Here’s a holiday present

Here’s a holiday present – no important government programs require any hike in your taxes. Some politicians, particularly but not exclusively Republican, want you to believe that anything good that government does will come straight out of your pocket. But that says more about what they want to make happen than anything that necessarily or logically comes from running valuable government programs. It’s all about who the politicians want to make pay the taxes. Remember Warren Buffet who was outraged to discover that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did. That’s because some politicians have been lowering the tax rates of their rich friends for decades and therefore leaving it to the rest of us to pay to keep government working. There’s nothing about the American economy that wouldn’t support American workers the way it did a few decades ago – the difference is all in the tax rates. And it’s time Americans put an end to that tax theft.

Republicans have been cutting taxes to the wealthiest Americans since 1980. They’ve be giving us all sorts of explanations why that’s good for all of us. But the income of America’s working people has been been stagnant for half a century while their buying power has been declining. That’s not trickle-down – that’s just a failure to serve America honorably.

There’s no reason for that to continue. There is plenty of wealth in America and it’s absolutely fair and proper for working men and women to share the growth in America’s wealth that they have made possible. The only reason they have not is called lobbyists. It’s not a failure of America’s working people. It’s a failure of Republican willingness to let America’s working people share the wealth. There’s no reason for Republican members of Congress to scare America’s working men and women that their Social Security won’t be there for them in order to satisfy their very wealthy campaign donors who do not and never will rely on those Social Security dollars – especially given that those Social Security dollars have already been paid for as insurance. The same goes for Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.

Senator Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Sanders of Vermont and Senator Gillibrand of New York have collaborated on a modest wealth tax proposal:

2% on the net worth of households and trusts over $50 million and

a 1% surtax on the net worth of households and trusts over $1 billion.

My retirement savings don’t come close to the minimum estate subject to the tax, though IRS rules force me to disgorge what I have regularly so they can get the taxes on what were tax free investments. It’s OK – paying my taxes is a privilege of citizenship. But if they can do that with my much smaller retirement savings, they ought to be able to do it to the sacrosanct wealth of America’s superrich. It’s hard for me even to imagine having a billion dollars.

What Warren, Sanders and Gillibrand are proposing will cover lots more than the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare insurance programs, and all of them will be good for America. Unlike the tax cuts Republicans are so attached to, improving the financial position of America’s working people does work, it goes straight into the economy which means their proposal will be good for everyone, unlike Republican trickle-down fantasies.

As Jack Metzgar wrote for Inequality.org, “Every time I hear that we as a nation cannot afford something — whether that might be assuring non-toxic water in Jackson and Flint or universal pre-K or an industrial policy with teeth — I have wondered how many dollars a national wealth tax might yield.” His answer is: “We Can’t Afford NOT to Have a Wealth Tax.”

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on December 20, 2022.

Stop Dumping All the Risks on Blue Collar Workers

I have been thinking about all the blue-collar workers who believed that Donald Trump would do a great deal for them.

We often talk about the risks that entrepreneurs face but capitalism does its best to outsource risk to blue-collar workers. If there are environmental problems, poisons in the air or water, blue-collar workers and their children will be the first to become sick – they are the canaries in the coal mines. But the irony is that they are also the first to be affected by any attempt to remedy the situation. Prohibitions may force their workplaces to shut down or lay them off.

Liberals often respond by saying that new methods will create jobs. But blue-collar workers have good reason to assume that any jobs created will probably be for other people. Liberals also argue that the proper method for creating jobs is with public works, renovating American infrastructure, etc. But who’ll get the infrastructure jobs? And even more important, no one has been able to promise those jobs. Obama tried but Congress blocked much of what he wanted to do. Trump promised a huge infrastructure program but he put it in the budgets of the states, not his own budget. In effect American politics has not been able to deliver on that jobs promise for the people whose jobs are at risk.

Other relief programs are more automatic: Except for Puerto Rico, we regularly protect people flooded by major storms even when they should have known better than to build on flood plains. The farm program, whatever its shortcomings, protects farmers with formulas that can be calculated in advance. Unemployment insurance is statutory but often grossly inadequate. Social security and Medicare have been reliable though they have become political footballs. Obamacare still exists despite Republican attempts to kill it. But you can’t feed and house a family on medical care. The earned income tax credit comes annually after April 15.

All of this suggests political winners and losers – we like some folks and we don’t trust others with whatever we might do for them. Government has not been willing to become the employer of last resort, so that there are always jobs and wages, although some candidates are urging it now. A negative income tax has been deemed too expensive. And Trump has spent huge tax dollars on enriching the super rich instead of reducing or eliminating the payroll tax in order to encourage hiring more workers for jobs that pay well. There’s lots that could be done if we have the will.

The result is that our political system has not been willing to care for workers. They are not the only ones our politics has left to hang in the breeze. Our unwillingness to insist on decent, honest and ethical behavior for everything from payday lending to mortgage loans, from manufacturing to toxic waste, leaves masses of people at risk, unable to protect themselves or their families.

We need statutes that protect all workers when employers reduce their workforce. Protections need to be reliable so that people don’t have to fear for their jobs when they demand safe working conditions and decent contractual terms that don’t shift all the risks to the people who are most vulnerable and least able to protect themselves. We need reliable worker protection so that people needn’t fear for their jobs when we demand safe products and safe byproducts of business activity. We need to rethink how we protect American workers so that they don’t become the losers whenever we try to improve the American environment and working conditions for everyone.

— This commentary posted by WAMC on their website on June 5, 2018 but the audio was pre-empted by the Pledge Drive. It was broadcast in its usual spot the following week on WAMC Northeast Report, June 12, 2018.

How Can We Protect American Workers

Trump’s power, and his policies on jobs, immigrants, religious and ethnic hatreds and the Alt-wrong are all related.

Scholars of intolerance tell us that threat breeds hate. I suspect that all we can say about why immigrants and Muslims are really good people only makes those who feel threatened feel more threatened, because instead of talking about their needs we’re praising someone else.

So I want to talk about the needs of Americans who feel threatened economically and what can be done regarding their economic losses, recognizing that the disfunction in American politics is partly due to the desperation of workers who’ve lost once good jobs.

Protecting American workers is crucial both because people suffer when they can’t find good jobs, and because desperate or threatened people take dangerous risks at the polls and elsewhere. We must protect workers both for their sakes and for ours; it’s much the same thing.

It’s our job because government fiscal, tax, programmatic and other policy decisions daily determine how many jobs there are. Some people can make their own opportunities, but, to be fair, most good, decent, hard-working people can’t.

What can we do about it? Sometimes it helps just to set out the options. Here are the choices I can see:

FDR created unemployment compensation and Nixon proposed a negative income tax – safety-net approaches based on direct income transfers. Many object, including those who benefit from handouts, tax loopholes, deductions, farm price supports, subsidies etc. – the tax code and the budget are replete with them. But direct financial transfers are one possibility.

A second approach is to pay for jobs indirectly through trade policies. All three presidential candidates talked about that. I understand the fear of foreign competition even though there are reasons to look for other solutions for American workers: limiting foreign imports hides the cost in the price of things we buy, and isolates the American economy from developments elsewhere. It also might not work; actual hiring decisions would rest on other people’s decisions. But we can’t overcome the fear if we can’t commit to other steps, and all the talk about the risk to Social Security fans that fear.

A third approach, the conservative free market approach, is not really a solution for the working person at all – it simply puts the monkey on workers’ backs to find jobs or starve.

A fourth approach is to create new jobs by government action – fiscal stimulus, infrastructure development, and investment in science and education, all of which call for construction, maintenance and technical jobs. That’s what Obama called for but Congress drastically whittled his effort down.

Why can’t government be employer of last resort? That would automatically support a minimum wage, create better communities, and make life better for all of us. It’s not the free lunch some people worry about; it’s a job. What’s so terrible about giving people what Tom Paxton called “a job of work to do”? There’s plenty to do if we were willing to invest in our people, our workers, our infrastructure, and our environment. Sometimes spending a little can make the community more attractive and the economy zing while providing a decent income to people who need a job.

Some countries use all of those methods and have quite robust economies.

Those are the alternatives I can see: the free marketeers’ defining it away as the workers’ problem, the safety net approach of income transfers, paying indirectly through trade policies or subsidies for the appearance of helping workers, or creating jobs through fiscal stimulus or hiring people to do needed work. My preference is to put people to work – that way protecting others is good for us all. One way or the other, standing up for each other is essential.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, March 7, 2017.

Yipes – taxes for the New Year??? !!!

Some years ago I called Phil Shrag whom I knew from law school. He’d run the National Organization for the Rights of the Indigent for the NAACP and worked for the New York City Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. Phil was and is a very public spirited person. At the time he was teaching at Columbia. I don’t remember what I called him about but at some point in the conversation we made small talk. I asked him what he was teaching. Tax. That was a surprising answer since none of the things Phil had done suggested significant involvement with the tax code. But he pointed out that every public policy runs through the tax code. So it made a lot of sense.

Phil of course was right. Global warming? The tax code determines how cheap it is to buy carbon based fuels that warm the globe. And it determines whether the producers or somebody else has to pay for the cleanups, the environmental damage, dealing with the warming planet. And it determines what the carbon hawkers have to pay for threatening to obliterate our descendants and end human life on this planet. No tax – go ahead and choke the globe.

Antibiotic resistant disease? The tax code determines what cheap methods are OK to raise and sell animals and animal products. Jam animals together for “efficient” processing and they need antibiotics. The tax is on the land, not the antibiotics. Voila, it’s cheap to feed antibiotics to animals and ship them to us with resistant diseases. Of course we’ll pay the price with illness, doctors, and grieving for our dear ones – but, hey, the milk was cheap.

Landfills? Who pays for those? Do you get a break for composting, sorting, recycling or not buying so much? Nope – we all pay for garbage. But the tax could be shifted to producers and off our shoulders. Things would instantly get less wasteful.

Ever since the elder George said “Read my lips; no new taxes,” taxes have become the third rail of politics – instant suicide for any politician even to bring it up. But health, wealth and survival are right there in the tax code. We need smart taxes, that shape us the way we ought to be. The freedom to corrupt our country and our world with garbage, poison and heat isn’t legitimate freedom – that’s one person’s “freedom” to mess with another’s life, or the lives of many. That’s not freedom, not what our forefathers’ fought for, not patriotic, sensible or constructive. We need smart taxes. Now. Taxes that will make our world a better place.

So last week I wished for peace, health and good government – figuring I was on mostly safe ground. So now I’m blowing it – wishing for new, I’d rather say better, taxes. TAXES for the New Year! That Gottlieb character must be crazy.  Like a fox? Naahhh. Just nuts.  Republicans won’t allow it anyway.

Oh, devilishly inspired by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, how about a tax on more than two children per family – NO, don’t throw tomatoes, they stain. I’m out o’ here! Happy New Year everyone.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, December 30, 2014.

The Chemical Contamination in West Virginia

Before moving to Albany thirty-five years ago, we lived in Morgantown, West Virginia – a university town and a mining town. We knew people in both worlds. Our daughter was only seven, but after we moved she got letters from a little friend there who was the son of a miner. Miners lived all around.

Morgantown was very special, but the chemical leak and contamination in Charlestown reveals the naiveté of many in West Virginia and elsewhere in the U.S., who believe that whatever is good for the companies is good for us, that the companies are looking out for our welfare.

Saving Federal Dollars

Some congressmen believe the government should not spend any money, shouldn’t borrow, shouldn’t raise the debt ceiling, and shouldn’t raise taxes. They are from “red” states or districts. And they don’t want to vote for hurricane relief for the northeastern states.

Others believe government should do what is necessary for the welfare of the people. When people are in trouble, good people help. They are from “blue” states or districts. And they voted for hurricane relief for the South and Midwest.

It’s not just Tea Party ideology. Whose ox is gored matters to them. If the hurricane hits my district, well, they’re good people, so we gotta help. But if it’s somebody else’s district, especially a “blue” district, we certainly do not want to help “those” people. So we have a combination of politics and ideology.

OK then, here’s a proposal.

Global warming demands a BTU tax

Last night at the Egg I heard Bill McKibben talk about climate change. I was very proud of Joe and Alan and WAMC for organizing it and proud of the WAMC audience for coming out in droves to hear him. The message he brings is not a happy one but it is a message we have to hear and understand; more, it’s a message we have to act on.

Why We Need a Carbon Tax

I hope you heard Steven Leibo’s commentary last week. If not, you can find it by searching for Leibo’s World Watch. He focused on the need for a carbon tax. I’d like to follow up.

To deal with the enormous problems that global warming will pose for all of us, problems that will be catastrophic for many, we have to be willing to make carbon based fuels more expensive, not bellyache about the price of gas, but tax it so it gets higher. Now before you turn off the radio or try to throw tomatoes at me, we would also need to address the inequities that would cause, by the way we handle the income tax. And that’s part of Steve’s point –with taxes very much at the center of the political debate, this is a good time to address a carbon tax.

Tax Rates and Business Investment

You and I have been hearing lots of rhetoric about the risk to small business if tax rates go up on people earning a quarter million or more. The expressed concern is that small businessmen won’t be able to invest and create more jobs. Of course in this world of sound bites it’s hard to get everything clear and correct. But this one is largely misleading. Tax rates and business investment in job producing enterprise are much less closely related than much of the commentary would make it appear.

Supreme Court Plays Guardian Counsel in the Health Care Argument

Let’s understand what that argument about the health insurance mandate was about. Everybody agreed that a single payer system would have been constitutionally OK. It would have been based on the taxing power. However toxic taxes are to the public, legally they are not particularly toxic. Everyone admits the taxing power is broad.