to save billions on tax reform. Meanwhile, working and middle class families, who don’t have millions to spend on lobbyists or “creative” accountants, are left to fill the hole.
The solutions to fix the tax code and thus make a dent in reversing inequality are straightforward.
Close the expensive loopholes and offshore tax havens that only exist to encourage tax evasion. Update the tax code to ensure those who make their money via investments or inheritance pay taxes on their income the same way people who punch a time clock do.
Of course, the simplicity of a solution doesn’t imply it’ll be easy. Powerful forces aligned to create the unfair tax code we have now, and they’ll go to great lengths defending it. An equally powerful movement will be required to overcome this, on par with the social movements required for all the major steps forward our country has taken in its history.
The conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist famously said, “You win the tax issue, you win all the issues.” On this point, he was right.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy