If you want a revenue increase, stop talking about Government as if it’s there to provide charity.
We’re all talking about the importance of taxation, especially fairer taxation: whether it’s the Governor’s proposal to increase the income tax and offset the impact not only with an increased personal exemption, but more importantly rolling back the very regressive sales tax; or whether we support the Act to Invest in Our Communities which offsets the tax increase also with an increase in the personal exemption and taxing some of the unearned income of various kinds, but missed the advantage of rolling back the sales tax.
Almost everyone is not doing as well financially as they were; in fact, the vast majority of taxpayers are doing noticeably worse than they were before the crash and even before that had not really benefited from the most recent supposed upturns in the economy.
So no matter how large-hearted we all are, most of us feel responsible to keep a roof over our own heads and the heads of our family members first. We hear from candidates all the time that government needs to be here to help those less fortunate. Making government sound like it’s just a big charity puts those who can no longer really afford their own expenses in the position of feeling torn between their natural caring for their neighbors and their own survival.
The primary purpose of government isn’t charity for others anyway. The primary purpose of having a functional government with enough resources to accomplish the truly large things that a society needs is to provide a vehicle for the will of the people.
The will of the people is not something that’s going to get accomplished by one person with a bag of asphalt on their back patching the road in front of their own house. Nor can they personally fund the education of a doctor to treat them if and whenever they should get sick. Nor can we individually pay for the enforcement of regulations for keeping E. coli out of our food system or lead out of our gasoline.
The large projects of a society require an organizational capacity that individuals and even small groups cannot accomplish. If we want a government by and for the people, then it has to be large enough to pay for voting, to pay for voter registration and to have a legal system to try to keep things at least vaguely fair. Government is there for those of us who may not have enough money to buy every single thing under the sun through our own financing; unlike those who even buy, I guess, elections.
So the purpose of government and where it spends most of its money are on the regular everyday things to keep a society running that we can’t purchase as individuals. The visible example is police and fire and our public schools. When people dig a little deeper, our public libraries play a critical role.
Government spends much of its money on the invisible things. Making sure that we have building codes that are going to protect our lives in an emergency like during an earthquake or tornado or just day-to-day so that we’re not getting sick from mold and mildew. Making sure that the water we drink is reasonably safe and the air that we breathe is reasonably clean. Protecting the green spaces in our society and making sure that some semblance of health protections are enforced in workplaces and when we do a job that our wages actually get paid to us – too often not the case these days for lower income folks.
These are the critical functions of government.
It’s the collective enterprise that will allow us to shift our economy over to greener jobs and healthier forms of energy and a real public transportation system to lift our carbon footprint.
It’s government that when it’s properly funded and not beholden to wealthy private interests that ensures that our children are healthy because there’s good neonatal care for all children. It ensures that there’s vaccines so when there’s an outbreak of Meningitis that we have the medical resources to address it. The list could go on forever, but the critical thing is that we start describing government for what it is – as a vehicle for the implementation of the will of the people and hopefully for a vehicle of a vision of a better future for our children and grandchildren.
Of course, that vision includes making sure that everyone has a decent life and everyone survives to the best of our abilities and that our environment is protected. Without those things, then not all of “we the people” can vote or participate in civic society – the most fundamental building block of a democracy. Without those, there won’t be a future for all of us.
We must emphasize that government is there to make sure that all housing is healthy; subsidized housing for those who need it is a subset of that commitment. Otherwise, we push people into the erroneous corner of assessing how much they are willing to provide for others when they are not even sure they can provide for themselves and their families. We can’t win that way.
In fact, we all need a functional government for a million things we take for granted. We can win when we remember that our Government ultimately has to pay for and provide us with democracy and with the choices of controlling our lives as communities and as a society itself.
We can win revenue especially if we fight for it for needs we all have, and we all pay more fairly. Then the change we accomplish through grassroots lobbying includes that we gain more of a voice for people and a government that is more receptive to, responsive to and committed to the needs of all of us.
the liberal Dems forgot that this country is in an economic crisis and are once again leading the call to continue the transfer of the tax burden to the working middle class and the poor. It has really been a wake up call.
does much of anything to change the distribution of the tax burden. The Act to Invest in Communities does reverse the tax burden to the poor, but it simply transfers it mostly to the middle class. Governor Patricks plan is a mish mash of tax increases, spanning far wider than simply the sales and income tax, so far reaching and very hard to analyse the impact it will have, except I have a feeling it will impact middle class and lower income pockets rather drastically. The Senate/House tax package is a tax on the West to pay for the East, and is a very regressive package. I just don’t know what to say except that I am shocked and stunned that this is what has been put out there, all with a lot of self congratulatory applause and a request for support to demoralized and fed-up citizens. I’ve been talking about it to everyone, and no-one I know is happy about it. Chances are that a regressive and oppressive tax package will end up passing, and it will just bring us one step closer to the end of what was once a great and prosperous country.
Wrong. Counter-factual. Nonsense. Read the bill (http://ourcommunities.org/an-act-to-invest-in-our-communities.html ). It’s a very simple two section bill. Section 1 increases the personal exemption (for single and joint filers). It then adds a further $2,500 exemption for low-income (under $40,000 a year) seniors and persons with disabilities. Section 2 increases the income tax rate on capital gains (to 8.95%) and on “regular” income (to 5.95%). That’s it. That’s what an Act to Invest does.
As has been detailed time and time again, and your “feelings” aside, an Act to Invest costs those making up to $74,000 a year no more than $33 annually. That’s less than ten cents a day in additional tax burden “transferred to the middle class.” The bill instead transfers the vast majority of the new tax burden from the poor and middle class to those making more than $271,000 a year. It doesn’t get much more progressive than that. For more details, see: http://www.massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=rates_exemptions_change.html
“I, I, I, I’m hooked on a feeling. I’m high on believing.” Well, bully for you. The facts contradict your feelings here. The Governor’s tax proposal is complicated but it is also progressive. It impacts middle class pockets pretty non-drastically. And it reduces the tax burden on lower-income people. The actual difference in percentage of income paid in taxes are small, with the lowest-income taxpayers getting a 1.5 point decrease and the highest-income taxpayers getting a 1 point increase. Middle-income taxpayers rates stay almost exactly the same, with a 17 hundredths of a point increase. See here for more details: http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=revenue_gov_14.html
Truth be told, both proposals do change the distribution of the tax burden. They make the system more fair (progressive) and also raise $2 billion annually in much-needed revenue. Meanwhile the Legislature’s plan makes the system less fair (more regressive) and raises only $500 million annually.
Enough with the feelings, liveandletlive. Let’s have an adult debate based on facts?
But I’m not the one sniffing the fantasy dust.
that when people agree with the majority here, we are having an adult conversation. When people challenge you, they are all sorts of crazy trolls, sock puppets, emotional, unfactual, immature, etc. etc. It’s OK, I totally get it.
… hardly offered a “challenge” in this debate.
What you have done is (completely inaccurately) allege that an Act to Invest in Our Communities shifts the tax burden on to the middle class. That’s not true. Then, you claim to “have a feeling” that the Governor’s proposal is also regressive. Your feeling is unjustified by the reality of the proposal.
The ironic thing is that we are basically on the same page here. I support an Act to Invest primarily *because* I believe it is the most progressive tax reform we have any chance to get out of the (decidly non-liberal) Democratic leadership in our Legislature. I join you in being completely appalled by the Legislature’s regressive sales tax heavy proposal to raise far less than we need to get the Government we all deserve. If I were King, I’d institute a large income tax (10% should do it) and then increase the personal exemptions high enough to actually decrease to overall tax burden on anyone earning less than $200,000 a year. You’d support that, no?
All I ask is that you not play in to the ridiculous right-wing talking points around any income tax increase being a major burden on the middle class. Neither the Act to Invest folks nor the Governor have any intention of exploiting the powerless. Exactly the opposite in fact. And, done right, raising the income tax is the obvious progressive solution.
are all the damn tax cuts and the resulting service cuts in education, transportation, and everything else, combined with the erosion of middle-class incomes thanks to policies promulgated by the same people who thought all the tax cuts were a great idea.
and the accompanying cost of everything else driven up by the cost of fuel. That alone has caused the cost of running government (and household budgets) to explode. There are plenty of reasons for the debilitating struggles our governments face. We always seem to turn to the easiest and least likely to have a positve impact solution though, and that is exploiting the powerless, namely the middle class and the poor.
I share the concern that most people are not only depressed by the ongoing economic depression but are also seeing Government as now mostly shifting resources t those who already have more than anyone could need. But to change this, real conversations about taxes MUST happen and MUST happen with the goal being engagement of our people to remake government back in the direction of by-and-for-the people.
I have not thought about the shift onto the West for the East – but that is the same trend – making those on average with less pay for those on average with more. Sales tax is incredibly regressive and the tax cuts on investments were also a very regressive shift.
But we cannot talk about fair taxes if folks think ALL taxes are harmful in our economy – in fact, slashing government, decreasing jobs and the ability of government to function in the service of the majority so we don’t touch the money of those who have literally minted money in the last two decades of government policy – well, we cannot crack the critical conversation…
I guess I don’t see how it relates to the ongoing conversation in Massachusetts. The Governor asked for new revenue in order to (1) make major transportation investments, and (2) make major education investments. Isn’t that exactly what you’re talking about? What am I missing?
Rather exacerbate an increasingly unpleasant debate about two proposals to impose different new taxes and different plans to eliminate different tax deductions to fund different specific elements of a good government proposed by two “equal” branches of our government.
The question of how much and what kind of revenues to raise and what to spend the new revenues on has now been polarized to a fare thee well by a lot of finger pointing and blame assignment between a Democratic Administration and a Democratic Legislative Leadership. All covered by a delighted media eager to declare winners and losers.
I don’t see a win win solution here for anybody. Do you?
The Campaign for Our Communities has always used broader language to remind people that government exists to do things we can’t do for ourselves. And the Coalition was doing pretty good building support through a grassroots campaign that made it possible to knit local officials and local activists for human services, public education, the environment, public transportation to work together.
I’m all for win-win outcomes — so long as the parties engage in good faith and with a shared respect for reality.
No matter how we try to sing and dance, the “alternative” that Mr. DeLeo (and apparently Ms. Murray) is trying to jam through fails each of the above tests.
The reality is that the alternative, if adopted, costs more than it raises because it causes the state to lose federal funding for the Green Line extension. It fails to make any contribution to the enormous and skyrocketing maintenance and capital costs of the MBTA. It doesn’t fix any track, buy any cars, buy any locomotives, or anything else. All while the doors are falling off Red Line trains. Mr. DeLeo’s alternative makes the ship of state steam even faster into the iceberg field that has already ripped gaping holes in the hull.
The other sad reality is that, given the overwhelming support for the Governor’s plan among Democratic voters, Mr. DeLeo’s position creates the appearance of being rooted in his long-standing personal animosity towards Governor Patrick and Mr. DeLeo’s long-acknowledged attachment to his own political power.
The right answer, in this conflict, is to adopt the Governor’s plan and send Mr. DeLeo and his minions to the woodshed for a reminder that the good of the Commonwealth should always trump personal political gain and emotions.
… because, you see, I’m dead set against any picayune accounting: the absurd notion that stinginess towards all is the ‘most fair’; the bald deceit that the lowest common denominator is somehow equitable; where the feckless thuggery of untold riches is juxtaposed with the desperation of daily want and is held up as somehow ‘equitable’. That enrages me. I want government to do more than that and any government that does less is merely a holding corporation. Call it ”charity”. Call it ”entitlement”. Call it what you will. Or not. But I’d rather have the government give money away heedlessly then for it to cower in the lee of some imaginary safe haven for fear of a headwind. Such a government deserves only enmity and spite from its righteous citizens.
Or, paraphrasing the words of the Great Emancipator
as charity?