Spreading The Truth (Even If It Hurts)

So, a lot of my more Republican-leaning friends have of late been throwing around the words "spread the wealth." This is a mocking reference to a comment that Senator Obama made to the now infamous Joe The Plumber. My inbox has been flooded with emails about how Obama is going to rob us all of our hard-earned tax dollars, and give them to drug dealers and prostitutes. And probably terrorists.

As a side note, this seems, to me, what has taken the place of genuine political discourse where I live: dozens of forwarded emails that mock or make misleading or outright false statements about the other guy. Of all of my friends (and I'm happy to say I have many), I am currently engaged in an authentic exchange of ideas with exactly one person. One. The rest of my friends are too busy posting the latest attack ads on their Facebook pages to have any kind of debate about - God forbid! - the issues.

But back to the topic at hand. If any of my friends are genuinely concerned that Senator Obama's tax policy is going to take more of their money away to give it to the enemies of America, I must first congratulate you. I didn't think I was friends with anybody who made a quarter-million dollars a year. The next thing I'd like to know is if I could borrow some money. And yes, those of my (beloved) friends who make that kind of dough will receive a slight tax increase. For those of you who make less than a quarter-million a year - but are still feeling righteously indignant on behalf of the rich - I'd like to spread a little truth about another kind of wealth-spreading that is taking place right now - and you are paying for it, no matter what tax bracket you're in.

Remember the massive, tax-payer financed, 700 billion-dollar bailout of the financial sector that Treasury Secretary Paulsen got pushed through Congress recently? Yeah, I know: I forgot about it, too, especially when the price of gas dropped below 2.50 a gallon. But it came crashing back into my consciousness this week when I heard journalist Bill Moyers describe the deal this way: "There are so many loopholes in the restrictions on [executive] compensation, you could fly a fleet of Gulfstream corporate jets right through them."

To wit: since fiscal 2004, the "Golden Five" of Wall Street - Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Behr Sterns, and Lehman Brothers - have lost a combined 83 billion dollars in stock market value. But - and this is where you "spread the wealth" guys need to pay attention - these same companies reported employee compensation of approximately 239 billion dollars. In other words, the architects of this financial house of cards that has now come crashing down around the ears of everyday Americans - the people most directly responsible for this disaster paid themselves almost three dollars for every dollar they lost.

If you're not screaming "WTF?!?" right now, you should be.

Here's something else to consider: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a thirty-nation body, recently published its 2008 report. In the section on "Global Gaps Between Rich and Poor" the report stated, "Rich households in America have been leaving both middle and poor income groups behind. This has happened in many countries. But nowhere has this trend been so stark as in the United States." According to the OECD report, the U.S. ranks fourth in highest inequality in incomes. We got beat only by Mexico, Turkey, and Portugal.

I've got nothing against rich people. Believe me, I wish I knew more rich people. How do people become rich? In most of the world's developing economies, the answer is corruption. We have corruption in the U.S. too, but we also have a free press, and a constitutional right to point our fingers at corruption and cry "Foul!" But most importantly, what we have in the United States is a flawed but historically successful system of governance and economics that allows anyone the opportunity to become wealthy. You will not find that kind of opportunity anywhere else on the planet. But what seems to be happening - at least where I live - is that the more money people earn in this unique system that provides them the chance to do so, the less they want to give back to that system. The richer people around me become, the more indignant they become at the prospect of paying back into the system that created the circumstances for them to get that wealthy.

I have a good friend - a perfectly rational fellow - who recently posted this remark on his Facebook page: "I believe the government is not entitled to my money." I wondered if he could be right, so I went straight to the source. According to the United States Constitution, Section 8, Clause 1:"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." So clearly, the government does have the right. By agreeing to participate in a democratic republic, we all implicitly agree that we will pay back into the system that, faulted and flawed though it is, is singularly unique in that it provides any participant a chance to create wealth.

I don't particularly enjoy paying taxes. And I most definitely desire that my taxes should be spent more wisely than they have been. But to those who truly believe that they should not pay proportionately back into the system that, unique among nations, has allowed them to prosper, I'd like to harken you back to the days of the American Revolution. The mantra back then was, "No taxation without representation." So, I'd like to suggest a new American Order; one in which you do not pay any taxes, let alone proportionate to your wealth. But going back over the Constitution (Section 8), there are some things in this new America that we will have to do without: a standing army (Clause 12); commerce with any nation outside the United States (Clause 3); a postal system, or roads (Clause 7); the courts (Clause 9); the police (Clause 16); or the rule of law (Clause 18).

If that sounds like an America you can get behind, then form a political group and go for it. After all, you live in a country that affords you the freedom to do so.

It's worth noting that the Preamble to the Constitution mentions providing for "the common defence," and promoting "the general Welfare" of the United States. That means everybody, from the Wall Street wizard to the lady who cleans his office. Somewhere along the way, we as a nation forgot that the next line in the Preamble says, "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

It's Posterity. Not Prosperity.

Welcome to Fantasy Island!

WIth all apologies to Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize, I would like to posit the following:

If you really believe that, regardless of who wins the election, you won't be paying more in taxes in the next four to eight years, you are living on Fantasy Island.

Senator Obama says he wants to offer additional tax cuts to Middle-American families. That sounds good. Senator McCain says he won't raise anybody's taxes. That sounds good too, especially if you're rich. But both these ideas fly in the face of the new American Reality: two wars and a devastating financial crisis, that no American (yet) has been asked to pay for.

In World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked every American, of every stripe, to contribute to the war effort. People were encouraged to buy war bonds. Taxes were raised on luxury items, like tobacco and alcohol and stockings. People salvaged their tin cans and old tires. They worked extra jobs in the wartime economy. Everyday Americans sacrificed; every American felt the cost of waging war.

Let me ask you a hypothetical. Let's say that on September 12, 2001, President Bush had gone before the country and said the following:

"My fellow Americans, in light of the unprecedented attacks on our homeland, the Congress and I have agreed to declare a global war on terror. It is not just our military, but all Americans who must join in this fight. That is why I have asked the Congress to enact immediate legislation that will impose a one dollar Patriot Tax on every gallon of gasoline sold in this country. And every American will have the pride and privilege of knowing that, every time they fill up at the pump, they are directly contributing to victory in the War on Terror."

Would you - Republican or Democrat - have been on board with that? My answer is, yes.

What would a one dollar a gallon Patriot Tax have done? Let's think it through. The obvious is that gas at the pumps would have gone up by a dollar a gallon. People would have started looking for ways to drive less: public transport, carpooling, etc. I think we can all agree that less driving would have meant less carbon emissions, which is good for the planet - and your lungs.

But what else might have happened? The obvious consequence of decreased driving is decreased demand for gas, which means decreased demand for crude oil. The most obvious consequence of a decreased demand for crude would be that petro-dictatorships like Saudi Arabia (who, by the way, gave us 18 of the 19 September 11 hijackers), would have had to seriously reconsider their pricing, which would likely have led to a decrease in the price per barrel of crude - which would have meant a decrease in the price of gas at the pumps, even with the Patriot Tax.

And most importantly, the U.S. government would have instantly had billions of dollars at it's disposal to fund the War on Terror. And we the citizens would have been doing our part.

But that only happened in my Made Up America. What really happened was, the President told us to go shopping. He implied that our patriotic duty was to buy more stuff. He never gave us the chance to be patriotic, because he thought we couldn't hack it. Or worse, that we might do it, but then decide not to elect him to a second term. Then - as if one war wasn't enough - he started a second one. He made several attempts to tie this second war in Iraq to the War on Terror, but the only people who still believe that are the people who don't read newspapers or have any interest in fact. And we haven't been asked to pay for that war, either.

Now we have the worst financial crisis this country has seen since the black days of 1929. There's your trifecta.

I told you all that to tell you this: unless you jumped up or down a tax bracket in the last eight years, you're paying the same amount in taxes that you did on September 10, 2001. Even then, this government was operating in a deficit, because the Bush administration had cleared out a 160 billion dollar surplus - some to lower and middle income families, but mostly to the richest one to two percent of the population who didn't need it. Now add two wars, and one financial meltdown. But we're still paying the same amount of taxes we did before any of that went down. Are you smellin' what I'm steppin' in?

In all kinds of ways, Americans are paying the price for consistently living beyond our means. The bills are coming due, and we can pay the bills one of two ways. The government - Republican or Democratic - can raise our taxes. All Americans can finally start to feel the cost of war, and the cost of buying more than we could afford, which hopefully would lead to a new wave of fiscal responsibility, and less appetite for nation-building. Or, we can put the bill off a little longer by borrowing more money - say, from China.

The problem is, China now owns Fantasy Island.