Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Life Tax

Over the course of my life, I have grown increasingly frustrated with inflation and the rising cost of goods. I remember when a Coke was less than fifty cents, but now it seems that to buy a can of Coke at a gas station costs a little bit more, ninety-two cents at the Tigermart down the street. In Tennessee that price includes a decent sized chunk of sales tax. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Democrats are supposed to be okay with taxes. As a liberal I’m supposed to appreciate the value of government programs and support the means through which those programs are funded, right? Well, even if that were entirely true, I’m still not okay with the sales tax. It’s barbaric.
The sales tax is possibly the most horrendous method of taxation ever heard of unless someone can find me a reference to a tax on breathing. The Republican Party loves to make a lot of noise about the “death tax,” the morbid epithet they assign to the estate tax on the transfer of inheritances over $2 million. The implication seems to be that there’s something unseemly about taxing someone’s property after they die. I think we should call the sales tax a “life tax.” Instead of taxing someone based on income or actual wealth, our state government sees fit to tax them based on what they spend. What does that cost real people?
Let’s assume a family of four is totally average (in economic terms) and makes the state’s median income (around $55,000). Let’s also assume that they are extraordinarily careful about budgeting for food and spend around $14 per meal for the whole family (one step up from ramen noodles). This family is still spending around 3% of their annual income on taxes just to eat. That could buy them a new computer, pay their house note for a couple of months, or pay most of the tuition for their kid who just started college. But no, that’s the government’s share for the privilege of eating frozen chicken and canned peas. Let’s look at a family living in North Memphis. Their median income is around $20,000, and suddenly the government’s cut of dinner is around 7% of their annual income. Does anyone else think of this as being extortionate?
In states with graduated income taxes (taxes on income that increase as you make more money) the government tries to cut into the purchase of diamond tennis bracelets, not hot meals for kids. When Republican Governor Don Sundquist tried to push for real tax reform in Tennessee (i.e. a graduated income tax) the bill met with striking resistance. Street protests and somewhat violent demonstrations orchestrated by then State Senator Marsha Blackburn frightened lawmakers into voting down the issue.
Citizens in states with graduated income taxes also get to deduct their state income taxes from their federal income taxes, meaning that not many people are really paying that much more in overall taxes. In recent years the Republicans, led by now Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have made state sales taxes deductible as well. The down side to that is it only works if you itemize your taxes, saving every receipt for everything you buy that you want to deduct. Thanks, Marsha, now those wealthy enough to hire accountants to do that for them can rest even more of the burden of government on those of us who fill out a 1040 EZ every year.
Anyone who isn’t utterly radical recognizes the necessity of government spending. Certainly most Republicans agree that we need a government and that government costs money, and most Republicans agree with Democrats that it is important to actually raise the money to pay for those expenditures through taxes. (Some, however, believe that going in debt to China and Saudi Arabia is preferable.) So why is it that here in Tennessee we can’t seem to manage a tax structure that doesn’t take food from the mouths of the poor, doesn’t make it harder for kids to go to college, doesn’t add to the cost of your textbooks every semester, and is only recoverable by the wealthy? Here’s my argument: Either people have been convinced by Republican politicians that an income tax is bad (even if it’s cheaper for everybody but the absurdly wealthy), or they are the absurdly wealthy and simply don’t care if they cut into your food, your books, and your education in order to ensure that they don’t pay an extra few bucks every year. After all, it’s immensely more important that Biff and Buffy have even more money stashed in offshore accounts, tax-sheltered annuities, and hyper-expensive art than it is that you have any of those things so necessary to a decent life. Who cares about the “death tax” when there’s a tax on life to be worried about?

Monday, September 25, 2006

The Moral High Ground

Certain members of the Republican Party have, for a number of years now, reveled in their perceived status as the party of morality. As GOP politicians have derided Democrats as unpatriotic or immoral, implying of course that Republicans are the opposite, I have wondered exactly what politician in history has publicly claimed to be anything else. So, six years after the GOP has achieved its goal of holding the presidency, majorities in both chambers of congress, and appointing seven of the nine justices of the Supreme Court, what grand strides have been made by our government to promote morality and patriotism? Let’s take a quick look back at some of the great achievements of the past six years.
In 2003 Congress and the President took a great moral leap and cut veterans benefits to the tune of just under a billion dollars over five years. This decision clearly took into account the high level of patriotism felt by America’s men and women in uniform. Realizing that our valiant heroes were eager to sacrifice for their country, their country took them up on the offer thus rendering them more patriotic and more selfless! The Democratic alternative to those cuts was a 2.4 billion dollar increase in veterans’ benefits. As a veteran, I can only lament my party’s misunderstanding of our needs. I believe I speak for most veterans when I say that we neither desire nor need any reward for our service. The knowledge that cuts in the Veterans’ Administration budget will be used to fund a massive tax cut for the wealthiest of Americans is enough for me.
Also, as a former soldier, I never did think much of the Geneva Convention. There are several clear problems with it, not least of all combat provisions which clearly came from a different era of warfare. Most of all, however, I hated the requirement that we treat prisoners of war as human beings. I must admit that I am truly grateful that our Justice Department spent years working the legal system to keep the detainees at Guantanamo Bay from having the rights of either a criminal or a prisoner of war. Heaven knows that either might prevent us from utilizing interrogation techniques pioneered by the Spanish Inquisition or the judges at the Salem Witch Trials. After all, torture has always provided such reliable information. Another moral victory brought to you by the Republican Party! Who cares if we periodically find out that some of the detainees were tourists?
As the battle has raged on at home over gay marriage, the Department of Defense has held the moral line abroad, discharging Sergeant Bleu Copas and fifty-five other Arabic linguists who were found to be homosexual. That, my friends, is real moral certitude. Our Department of Defense has willingly sacrificed the practical gain of having Arabic linguists for the sake of letting the homosexuals know that their service to the nation will not be tolerated under any circumstances, not even war. I’m certain that every American soldier who has died because of faulty intelligence reporting or mistranslation died secure in the knowledge that the military has remained morally upright.
Nothing, however, could prove our government’s commitment to creating a nation of moral patriots than this year’s tripling of the tax levied on teenagers with college savings funds. In this day and age college students have too many advantages when paying for their education. Tax breaks on college savings funds may seem like a good idea, but the reality is that they simply make life too easy for students, to the detriment of their moral character. Clearly these tax hikes are critical to the health of the nation. It is of utmost importance that students do their part to pay for the war, the massive federal deficit, and the construction of a 100 billion dollar missile defense shield (even if it doesn’t work). Our nation’s millionaires have already done too much, so abolishing the estate tax entirely (It already has exemptions for estates valued at under 2 million dollars.) should clearly take priority over college savings funds.
All sarcasm aside, I do not oppose much of the traditional platform of the Republican Party. As a Democrat, I am an advocate for fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. I support our troops, and, in fact, was one. I have faith in our entrepreneurial spirit to discover unique solutions to long-standing problems, and I believe that the market can create enough jobs and wealth for every American to have a living wage, healthcare, and a retirement. I believe that careful government spending can provide a massive tax cut for the American middle class. I am pro-choice, but so was Ronald Regan. I support the War on Terror, even if I disagree with certain of the methods this administration has employed.
In my opinion, the problem inherent in the Republican Party does not lie in its rhetoric, but in its actions. If the GOP would practice what it preaches and make a tough stand for morality and ethics in government, cut wasteful spending, honor our veterans, and author practical tax cuts instead of reckless ones, I might just become a Republican. They, however, continue to produce such outstanding policy achievements as the renaming of French fries and failed Constitutional Amendments to ban flag burning. As war deaths mount, as crime rises at home, as our ports remain insecure, and as our heroes fail to receive proper treatment, this is the best the GOP can offer. The problem with the Republican Party does not lie in its rhetoric. The problem is that the Republican Party is only rhetoric.

The Party of McGovern and MacGyver

Will Rogers once famously stated, “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” I wish that Will Rogers were more like my magic 8-ball. It’s wrong a lot. Instead he struck the chord which has resonated within the Democratic Party since its earliest days. At various times the Democrats have been an amalgam of farmers and industrial workers, anti-imperialists and bankers, Southerners and union agitators, and segregationists and progressive reformers. Today’s incarnation of the Democratic Party is an ad hoc coalition of causes ranging from environmentalists to gay rights activists to Christian pacifists all attached to Roosevelt’s progressive populism with bubblegum and bailing wire.
Perhaps it is the realistic view of politics held by the Democrats that makes it such an eclectic group. Politics is not about two titanic sets of ideals fighting for supremacy, but rather about radically diverse regions and special interest groups jockeying for each others’ money and influence. Republicans do a good job of jockeying collectively, getting their strange coalition of wealthy corporate interests and traditionalist social values voters, or Greed and God, good seats at the bargaining table. (Granted, upon arrival Greed usually starts cutting into God’s share of the spoils, but that’s beside the point.) Democrats, on the other hand, fail to comprehend the “team play” aspect of this game. Our loyalties are all too frequently to our causes over our party so much that we forget that in order to control the agenda we need to support and strengthen our party first.
This election cycle is rife with examples of this. In Connecticut, as you are all probably aware, Senator Joe Lieberman lost his Democratic Primary to Ned Lamont, a wealthy entrepreneur running on an anti-war platform. Despite his loss, Lieberman simply filed to run as an independent, hoping that conservative voters and Republicans fearful of a more liberal senator would carry him to office. Those committed enough to the party’s agenda and goals to call themselves Democrats on the day of primary elections voted for Ned Lamont, but Lieberman’s tactic effectively allows him to ignore the wishes of Democrats, win with a hodgepodge of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and continue calling himself a Democrat. Does it disenfranchise his district? No, certainly not. Does it damage his party? Yes, not only by pushing their major anti-war sentiment out of the picture but by deepening fissures within a party that already has problems with unity.
Here in Tennessee we face similar issues. In the 9th District (covering Memphis and some of Shelby County), Democratic Nominee Steve Cohen faces opposition in the general election by Jake Ford, an independent who claims to be a Democrat. Jake Ford, who happens to be brother to incumbent and Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr., seems to be running on the platform that the seat should be held by an African American, and while that platform may be valid, it is not good for either the party or the district. Creating a racial schism in the fervently egalitarian Democratic Party is hardly the wisest course of action, jeopardizing both the party’s long term structure and the chances of Harold Ford Jr. in his Senate bid. Furthermore, Jake is not his brother, though he is banking on the family name. Unlike the well-educated and seasoned Harold, Jake Ford has not graduated high school or college, and has never held government office. In contrast Harold Ford Jr. graduated from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, the first-tier University of Michigan Law School, has served in numerous staff positions in government, and has been a sitting Congressman for ten years. Does it seem that coat-tail riding is in fashion this election season?
Despite his reputation, Ford’s bid for Congress is not what offends me. In fact, Jake Ford does not offend me at all, because he filed as an independent. It is the tacit support of his brother who refuses to endorse the Democratic nominee but expects (and is receiving) the support of the Democratic Party that is so infuriating. Harold Ford Jr. and his ally, Gov. Phil Bredesen are the core of the Democratic Coordinated Campaign in Tennessee. Between them they have raised approximately fifteen million dollars for their combined efforts statewide. They have included Rep. John Tanner and a handful of other candidates in their push, but Cohen and 7th District nominee Bill Morrison remain conspicuously absent from their efforts. Why? When I asked Morrison he stated: “They wanted fifty thousand dollars to join. This is a grassroots campaign. We don’t have that.” Cohen’s staff never received such a straightforward answer.
Frankly the reasons for Democratic officials to fail in their support of fellow Democrats do not matter. The strength of the Democratic Party lies in its diversity and commitment to the common good, collective justice, and equality. Powerful political dynasties, coordinated campaign slush funds, and personal agendas do not bolster any of these strengths, the Democratic Party, or those many causes hanging on with bubblegum and bailing wire.