In America, we tax productivity (Income Tax), savings (Estate & Gift Tax) and investments (Capital Gains Tax). We finance addictive consumption (cigarettes, alcohol, junk foods, gambling and pornography). The addictive consumer freeloads off the U.S. Taxpayer while major corporations make exorbitant profits. Who wrote these rules?
California (which is now bankrupt) spends $15 billion per year in tobacco-related costs. How many billions of dollars per year do U.S. Taxpayers spend each year to finance the costs from addictive consumption for cigarettes, alcohol, junk foods, gambling and pornography?
Instead of promoting America's 21st century priorities by using tax credits (e.g., health care, green energy, the environment or national infrastructure), American leaders incomprehensibly allow one hundred billion per year in taxes to not be paid on vast amounts of unreported income hidden in offshore tax havens. Why?
Instead of promoting telecommuting via the internet (according to USA Today, by the year 2010, 100 million Americans will telecommute), we as a nation succumb to our addiction for oil (most notably demonstrated by the Republican Convention's mantra "Drill, Baby, Drill"). If global warming is truly destroying our planet (which I believe), if oil prices are exorbitant and bankrupting our citizens, why not implement a two-day per week telecommuting for covered employees for Federal, State and Local Governments and major institutions? Telecommuting could greatly reduce commuter traffic (and the price of gas), pollution, global warming, traffic accidents, fatalities, infrastructure deterioration, while allowing families to spend more time together in a less stressful lifestyle.
America, are you listening?