{"id":1822,"date":"2010-04-14T11:32:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T19:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/?p=1822"},"modified":"2020-03-08T16:13:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T00:13:13","slug":"the-super-rich-want-you-to-hate-taxes-so-they-can-keep-your-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1822\/the-super-rich-want-you-to-hate-taxes-so-they-can-keep-your-money\/","title":{"rendered":"The Super-Rich Want You to Hate Taxes <br>So They Can Keep Your Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/movementvision.org\/\">Sally Kohn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>April 14, 2010<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to the American economy, there is one fundamental lie  and one fundamental truth and it is up to you which you choose to  believe.  Tax Day is really a chance to ask:  \u201cWhich side am I on?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lie is that if the maximum freedom and, thus, maximum benefits  are given to the super-rich elites, ultimately everyone will win because  the super-rich will create companies and create jobs and buy things and  that will benefit the rest of us.  It\u2019s been called various things over  various times \u2014 Reaganomics, trickle down economics, free market  capitalism.  But mostly it\u2019s just been called bullshit.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The average five-year-old could tell you the truth \u2014 that if you want  to create the most amount of opportunity and prosperity for the most  amount of people, it makes much more sense to spread opportunity and  prosperity from the get-go rather than give it all to the top and pray  it will spread.  Bullshit economists \u2014 who are mostly from elite  backgrounds, educated in elite institutions, and invested in preserving  the elite status quo \u2014 have been trying for decades to persuade us to  believe their lie rather than the common sense truth.  Their lie led our  economy right into the toilet, but the bullshit economists and their  Wall Street pals are still scrambling to convince us that they\u2019re the  solution, not the problem.<\/p>\n<p>The anti-tax agenda perpetuates the lie.  In a currently uneven  economy where wealth and privilege easily reproduce themselves while  it\u2019s harder and harder to climb from the bottom or the middle up the  economic ladder, taxes are the primary way we as a society redistribute  money to all the hardworking Americans who deserve their fair share and a  fair shake.  Sure, those Harvard-educated bank CEOs work hard, but do  they work 300 times harder than you?  Their pay is based not on hard  work but on bullshit economics that favor the already-rich. Taxes are  our way of saying, \u201cHey, good for you for making a bazillion dollars,  but since you\u2019ll still be rich with a bajillion, we\u2019re going to use some  of your money to help other have a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Picture the classic image of rich titans of industry sitting around a  wood-paneled private club, animal heads on the walls, butlers with  white gloves \u2014 the exclusivity of the rich enjoying their riches  together while plotting how to get richer.  Government is the clubhouse  for the rest of us.  Public schools, roads, electricity, Medicaid and  Medicare, veteran\u2019s benefits \u2014 government helps the rest of us have the  things we need in life, the otherwise only the super-rich could afford.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it.  If there was no public water system in your town,  the rich could import gallons of water from wherever, pay staff to wash  their clothes in the river and boil water to drink, and so on.   What  would you do?<\/p>\n<p>The rich want you to think that government is a bad idea for YOU  because it\u2019s really a bad idea for THEM.  They would be more than happy  to keep their tax money, send their kids to $30,000-a-year private  schools, pay thousands out of pocket to get a cavity filled, fly a  private plane here and there because highways would be ruined.  But  since there aren\u2019t enough super-rich folks to rule elections (though  they keep trying with corporate donations to candidates) they need our  help, too.  They need the rest of us to swallow their lie so they can  keep getting richer and, as taxes decline by our own doing, the rest of  us fall further and further into despair.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t to say government is perfect.  We need a much more  accountable, transparent and participatory politics in America.  But  thinking that if government doesn\u2019t work perfectly then it doesn\u2019t work  at all is part of the lie.  At a time when free market capitalism in its  current form has failed us wildly, we\u2019re not questioning the  fundamentals of that system remotely as much as we should.  But one  minor or major misstep on the part of government, and we\u2019re ready to  throw the baby out with the bath water.  We\u2019re that brainwashed to  believe the lie.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development  said the people of Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, who pay the  highest taxes in the world, are also the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190820145447\/https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/the-happiest-places-on-earth-are-heavily-taxed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">happiest  people in the world<\/a>.    Taxes don\u2019t just benefit poor people.   Taxes are what create shared prosperity and keep the middle class  prosperous.<\/p>\n<p>This Tax Day, as you\u2019re dropping your return in the mail (or pressing  that e-send button), instead of reinforcing the pro-rich, anti-tax lie  and sighing grumpily as you do your duty, look around at everything your  taxes are paying for, everything that helps you in your daily life \u2014  from the subsidized post office to the government-created Internet, to  the roads and the water and the parks and the schools and the fire  fighters and the stop signs and everything in between.  Paying your  taxes is your way to get America back on the right track for all of us,  to reject the lie that helps the rich get richer and instead create a  shared economy that benefits everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The lie is that if the maximum freedom and, thus, maximum benefits are given to the super-rich elites, ultimately everyone will win because the super-rich will create companies and create jobs and buy things and that will benefit the rest of us. It\u2019s been called various things over various times \u2014 Reaganomics, trickle down economics, free market capitalism. But mostly it\u2019s just been called bullshit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Super-Rich Want You to Hate Taxes So They Can Keep Your Money - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1822\/the-super-rich-want-you-to-hate-taxes-so-they-can-keep-your-money\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Super-Rich Want You to Hate Taxes So They Can Keep Your Money - Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The lie is that if the maximum freedom and, thus, maximum benefits are given to the super-rich elites, ultimately everyone will win because the super-rich will create companies and create jobs and buy things and that will benefit the rest of us. 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