May 2003: The first phase of the invasion of Iraq had just ended; the tough part -- rebuilding -- was about to begin. At the time, the war in Afghanistan continued to drain American blood and treasure.
President George W. Bush chose that moment to visit Nebraska as part of his successful campaign to get Congress pass a second round of tax cuts -- in the midst of two billion-dollar-a-week wars. I chose to do something I hadn't done in decades: to get out on the streets and protest. As the presidential motorcade went by, I lofted a hand-lettered, three-deck sign that bore this message:
Tax Cuts for Billionaires Today
Mean Trillions in Debt
For Our Children Tomorrow.
Now, I'm not crowing. You didn't have to be prophetic to see this day coming. You just had to reject the perennial nonsense of the "Laffer curve." If we didn't then, we sure have to now.
Today, we face one of the worst fiscal crises in our nation's history. America has already hit its debt ceiling, and the government is scrounging in its pockets for loose change to pay its bills.
More perhaps than any war, this moment calls for patriotism. How are Republicans reacting? By signing pledges against tax hikes, posturing over a balanced budget amendment, and sharpening their knives to cut life-saving programs like Medicare.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm the first to agree that we cannot spend beyond our means indefinitely. As my protest makes clear, I believe we should not have done it in the first place. We cannot go on paying for Europe's security, fighting low-grade but high-cost wars in three Muslim countries, and guaranteeing each American an unlimited amount of healthcare at the end of their lives. In short, I'm all for responsibility.
But the greed-driven, mindless, heartless approach advocated by the GOP is hardly responsible. Look at their "pledge." It not only calls for a balanced budget -- something admirable in principle, but dead wrong in times of financial collapse, such as we saw at the tail end of the Bush II Administration. Their "Cut, Cap, & Balance" pledge calls for a constitutional amendment that would make any tax hikes -- even in a national emergency such as 9/11 -- require a supermajority in Congress.
Now, you might think that in a national emergency, all members of Congress would unite to do the right thing -- but think again. Not only does the present crisis belie that notion, the leading advocate for the no-tax pledge, Grover Norquist (president of Americans for Tax Reform) makes it clear that nothing would ever move him to approve of a tax hike. And he wields a big club.
In a recent appearance on the Colbert Report, Colbert jokingly asked if all of our grandmothers were being held hostage and raising taxes was the only way to ransom them, how he would respond. Norquist coolly replied, "I think we console ourselves with the fact that we have pictures." Joking, sure, but that kind of absolutist anti-tax sentiment is all too real.
McConnell, Boehner & Co are hostage to the likes of Norquist. But they in turn are acting like hostage-takers with explosive belts around their well-fed waists. Unless they get their ransom, they threaten to blow up the U.S. economy, and with it our leadership in the world.
What can we do? Take a pledge of our own. Not a hostage-taking, bomb-throwing, wildly irrational stand, but something I call the Paytriot Pledge. Here's the message I sent to Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, and my own senators and representative this morning. If you agree, I invite you to cut, paste, and send it or your own version.
Dear Senator/Representative:
I don't like paying taxes. But I willingly pay them, because I love my country, and I know that it's the right thing to do.In the face of imminent default on our sovereign debt, the anti-tax pledges and balanced-budget amendment proposals that you and your GOP colleagues are promoting amount to highly irresponsible grand-standing.
This is a time to act for your country, sir, not for your party or its wealthy backers.
Talk, on any side of this issue, is cheap. So, I will put my hard-earned money where my heart is: I hereby pledge to voluntarily add 5 percent to my 2011 federal tax bill if you will lead your party back to a sensible compromise on this crucial issue.
I know my voluntary contribution won't solve the crisis, but I'm taking a stand for a balanced solution: careful cuts and tax increases. Call it the Paytriot Pledge. I hope it may move you to do the right and responsible thing.
Sincerely,
Clay Farris Naff
Lincoln, NE
You can reach the GOP leadership and your own congressional representatives via this link. On this July 4th weekend, I urge you to be a true Paytriot: take the pledge.
Follow Clay Farris Naff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/claynaff
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I don't like paying my taxes and (being an average American) I don't actually pay any taxes. And hell will freeze over (or John Kerry will dock his yacht in his home state) before I make a voluntary contribution. However, if you wouldn't mind heaping more taxes on the 2% of the population who already pay for the trillions of dollars you waste in Washington, I will do my patriotic duty and say, go for it.
But it must be so much more satisfying if you're rich and greedy to pretend that you're the victim of a gigantic, wasteful, out-of-control bureaucracy. It gives you an excuse not to take ownership of the problems our country actually faces. In short, you get to pretend to be a patriot without having to do the actual work of being one.
If these starving children exist, send me a picture of their emaciated bodies. Obese inner city kids with i-phones and $200 sneakers don't count, even if they are below the poverty line. While I'm waiting for the picture, I'll just grow old and collect social security. Or probably not collect it, since its bankrupt.
While I agree with many of your "talking points" I fail to see how giving an out of control government more money, will solve the problem. The balanced budget amendment is a farce, it allows congress to circumvent the provisions of the bill with a mere 2/3's majority, then we're right back where we started.
Maybe a fair tax system is better, maybe a flat rate, but a system where 50% of the population is not contributing is not working. It has created an entire class who feel entitled to others money (hard work)
Economists claim it is naive to run a government like you would run your household, but c'mon, the spending must stop, the borrowing must cease or we risk asking the next generation to pay through the nose for the things "we" want right now. What kind of people are we that we would put our grandchildren in perpetual debt for instant gratification?
Yes, Bush had his wars, Clinton rigged the books to show a surplus on paper that was really a loss, Reagan might have started the whole thing, and Obama made things worse by giving us a brand new entitlement that we can ill afford. Lots of blame to go around, but what do we do now?
We must start to live within our means and that starts with spending cuts first, we can always raise taxes later. Raising taxes without deep spending cuts will only empower the beast even more.
I'll accept your explanation that federal income tax was originally targeted to the top 10%. But that was before we were a government of 5 million employees, more than 10,000 federal programs, and a combined sixty something thousand state agencies that overlap much of what the federal government does. I have a 4 page list of more than 1,100 agencies just for the state of California alone. Government has grown into a 5,000 lbs gorilla trying to pick up a dime. Giving it more bananas is not the solution.
As a small business owner I work on a 15-18% profit margin, changes in health care and many other federal mandates will soon make that about 8-11%. I'm ready to throw it all in and move to the Cayman Islands, and live out my last 10 or 15 years without the stress. How many others are thinking like me? I want to be part of the solution, but not the only part. I'm just not seeing the shared sacrifice the President is talking about.
Of course this is just my opinion. Thanks for replying.
I give you credit for putting your money where your mouth is (in regards to your pledge); however, I don’t believe you will have many takers. I think your time would be better spent arguing against wasteful government spending rather than trying to convince people to give up more of their hard earned money. We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. The government needs to live within its budget just like the rest of us. A person that makes $60,000 a year can’t continuously spend $100,000 every year without serious financial consequences...most Americans intuitively understand that...yet that is exactly what our government is doing--borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends. The liberal/progressive solution is to have the government confiscate an even greater share of personal incomes (but only for the rich of course) but offers little to nothing in the way of reforming programs that are bankrupting the system--such as entitlement reform. Ending the current wars would certainly save some money but it is no where near enough to bridge the current deficit gap; even if we did away with the military altogether it still wouldn’t be enough. The 800lb gorilla in the room is entitlements. Unless we’re willing to address those, nothing else we do will matter.
Rethink the ridiculous war on drugs, which seems to concentrate on marijuana, and legalize the stuff already. Millions in tax revenue could be generated, and millions in law enforcement costs saved by eliminating the persecution of pot smokers.
There are no other choices but to end all wars, cut the military budget, and stop playing world policeman. Europe and Asia have enough money to look after their own security.
All corporate tax loopholes must be closed, corporations and the rich must pay their fair share for a change.
And as far as other entitlements- raise Medicare taxes, because there is no other choice.
Stop giving handouts like welfare, food stamps, medicaid, and housing subsidies to illegals who shouldn't be here in the first place. That's a big chunk of change going to people who don't deserve it.
Oh, and it's time for churches and other religious groups to lose their tax-exempt status and start paying taxes like the rest of us.
These changes would be a good first step towards getting spending under control.
Let's say you have a job that pays $100 a month, and you spend 70 of that on necessary and unnecessary items combined. You also have $5000 worth of debt, with interest. You've been offered a job where you make more money (say, $800 a month), and can easily afford to pay $70+ toward the debt. However, you decide to stay at the $100 job, but cut some of that $70 and put it toward your debt instead. Which job will pay down your debt faster?
This analogy -- though probably not very good, and arguably too simplistic -- is similar to our debt crisis, is it not? If raising taxes on the rich is the $800 job, isn't that the better (and faster) option than being stuck in the $100 job, taking far longer to pay off that debt with interest continually building? Isn't it important to pay down that debt ASAP for a faster economic recovery? Don't we want faster results? If the rich can easily afford to live their current lifestyles while simultaneously paying more in taxes, why is the tax increase such a bad thing?
I'm sorry to say that I think it's going to take massive protests and simultaneous labor strikes in every major city including Washington D.C. to make an impact. I hate to be so cynical, but I really believe they're seeing how far they can push the American public on this issue in favor of corporate interests before people take to the streets.
Sadly, the Democrats have been whipped into submission by these tax-cutting, budget-balancing fascists, going along with draconian cuts to education and to public services like police and firefighters--and not de-funding the wars!!!---while corporate and Wall Street donors sit in their Hamptons mansions, hiring private security and sending their kids to private school.
This is democracy?
It is my believe that BOTH partys cut these services because it gets the attention of the public and that we have a budget problem and we MUST pay higher taxes to keep these things. But they try to hold us hostage that these are the services that have to be cut to make budgets work. Why haven't any of these politicians from either side said "We are going to cut the salary of all public servents beginning "X" years from now (or whenever the next public union contract expires) and we will no longer pay pensions to any elected or appointed public servant".
Take a look at how much the superintendant of schools makes where you live. Take a look at what your city manager/planner makes. It is shocking to say the least that these salaries along with the generous benefit package that comes with them are always paid even though city/counties/states are broke. If we cut those salary/benefit packages in every city across the country, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
Elected officials say that they understand our plight, but understanding it and living it are two very distinct things.
Public servants, on average, make far less in salary than their private sector counterparts. To cut their salaries even further when no one else is being asked to sacrifice is a recipe for disaster. Who do you want re-building our crumbling infrastructure? A fairly paid engineer who has decent benefits, or someone who got hired because they were cheap?