Response to Substack article “Mitt Romney is right – Tax the rich before the pitchforks come out”. Mitt might be right but the author of this article isn’t. “We are not yet ready for a pitchfork uprising, but there is widespread and intensifying anger over the loopholes that allow the rich to avoid paying taxes altogether.” What – did he write this 30 years ago and just find it in a drawer so he published it? Are you kidding me?
Loopholes? We are far past the point where closing loopholes will fix the wealth gap problem. A ship is sinking fast and he says, we are not yet ready to panic about the ship sinking, but look, I will pour this glass of water I’m drinking overboard to address the situation, showing I’m willing to sacrafice to solve the problem.
Remember the TV show in the 60’s The Millionaire? It showed how average Joe people could have everything they needed in life to be happy if they had a million bucks. The attraction was that everyone could have fun imagining what they would do with the money. Today that 1960’s million is worth about 11 million in todays money -plenty to afford everything in life to make you happy today. But according to Forbes, there are a dozen Americans who have TEN THOUSAND TIMES that much. And 500 who have a thousand times that 11 million. They could never spend it in a lifetime but it is the game they choose to play. (In The Big Short, Steve Carrel criticizes a slimeball thats running a derivitives scheme. The guy responds, “Tell ya what. You tell me how much you’re worth and ill tell you how much I’m worth). The game score is all that matters
If a tennis player breaks into the top 200 in the world he is motivated to maybe break into the top 100. And society is no worse off for it. But the game of ‘I’ve more money than you’ – the unrestricted monopolization of wealth is killing the society. The supreme court justice Joseph Brandeis said, “We must choose. We can have a small number of people controlling the wealth or we can have democracy. We can’t have both”.
To a degree, this is why we have Trump as a president today. Now millions of people go without medical coverage, millions work 2 jobs to cover basic expenses. Which means millions of kids have too little time spent with parents. Exceptionalism? More like feudalism.
When I watch clips on YouTube, all are saying oh, Trump is losing support. Even the Repubs are abandoning him. But a week before xmas, 50 Republican senators choose to confirm Trump sycophant Emil Bose to become a federal judge in a 50-49 vote though 500 former and current judges signed a letter saying he wasn’t fit to become a judge. Congress isn’t going to fix the wealth gap problem soon. They won’t even vote to close the loopholes. So if “we are not yet ready for a pitchfork uprising”, “we” never will be.
2 replies on “31. Pitchforks”
Ray, Once again you are ON IT. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision has done more damage to democracy than perhaps any other, opening the floodgates of money from the super rich and corporations to control elections and thus the tax system.
HMM, I wonder how much interest there would be in overturning Citizens United. I suppose it would have to be thru congress, as SCOTUS is unlikely to overturn it.