Reply #259: thank you [View All]

[William Z. Foster]

Thank you muffin1.

The subject of regressive taxation is so important, and so very rarely discussed, and this was a good chance to talk about it. Regressive taxation is just killing the people below $35,000 or so in annual income, which is close to half of the people now, and also seriously impacts those below $70,000 annual income, which covers just about all of us. So few benefit from regressive taxation - the upper 10% - and so many suffer so terribly from it. This also has the negative political effect of turning working people against government and public programs and into the arms of the Republicans. The reason that the right wing "no more taxes" mantra works with people, is because it IS true that working people, especially the bottom 50%, are being destroyed by regressive taxes.

Then we also have the problem of so many liberals and progressives now speaking for the haves and who are so tone deaf to the cries of the working poor. That does not bode well for the future success of the Democratic party, since so many people now see the face of liberalism as bullying, callous, arrogant, self-righteous and domineering. We are putting our worst foot forward too often, as the few among us who are bullying, controlling, and domineering try to speak for all of us, and alienate the general public.

Better-off people can afford health insurance and use prescription drugs for managing stress and mood, which is what poor people use tobacco for. Smoking also alleviates hunger pains, and more and more people are struggling to get adequate food. The argument that people use - that smoking hurts others - is also true of pharmaceutical use, as higher and higher concentrations of those drugs are now showing up in public water supplies. The incidence of mood-altering prescription drug use among suburban professional and white collar people is much higher than the incidence of smoking among poor people and blue collar people, and an argument can be made that use of those drugs is a greater social hazard than smoking is. But since people with college degrees and good incomes are prescribing and taking those drugs, they are therefore "good," while smoking is "bad."

That means that we have a double standard, with one set of rules applied on those on one side of the divide and another set of rules to the other, and the divide is between the haves and the have nots. If poor people are doing something, it is not fashionable and is then seen as dirty, stupid, harmful, and dangerous. If better off people are doing something, it is by definition in fashion and so the risks are understated and the benefits exaggerated.