I filed my taxes a long time ago (just one of the many benefits of being married to someone far, far more organized than I am). So, I haven’t been thinking about my own taxes much this week—except to hope for a refund and follow President Obama’s road-show about his budget (He did Jay Leno, 60 Minutes, two nationally-televised town hall meetings, and a prime-time news conference—but I caught most of it via Jon Stewart).
But the best thing I’ve seen about taxes all week is a bunch of millionaires telling it like it is, saying that paying taxes is patriotic.
More precisely, 45 American millionaires wrote a letter to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker John Boehner, urging them to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire.
“Our country has been good to us,” they proudly declare. “Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have.” Music to my ears—that’s the way we should all understand taxes—as contributions to shared prosperity and quality of life, as our way of ensuring everyone has opportunities to succeed the way the richest among us have.
In the National Journal, signatory and Ask.com founder Garrett Gruener said, “This small monetary sacrifice is both an ethical and patriotic decision, made in the hopes of allowing the United States of America to continue to be a leader economically, politically, and morally.”
A moral and patriotic duty to keep the American economy competitive! These millionaires get it.
However, as Joe Conason at Salon points out, they aren’t necessarily representative of their ilk. And our representatives aren’t representative either! Conason points to a new study from the Center for Responsive Politics revealing that half of the members of the House and the Senate are millionaires. “That contrasts sharply with the general population, of whom fewer than 1 percent can claim millionaire status.”
Still, as it turns out, most of us non-millionaires get it too.
According to a recent poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal (reported here by Center for American Progress), Americans want the tax cuts to expire too:
- More than four-fifths of Americans favor a surtax on federal income taxes for people earning more than $1 million a year.
- Almost 7 out of 10 Americans favor eliminating the Bush tax cuts for households earning $250,000 a year or more.
- The least popular deficit-reduction proposal is turning Medicare into a voucher program where seniors get government coupons for private insurance, as House Republicans have proposed.
- A majority of Americans agree “government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people.”
“Not less. More” The Center for American Progress article underscores this point. And, CAP reminds us, a poll they conducted last summer showed that “Americans prefer a better government over a smaller one.” In other words, “people put a priority on improving government in areas such as developing clean energy, making college more affordable, improving public schools, reducing poverty, and ensuring access to affordable health care.”
Obama hasn’t said much about taxes. He hasn’t gone so far as to say paying taxes is patriotic. But he has said that he won’t sign an extension of the Bush tax breaks for the richest Americans. And on that point, his words have been quite powerful. “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires” he said. “And I don’t think there’s anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.”
And as the Washington Post reported, Obama “repeatedly called for increasing taxes for people who make more than $250,000 a year to help balance the budget, an idea strongly opposed by many congressional Republicans. He signaled strong opposition to how House Republicans would reform Medicare.”
“I believe it paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic,” Obama said of the GOP’s budget plan. “It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them.” That’s not patriotic, in my book.
Ever the optimist, I hope this opens the door—even just a crack—to a more productive conversation in the country about budgets, taxes, and the role of government.
Image courtesy Click at MorgueFile.
Matt the Engineer
I’m in the middle of Robert Reich’s book Aftershock. He argues for wealth redistribution and makes the point that taxing the rich can actually help the rich. I believe the phrase he uses is that it’s better to have a smaller slice of a larger pie than a larger slice of a small pie. With wealth concentrated with a small group, that money can’t be spent on goods and services that run our economy – only on capital investments.I think this movement is a great step forward, but we have a long way to go. The easiest thing in the world for a politician with a limited term is to lower taxes and raise services. But that’s not close to sustainable, and has led to our current set of problems.
philippe
Thank you Anna for this very interesting post. I had not heard about the millionaires initiative, I wonder why aminstream media keeps it a secret. Visiting their site I did not find any millionaire from WA (yet). In my opinion they don’t provide enough details about the people who signed. Maybe later? It would be good to encourage WA millionaires to sign… Take care and thanks again.
Georgie Kunkel
Our economic system is flawed. Bill Gates can not be blamed for being able to siphon off billions from the economy legally and then play God by deciding how he will share what he wants to give away, right?Let’s have the guts to question this system and work to improve itso that everyone is able to eat and not just those who have amassed millions and a few others who managed to work at jobs that provide.
Jody Wiser
This idea came late, they only circulated the opprotunity to sign last week as a person of wealth calling a return to sane tax policy. And one was suppost to have a million a year in income to sign.
Jody Wiser
The list already has over one hundred signers. And I just counted, of the 94 who listed the state they live in, all but 8 live in a high tax state. These aren’t just millionaires. The opportunity to sign clearly asked for folks with annual incomes above $1 million.
Nick
Of course they support a higher tax rate. Few people pay the actual rate as is because of loopholes so why not create the appearance of bearing a greater burden while not actually having to bear it. It would be far better to eliminate expenditures and raise the cut-off lines for the tax brackets to keep up with the times. Since 1964, the threshold for paying top income tax rate has generally been between $200,000 and $400,000. This even though 300k in 1964 dollars is roughly equivalent to 21 million 2010 dollars. By failing to raise the tax bracket with inflation we have shifted the tax burden onto the poor while making expenditures such as the mortgage deduction untouchable.
Nick
Oops, that was suppose to be 2.1 million not 21 million.
Ingrid Kassler
We all must do our share. We all will benefit.
philippe
Have you heard anything about this initiative on NPR? KUOW?What gives?
Anna Fahey
See also: Two Studies: Rich Don’t Flee High-Tax Stateshttp://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/29/135813061/studies-rich-dont-flee-high-tax-states?ft=1=1001