HOW GREEDY ARE YOU?
During the Great Depression and World War II, the bulk of the American people were asked to make sacrifices for the good of the greater society. Americans gladly complied. Many Americans went an extra mile and gave more than asked. People shared their income, their taxes, their foodstuffs, their time, their clothes, and they willingly accepted rationing of many items in their daily life. This bulwark of unity to save America was given by the middle class in America. There were still, as always, tax breaks for the rich and the largest, influential corporations. The middle class pulled America through hard times.
Today the middle class has been hit hard by the economic downturn. Since 2001 the United States has been over-spending its revenue like a drunken sailor. Taxes were not raised to make up for the lavish over-spending of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In fact, Bush had the audacity to not only raise our debts, he lowered taxes for the richest Americans. Repeat: in the face of rapidly mounting federal debt, Bush gave tax breaks to the richest Americans. It did nothing to ease the debt...nothing! It only helped the richest Americans gather more riches. The poor and middle classes suffered as a result. And the Bush years had a record-breaking embarrassment of not creating jobs. Tax breaks for the wealthy does not create jobs. Hisotry shows this over and over. Repeat: tax breaks and tax loopholes do not create jobs.
How severe is it? Since 2001 the American dream of each generation having a better life than the prior generation came to a screaching halt. Americans from the poor and middle classes are going backwards. Houses are being foreclosed. Autos are being repossessed. Jobs are going overseas. Hourly pay has suffered. Labor unions have been demonized. But a small cadre of wealthy people and military-industrial corporations are experiencing record profits and incomes ...with their tax breaks in tact.
If you worked hard all of your life and hoped to have your kids go to college, you find out that financial aid for college students is disappearing. If you worked all of your life for one company and gave them your total loyalty, they have pulled up stakes and moved to Mexico or China or India or someplace where they can find slave wages and working conditions. If you become ill, you may die waiting for adequate health care, or find yourself unable to pay for proper drugs. You may have thought a good way to overcome all this was to join the American military. You were sent to someplace to fight an illegal war and later found out that the benefits you thought you had have been taken away from you. And so it goes.
With the financial problems facing America, you would think that now it is the turn of the wealthy class and large corporations to step to the plate and willingly lead in dealing with our current debacle. Nope. The wealthiest Americans have told their political leaders: no more taxes, we want more breaks! The biggest corporations making immense, record profits say, "No not us. We must be exempt!"
President Clinton left office with scores of billions of dollars in surplus in our federal budget. Since Bush took office in 2001 we have run up debts without any way to repay them. Obama continued it. We have Congress members who are afraid to ask for help from the wealthy and from posh corporations. There is plenty of excess money available from the wealthiest people to ask them THIS TIME to step forward.
Are you an American? Then step to the plate and share your wealth with your countrymen in this time of need. This can be a one-time help, and we can write contraints into this that will protect the wealthy from being asked again over and over. What is needed is a sense of American oneness. I want to believe that altruism is not dead in America. It is time for the wealthiest Americans to show some willingness to an extra mile ...finally!
Tax loopholes are simply institutionalized stealing and corruption.
