(5/22/2005) Our democracy is based in the rule of law, and that law says that we are responsible for holding our elected leaders accountable for their actions, and their inaction's. As responsible self-governors we must know our history so that we have a foundation of knowledge from which we can make good decision about current and future events. A key part of that foundation is knowing about our tax system. It is not necessary to know the specific text of tax legislation, but just a broad general understanding is sufficient. This article will give you that needed base of knowledge.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's there was a group of super wealthy American capitalist known as the Robber Barons. Our elected leaders realized that if they did not pass some major legislation the Robber Barons would eventually own every inch of land in America and our founding fathers vision of an egalitarian democratic republic would be destroyed, and our Constitution would be worthless. So in 1913 they passed the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution and a highly progressive tax system.

This new highly progressive tax system also included an estate tax. The highly progressive estate tax forced the Robber Barons to decide between paying a large tax bill to the government at their death, or giving a lot of their wealth away to charities, school, libraries, foundations, hospitals, research institutes, and other organizations that would benefit our society as a whole. And they ended up doing both to the great benefit of American society. 

Our current economic success and the growth of the middle class is a direct consequence of these progressive tax legislative actions. However, a new group of Robber Barons has emerged and they, like the first Robber Barons, are threatening our democracy. These new Robber Barons have successfully lobbied our political leaders, with campaign contributions and political infiltrators, and they have gotten legislation passed that has changed our progressive tax system into a regressive tax system that is full of special interest provisions and tax loopholes.

As a result of these regressive changes the average middle class worker now pays a higher percentage of their income in taxes than does the average millionaire, and the average billionaire pays an even smaller percentage.

(The table was published in the Dallas Morning News on 5/18/2005 and it shows that a single self-employed individual who makes around $80k per year is paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes then someone making over $330k per year.)

Nixon and Reagan started this regressive perversion of our tax code by passed huge tax cuts for the very wealthy. They did it by reducing the number of tax brackets and reducing the top tax rates.

These huge tax cuts for the very wealthy changed our tax system from a progressive system into a regressive system. These tax cuts also caused the federal debt to grow very rapidly, and harmed our economic growth by stagnating the standard of living for middle class workers. And the gap between the super rich and everyone else has grown enormously.

When President Clinton was elected in 1992 he made the tax code slightly more progressive by raising the top tax rates and expanded the number of tax brackets. Legislation that did not receive one vote from the Republicans.

This small increase in the progressiveness of our tax system caused the economy to boom. The huge federal deficits became huge surpluses, and more new millionaires were created in eight years than at any other time in our history.

Clearly a progressive tax system is healthy for our democracy, it is great for middle class workers, it is good for our government institutions, and it ensures that opportunities exist for smart hardworking people to move up the economic ladder. But the GOP does not see it that way.

When President Bush was elected, or appointed by the Supreme Court, in 2000 the first thing he did was reverse all Clinton's tax increases and added a bunch of new tax cuts for the wealthy. And immediately the budget surpluses turned into huge deficits and the economy began to sputter along, being keep afloat on a mountain of new debt and deficit spending.

Now President Bush and the Republicans are trying to make our tax system even more regressive with more huge tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest people in our society. If they succeed our democracy will quickly be destroyed when our government is bankrupted by the cost of interest on the debt. If this happens we will also lose our rights, freedoms, system of justice, and opportunities to move up the economic ladder.

Why would Bush and the Republicans in Congress deliberate bankrupt their own government?

Our government owns around 30% of all the land in America, as well as priceless national treasures, gold reserves, buildings, the air ways, oil reserves, coastal waters, etc. A conservative estimate puts a value on these assets of around $100 trillion dollars. However, if our government goes bankrupt it would be lucky to get 10% of their value, or about $10 trillion dollars, and it might not get that much. The current federal debt is already at $7.8 trillion, and Bush's budgets are increasing that debt by around $.7 trillion each year for as far out as can be reasonably projected.

The law says that these government assets belong to all the citizens of America. However, if our government goes bankrupt they will suddenly belong to the highest bidder. And that is the prize the Republicans are after.

The Republicans entire treasonous con-game is based on shifting the tax burden off the wealthy and onto the middle class, and running up such huge government debt that the interest cost alone will impoverish the government to the point of bankruptcy. Once our government is broke and the middle class is being forced to bare the bulk of the tax burden America's experiment with democracy will be over and a new ruthless cruel plutocracy will arise in it's place.

Therefore, we must elect new leaders who will restore our progressive tax code before our country is robbed of all it's wealth by a handful of mega rich people, mostly a bunch of inheritance rich trust fund kids and their shyster lawyer fund managers, who have no loyalty, respect, or compassion for our system of self-governance. They are trying to turn our democracy into a plutocracy and they are succeeding.

I believe that the plan Bush and his co-conspirators in Congress are carrying out is nothing short of treason. Stealing from the American people and robbing our government are very serous crimes and we must rise up to meet the enemy before we become penniless and powerless victims of their greed and paranoia motivated bait-and-switch con.