Al's Blog-o-Sphere

A friend asked this on Facebook.

“Will one of my democrat friends please explain to me why tax cuts for a majority of tax payers is a bad thing? I can not wrap my head around the thought processes that would come to that conclusion.

“The government is actually letting you keep more of your money and you are complaining about it?

“I don’t get it!”

The short answer is, a tax cut is never a bad thing for those who get it. Enjoy your money.

The bad thing is how unfairly, how unequally, it has been applied across our society. You’re getting a modest tax cut for a year or two that will taper off and leave you right where you were, while the ultra-rich are getting a huge tax cut permanently. The ones who already are doing well with the system, who need tax relief the least are getting the most.

Let me be clear about this: The rich are doing well by exploiting our economic system to their benefit. Good. More power to them. But they need to pay for the system they use. They make the most off our economy, so they should pay the most to support our society’s needs. I’m happy they are doing well, but it is at the expense of and the exploitation of, the workers, consumers, and small businesses, that they enjoy their prosperity. They should pay more taxes, not less. They owe our society more for what they have profited from it. And contributing to the survival of the least of society’s members will benefit them, whether they admit it or not. They need a customer base. They need a workforce.

Don’t agree? Look me in the eye and tell me that WalMart doesn’t exploit its workers, it customers, and it’s suppliers.

You are being short sighted. You are being bought off by a quick, small tax cut to buy your complacency and to distract you from what is really happening. Enjoy it now, because it will be blamed for every deficit, every shortfall, and every program cut, from here on out. Who do you think will pay for all that?

The current thinking is that it will be used to justify massive cuts in social programs. We will continue to be told how expensive everything is and that we can’t afford it. But, we can afford tax cuts for the rich.

And you haven’t even got your tax cut yet. You haven’t paid your 2018 taxes, all you’ve done is adjusted your withholding in anticipation. You talk about how much more you get in your paycheck, but all you’re doing is setting aside less.

Let me tell you a story.

When I turned 18 and was first registering to vote, I was not a political follower. Democrats and Republicans were all the same to me – dirty politicians. Honestly, most of it meant nothing to me, except for issues like the Viet-Nam war. At the time, I was expecting to be drafted at any moment.

When I was registering, I couldn’t remember which party was which and I asked the lady there which one I should put down. She told me that she couldn’t tell me that. So I said I just kept getting them confused and asked what party Richard Nixon was, like I wanted to join the party he represented. She told me he was a Republican. I checked the box for Democrat.

And so it went for many years. I voted, but I voted for people I knew about and liked what they had done. I never voted a party line. Often, I’d know nothing about the candidates for one position and leave that column unchecked. If I didn’t like what an incumbent was doing, I’d vote for his opponent. And when I did, often I would vote in a minor party row if he was running under more than one party’s endorsement.

But in more recent years, I have begun paying more attention. Maybe because I was getting older. Maybe it was because the difference between Democrat and Republican were becoming more pronounced, more polarized. We always had corrupt politicians, but it seems like it was getting worse, or at least more brazen.

I was raised believing that it is a good thing to help the less fortunate. That everyone needs a hand sometime in their life. That it was a duty to share our good fortune with the less fortunate. I saw more of that kind of thinking in the Democratic party than the Republicans.

What I began to see in the Republicans was greed. And lust for power. I became aware how they were working for the wealthy and the corporate interests. It wasn’t just the lobbyists anymore, now it was PACs and Super-PACs, and campaign donations from corporations that were now considered people after Citizens United. I saw how corrupt banking practices on Wall Street were swept under the rug while giving a couple scapegoats a slap on the wrist. I’m not saying there weren’t Democrats behind these things, but the majority were aligned with the Republican Party.

I believed that an elected politician has a duty to represent their constituents, not big business. Now Republicans won’t even meet with the people they represent.

I’d like to go back to not knowing the difference between the two major parties. I enjoyed my blissful ignorance, believing that the majority of our elected officials were working with our interests in mind. But it’s just not a political issue. It’s a moral one. Our country is in trouble. And not just from Russia. Russia is just the vulture circling. It is being taken over from the inside out by greed, corruption and those who don’t have any interest in the greater good. I can’t ignore that.

The name, the label, on the party I support doesn’t matter. What they stand for and what they do is all I’m interested in. I don’t give the Democrats a pass either. I didn’t support Hillary Clinton, except as a desperate alternative to Trump. Bad as she might have been, she would have been much better than Trump has been.

When I see a party giving a pass on the fair share of taxes that the rich should be paying because they get big campaign donations from them and getting almost immediate kickbacks in the form of campaign donations, then trying to buy the support of the low-to-middle class with a tiny, temporary tax cut, while saying they are going to slash the social programs they need, I have to speak up.

That’s the long answer. Don’t let the corrupt buy you off so cheaply.