Vol. 2 No. 7 (November 2003)
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org
"Double
standards are inspiration to men of letters, but they are apt to be fatal to
politicians."
-- Henry Adams
Talking
Points: In defense of taxation
Wit and Wisdom:
Another imminent threat?
Eye on the
Right: In defense of lawyers
Featured
Article: Jeffrey Kaplan on corporations and democracy
Quoted!
Roy Moore's version of the First Amendment
Happenings:
Meeting with ATLA; good news on voting technology
Endorsements:
Moveon.org Co-Founder Joan Blades
Get
Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor
TALKING POINTS
In his novel Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov describes an imaginary country
where, under the guidance of a wise and benevolent king, "Taxation had
become a thing of beauty. The poor were getting a little richer, and the rich a
little poorer...."
Nabokov was no socialist, yet the passage has a wistful idealism to it that
must read like pure fantasy to modern Americans. That sense of fantasy, it
seems, reflects two connected realities: first, the ongoing, and increasingly
successful, denigration of the political philosophy underlying progressive
taxation, and second, the recognition - but unfortunately not always great
regret - that disparities in wealth are increasing. To describe the
The political debate regarding taxes in this country has gotten so lopsided
and regressive that one listens long and hard for voices of moderation,
enlightenment, and courage. No elected official, of course, calls for
"higher" taxes; they'd be voted out of office at the next opportunity
- if not immediately hauled out into the street and shot like an animal. With
almost perfect unanimity, American politicians agree that taxes need to be
"lower," and the argument, thus framed, then moves on to the magnitude
and the variety of the contemplated tax cuts.
At first glance, this situation would seem to reflect the famous antipathy of
Americans to central government, their rugged individualism, their fierce
refusal to be tread upon, and so forth. Such feelings, as Alexis de Tocqueville
long ago noted, naturally arose in a democratic country where resistance to
tyranny constituted the central creation myth and where all individuals were
held, at least in theory, to be equal. Yet de Tocqueville also recognized that
in a state of social equality, personal independence could also generate a
sense of individual powerlessness, and that this "debility" promoted
a belief in the importance of centralized power:
"His [the American's] independence fills him with self-reliance and pride among his equals; his debility makes him feel from time to time the want of some outward assistance.... In this predicament he naturally turns his eyes to that imposing power [the government] which alone rises above the level of universal depression. Of that power his wants and especially his desires continually remind him...."
We
do not have to agree fully with de Tocqueville's rather stark portrayal of
Americans in order to appreciate the wisdom of his observation. At the very
least, that wisdom advises us to resist the temptation to ascribe American
anti-tax sentiment to some deep and monolithic anti-governmentalism in the
national character. There are causes closer at hand.
More immediately and directly, the modern anti-tax consensus reflects the
success of conservatives and the far Right in framing the debate,
simplistically and misleadingly, as a contest between "higher taxes"
and "lower taxes," and thus between "bigger government" and
"smaller government." Moderates and progressives, meanwhile, have
been much less successful at defining the issue as the kind of society we want
to live in, or as the ability of the government to help people, or as the
importance of pooling our resources in order to achieve shared goals. That's a
shame, for in the process, the Right has co-opted the populist mantle in order
to enact policies that do not in fact benefit the majority of Americans.
Those concerned about excessive tax cuts need to make two related arguments,
and they need to make them loud and clear. The first is that the Right's
anti-government campaign, packaged as "tax relief," is NOT just about
reducing taxes - it is aimed at eliminating progressive taxation, and will
actually increase the tax burden on the non-wealthy. The second is that
the underlying philosophy of progressive taxation is populist by its very
nature. Let's take these one at a time.
What middle-class and working-class Americans need to understand is that,
under the current administration's tax cuts, they are paying a higher
proportion of the total tax burden on the public. They may be paying less
in absolute dollar figures than they were in 2000, but the wealthiest Americans
have been granted an even larger tax reduction (the best word is probably
"bonanza"). So by definition, a greater proportion, a greater slice,
of the overall tax pie that the government collects is being paid by the rest
of us - and it is the rest of us who most depend on the various government
programs and services that taxes pay for. To borrow a term from the 2000
election, that's the real "class warfare" taking place in the
But the whole idea of a graduated tax policy is based not only on the idea of
redistribution (i.e., helping those in lower income brackets), but on the
recognition that those in the upper brackets will themselves benefit from a
system in which a larger number of people are able to participate fruitfully.
How so? First, the greater revenues generated by a graduated tax policy help
the government avoid excessive debt and deficit spending (emphasis on
"excessive," because some red ink may at times be good for the
economy) - and, as the 1990s demonstrated, federal solvency encourages private
and foreign investment in both traditional and cutting-edge industries.
Secondly, a graduated tax policy gives the government the resources to provide
services, such as education and health care, to people who might not otherwise
be able to afford them - and the education and health of these people are
prerequisite to their productivity as employees. Thirdly, the government can !
more effectively build and maintain smoothly functioning transportation,
energy, public safety, law enforcement, and information infrastructures,
without which no business could hope to achieve its full potential.
This side of the debate, incidentally, is completely independent of two other
central arguments made against taxation and government spending: first, that
the government does not spend money efficiently, and secondly, that much of the
money goes toward funding undesirable programs. Each of these arguments is
itself vulnerable to criticism, but that must wait till a later day, other than
to point out that surveys have consistently shown that, in general, the
American public wants the various programs - from Head Start to the Peace Corps
to NASA - that tax dollars make possible.
But beyond discussing proportionality and surveys and infrastructures and so
forth, moderates and progressives need to make the case on a broader, and a
deeper, level.
The political context in which we find ourselves involves the well-documented
effort by ultra-conservatives to starve the government of money and thereby
force cuts in the various entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, education) that have been put into place beginning in the 1930s.
(Such programs provide benefits to which all citizens are entitled, at such
time as they might meet the qualifying requirements, such as age or income
level.)
This anti-entitlement strategy, and the anti-revenue tactics designed to ram it
through, reflect, on the part of some of the anti-tax conservatives, a
principled libertarian philosophy. For many more, however, the issue is not
"big government" per se, because they frequently support policies that
give the government more power over its citizens (such as the Patriot
Act or the anti-libertarian campaigns against flag-burning, medical marijuana,
same-sex marriage, and so forth). Instead, the primary motivation seems to
be to change the very nature of American governance, shifting it from a
nurturing and communal approach to human needs, to a more controlling,
moralistic response to human desire, difference, and fallibility. The
fundamental question is how one conceives of the proper function and scope of
government, and our society needs to tackle this question head-on.
All human societies exist on a spectrum between totalitarianism and Darwinist
anarchy. In our view, enlightened government must have not only
law-enforcement and national security functions but also a balancing,
redistributive function. That is, it must arrange for an allocation of
resources that is not wholly dependent on private actors and the vicissitudes
of fate, but rather one that serves the needs of the greatest number of people
(i.e., the commonweal). That does involve taking money from some people and
giving it to others, and to that extent taxation is a violation of what might
be called the "natural liberty" of individuals to keep whatever they
have. However, as argued above, the well-to-do occupy the higher income
brackets not simply because of hard work and ingenuity (although those are
obviously important), but by virtue of the system which rewards their
hard work and ingenuity, and which depends on the fruitful participation of the
l! ess fortunate.
Another important function of government is that it can help insure against
some of the accidents of life, such as being born to parents who cannot afford
private education, losing one's job in an economic downturn, or suffering
illness. Paying taxes for entitlement programs is like paying insurance
premiums: One pays for coverage so the resources will be there if and when one
needs them.
At root, however, we believe that government has a moral responsibility to
help people who are less able to help themselves. (Private charities are
wonderful things, and they do a lot of good, but they're not really up to the
task of meeting the needs of 280 million Americans.) We don't live in a
free-for-all jungle, and we shouldn't have to live there. The real conflict, in
these terms, is not between liberty and equality, or between liberty and
government, but between liberty and humanitarianism. If we don't think that
human society should simply let the weak or unfortunate suffer, perish, or fall
further behind, then it seems a fair trade-off to restrict somewhat the liberty
of the few in order to serve the needs of the many.
People concerned about what the current deep tax cuts mean for American
society might think about framing the question this way. It's less about making
the federal government bigger or smaller than it is about the character
of our culture.
WIT AND WISDOM
"The U.N. nuclear watchdog group said in a confidential report Monday that
it has found no evidence of an atomic bomb program in Iran, leaving the U.S. no
choice but to attack." -- Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live's
"Weekend Update"
EYE ON THE RIGHT
Everybody likes a good lawyer joke from time to time, and everybody has heard
at some point of a frivolous or unjustified lawsuit. What not everybody
realizes, however, is that the criticisms of lawyers in our society are not
just the spontaneous expression of public ill will, but part of a larger
campaign designed both to protect corporate interests and to undermine the
public status of trial attorneys and thereby deprive them of political power.
This campaign, fueled and financed by a network of conservative organizations,
bills itself as "tort reform," and has largely succeeded in setting
the terms of the debate.
A new Commonweal Institute report, researched and written by CI Fellow David
Johnson, outlines the history of "tort reform" and details the
various methods by which the Right has sought to undercut both trial attorneys
and, indirectly, the progressive causes and politicians that trial attorneys
tend to support.
Bound paper copies of the report, titled "The Attack on Trial Lawyers
and Tort Law," are available for $25, which includes handling and
shipping costs; lower pricing is available for orders of five or more copies.
To place an order for print copies, telephone 650-854-9796.
FEATURED ARTICLE
The following is an excerpt from "Consent of the Governed: The Reign of
Corporations and the Fight for Democracy," by Jeffrey Kaplan:
"Corporate power,
largely unimpeded by democratic processes, today affects municipalities across
the country. But in the conservative farming communities of western
Pennsylvania, where agribusiness corporations have obstructed local efforts to
ban noxious corporate farming practices, the commercial feudalism [Alexis] de
Tocqueville warned against has evoked a response that echoes the defiant spirit
of the Declaration of Independence."
In late 2002 and early 2003, two of the county's townships did something that
no municipal government had ever dared: They decreed that a corporation's
rights do not apply within their jurisdictions."
Click here to
read the whole article.
QUOTED!
"Without an acknowledgment of God, I cannot do my duties. I must
acknowledge God. It says so in the constitution of
HAPPENINGS
Meeting with ATLA -- Leonard Salle and Katherine Forrest, co-founders of
Commonweal Institute, were invited to attend a meeting of the Board of
Governors of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) in early
November, to discuss CI's new report, "The Attack on Trial Lawyers and
Tort Law" (see "Eye on the Right"
above).
Good news on voting technology -- California Secretary of State Kevin
Shelley has announced that the state will require that DRE voting machines have
a voter-verifiable paper audit trail in place by the 2006 election. CI
submitted several pieces of testimony to the Secretary of State supporting this
outcome, thanks to the efforts of Advisor Dennis Paull. There's still a great
deal of work to be done, though, as the lack of election security with
electronic voting systems is a nationwide problem. Another serious concern is
that the solution will not be in place in time for the critical 2004 election.
Stay tuned for further developments.
ENDORSEMENTS
"Quality information is the basis on which all good policy must be built.
Commonweal Institute's mission, to research, educate and communicate on issues
of importance, is key for policymakers and activists alike." -- Joan
Blades, Co-Founder, Moveon.org
GET INVOLVED
If you agree with Joan Blades (see above), there are a number of ways you can
help the Commonweal Institute achieve its goals.
Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator
to friends and family who might be interested in learning about the Commonweal
Institute. Getting the word out is crucial.
You can also join our network of donors building the Commonweal
Institute. Your tax-deductible contribution is vital to making the Commonweal
Institute an effective organization. $100 would help so much! Even a
contribution of $10 or $20 will make a difference because there are so many
moderates and progressives. Click here to
contribute online.
© 2003 The Commonweal Institute
To subscribe to this free e-newsletter, send an email to: subscribe-news@commonwealinstitute.org.
If you no longer wish to receive the Uncommon Denominator, send an email
to: unsubscribe-news@commonwealinstitute.org.
Privacy Policy: The Commonweal Institute does not share subscriber email
addresses with any other organization or individuals.