No other
President in the history of the United States has cut taxes while we
were at war.* This President while claiming to be a "war time"
President has cut taxes THREE
times during this war.
As shown below
these tax cuts favor the rich who throughout the history of the United
States have been called on in time of war to make a $acrifice for the
war effort.
If these tax cuts become permanent the rich will not pay their share since a good portion
of their income is not from wages but from capital
gains and inheritance taxes.
The burden
of paying for this war will fall on the people of the United States that
earn their income from wages.
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor
of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people..." Isaiah 10:1-2
Average Value of Bush Tax Cuts in 2004 |
2004 Cash Income* |
Share of Taxpayers |
Share of Total Tax Cuts |
Average 2004 Tax Cut |
More than $1,000,000 |
0.2% |
15.3% |
$123,592 |
$500,000 - $1,000,000 |
0.4% |
5.5% |
$21,470 |
$200,000 - $500,000 |
2.3% |
12.3% |
$7,637 |
$100,000 - $200,000 |
9.3% |
24.5% |
$3,826 |
$75,000 - $100,000 |
7.9% |
12.4% |
$2,264 |
$50,000 - $75,000 |
14.0% |
12.4% |
$1,287 |
$20,000 - $50,000 |
32.9% |
15.0% |
$660 |
Less than $20,000 |
32.6% |
2.5% |
$105 |
Source: Based on data from Tax Policy Center, April 8, 2004. (Includes most provisions in the 2001 and 2003 acts, EGTRRA and
JGTRRA; excludes education provisions.)
*Includes wages and salaries, investment income, and government benefits on a pretax basis. |
The top 3% of taxpayers received 33% of the tax cuts, while the lower
80% of taxpayers received 30% of the tax cut, and the middle 17.2%
received 36.6% of the tax cut.
If you believe that the recent
tax cuts are of benefit to you please meditate on the following quote
from Gar Alperovitz, who's the author of "America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy."
| "There has been an extraordinary shift in recent years in the underlying level of who controls the real economic power of the country. Most people are not aware that it is now
the top 1 percent has more income each year than the bottom hundred million people taken together. Their share has gone up just about double in the last 20 years, the top 1 percent.
The top 1 percent now--and it's a new situation--owns and controls just about 50 percent of the financial wealth.
These are medieval numbers." |
Please don't think that the tax
cuts were only for individuals. Bill Moyers talks about "A Little Patriotic Sacrifice"
| There are moments when you see suddenly crystallized in a particular event, a threat to democracy as ominous as the smoke rising from Mt. St. Helens.
This week it was that enormous payoff to big corporations by their subjects in Congress. I say payoffs advisedly. Business elites provide politicians with the money they need to run for office. The politicians pay them back with a return on their investment so generous it boggles the mind.
That legislation enacted this week is worth $137 billion in tax cuts for corporations.
One company alone -- General Electric -- will receive over $8 billion, despite earnings last year of over $15 billion. Many companies -- Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Eli Lilly, among others -- have been parking profits overseas rather than bring them back to America where they are taxed. So Congress has now blessed them with a one-time "tax holiday" during which they can bring home the bacon at about one-seventh of the normal tax rates.
Full
Story |
War Should Be a Time
of Sacrifice for Everyone
by Chuck Collins
 In
one America, we hold bake sales to buy Kevlar bulletproof vests
for family members deployed to Iraq.
In another America, lobbyists press to
abolish the estate tax, America's only tax on accumulated
wealth. This will ensure that the children of
multi-millionaires, who are not losing sleep over insufficient
body armor, will harvest unlimited inheritances into the
millions and billions.
As we mark the second anniversary of the Iraq mission, there is
a stunning inequality of sacrifice on the home front.
The Bush administration and
Congressional leaders have shown little interest in the
symbolism, let alone practice, of shared sacrifice.
There are no tire drives, no calls for rationing, nor any moral
duty to share in the financial costs of the war.
The war managers are determined to isolate the domestic
sacrifice and losses for this war to as few families as
possible, largely to those clustered outside the Fort Braggs and
Camp Pendletons of America and those with family members in
National Guard units waiting for loved ones to return.
But the war has a steep financial price tag. The Iraq operation
has cost us over $155 billion to date with more to come. Instead
of taxing our citizenry to pay for this war, Congress is
deferring the bill to the next generation in the form of whopper
deficits for decades to come. And instead of taxing the wealthy,
and requiring them to take a stake in the war effort, we are now
about to pass permanent tax cuts for multi-millionaires.
Never in the history of U.S. wartime
has Congress pushed tax cuts, let alone permanent tax cuts
for the very wealthy. Historically, the opposite has been true:
wealth has been "conscripted," in the form of
progressive income and estate taxes, to at least symbolize that
everyone is contributing in some way.
The estate tax, in particular, has been a wartime tax. The first
federal tax on wealth was levied in 1797, as our country was
faced with the escalating costs of responding to French attacks
on American shipping. During the Civil War and the
Spanish-American War, inheritance taxes were instituted, to be
repealed only after war debts were retired.
The 1916 law establishing our current estate tax was given a
tremendous push by entry into the First World War and the need
for revenue. After the war, businessman Harlan E. Read argued in
his book "The Abolition of Inheritance" that war debts
should be paid off with heavy taxes on inherited wealth.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood
that national domestic unity against Hitler depended on a sense
of shared sacrifice not just by G.I. Joe and Rosie the Riveter,
but also by the Rockefellers. The estate tax was increased so
that fortunes exceeding $50 million would be taxed at a 70
percent rate. FDR spoke out boldly against war profiteering,
saying, "I don't want to see a single war millionaire
created in the United States as a result of this world
disaster."
Our present inequality of sacrifice is not lost on some
veterans' groups. "During the
Civil War, rich people could buy their way out of the
draft," said Charlie Richardson, co-founder of
Military Families Speak Out. "Now
the wealthy don't have to pay anything to avoid the draft and
they get tax cuts on top."
Senator John McCain recently observed that times of war in U.S.
history have been times of domestic sacrifice. "In the last
year we have approved legislation containing billions and
billions of dollars in pork barrel projects, huge tax breaks for
the wealthy, and a corporate tax bill estimated to cost $180
billion. This is a far cry from sacrifice."
The sustained push to abolish the
estate tax has been financed by some of the wealthiest
families in America, including the Walton, Mars and Gallo clans.
These families, underrepresented in mess tents outside Fallujah,
are not interested in a compromise estate tax reform that keeps
our nation strong and secure while protecting veterans' services
and America's family farms and small businesses.
Young Americans are putting their lives
on the line to serve their country in Iraq, while those who are
whining about the estate tax are fighting to keep every last
cent. A time of war is no time to eliminate the estate tax.
Chuck Collins is Senior Fellow at United for a Fair Economy (www.faireconomy.org)
and co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our
Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes
(Beacon Press). Collins can be reached at: United for a Fair
Economy, 29 Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108.
|
 It's no secret that the tax-cuts pushed through Congress with the backing of the administration during a time of war have precipitated deficits larger in dollar terms than any the country has ever seen.
It is evident that the tax cuts were designed to enrich the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Yet what is to be said of the colossal deficits amassed by Bush and friends? Clearly, the deficits were a predictable result of the tax-cuts and unbridled military spending, but why isn't our conservative president as concerned about fiscal responsibility as many Americans are?
The fact is that the deficits are part of an insidious plan the Bushies have had in mind all along. Their strategy, known as
"starve-the-beast," is essentially to slash taxes and intentionally amass record deficits. The resulting fiscal crisis provides a justification for cutting popular social programs, an act that would provoke public outcry under normal circumstances.
......
The starve-the-beast model and the drive to undermine programs such as Social Security all fit into the framework of conservative ideology. Decades ago, the Republicans fought tooth and nail against The New Deal and the creation of social programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Welfare. They have continuously opposed and sought to eliminate these sorts of social programs ever since their creation.
It's not a matter of the Republicans maliciously trying to strip low-income individuals of the basic services they rely upon for survival. Instead,
Republicans simply don't believe that the government should be taxing and spending in order to aid those who are destitute, help ensure retirement for the elderly, or provide health care to those who would otherwise have no way to obtain it.
The most ironic part about the general push toward privatization is that the Republicans have manipulated a substantial portion of Americans who will benefit least from their economic policies into believing that the Bush economic agenda is in their interests. Many share Bush's abhorrence of taxes as they fail to make the connection between tax cuts and program cuts.
Nobody enjoys the act of paying taxes, but then nobody really enjoys the act of paying for anything. A country in love with instant gratification isn't likely to worry about the unforeseen consequences that take longer to affect their lives than the brief time it takes for the $400 tax refunds to arrive in the mail.
Full
Story |
Fortunate Son?
|
On Gary's
Web Site it is played to the CCR tune "Fortunate
Son!"
Fortunate Son
by Gary Jacobson © 1999
I’m a fortunate son of the red, white and blue
Fighting for more than the medals I’m due
War forevermore painting my violent soul blue
Where glory and honor accrue ... death’s specter ensue.
Some folks like to patriotically wave the flag
Mighty conquests in primordial mind to brag.
I just honored the red, white and blue in my heart
That’s all...believing in finishing beginnings I start.
No, I’m not a millionaires son...
Millionaire sons didn’t go to Vietnam,
'Cause it ain’t no fun.
Millionaire sons’ve known no battle fatigue
Shunned putting life on the line like a plague.
Millionaire’s sons wouldn’t go near battle when young
Now they’re older, glory be, see their wagging tongue.
Watch now, as they send our sons to war with fiery rhetoric
Sounds reminiscent of chants patriotically barbaric.
I’ve never been in a foxhole with a millionaires son
I reckon those with pampered lives have better things to do
Than huddling in terror’s dark till setting sun
Too paralyzed with fear to hobnob beside me and you.
Millionaire’s sons know not of death, or terror firsthand
Facing up-close and personal wily Vietcong brigand.
For while we band of brothers made a stand,
Millionaire’s sons were back home,
Comfortable in our native land.
Now, I don’t mean to talk of war like an expert
Nor give an impudent, saucy, warmongering alert.
For I’m no millionaire’s son
I’m no suddenly bold, silver-spooned, clever one.
These warriors raise hue and shout in exhausting refrain
Millionaire’s sons too, sing Hosannas’s in your name
Pointing the cannon at you, Lord
When it serves their purpose absurd.
Some folks are born to wave the flag,
They bleed red, white and blue, they brag.
When the band plays "Hail to the chief"in honored chord
Ooh, watch out, they point the cannon at you, Lord.
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, beating their own band.
But when the tax man comes calling at their door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale galore.
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
As they march you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! More! More!
Millionaire’s sons ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no military son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me;
I ain't such a fortunate one, a millionaire’s son!
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one,
No no no, no millionaire’s son
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate son, no no no!
|
* Taxes were cut during President
Kennedy's term. At that time we only had 6,000 "advisors" in
Vietnam.
|
Most Posters came from the collection of the Northwestern
University Library. They
were initially published
by the U.S. Government Printing Office and are in the public domain.
Others come various websites and to tell the difference the parody
posters are linked to their source. Questions
and comments about this web site should be sent to: admin@americansforsharedsacrifice.org
Last modified: March 03, 2007
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