We Have To Fix This

 A good walk is useful in so many ways, according to Shane O’Mara in his recent book In Praise of Walking. Because the first heat wave of the year is starting, we went out for a walk early this morning. O’Mara was correct, for we were only a minute or two into the walk when we saw a car parked on Alameda Street with a man sleeping in it. The car was crammed with stuff. The man was clearly homeless but still had a vehicle for shelter. This was on the sidewalk of the beautiful retired living community we have lived in since 2019.

We talked as we walked and compared notes on the condition of the United States in 2021. We are not what could be called wealthy but having worked, saved, and invested wisely, the American dream in many ways has come through for my wife and I. We are both senior Baby Boomers and the happenstance that the first 30 years of our lives were in an America that emerged from the Second World War relatively unscathed certainly were to our benefit. Please note I said relatively unscathed. I am fully aware of the deaths, injuries, and misery that those of my parents’ generation bore during the war. But having white skin and opportunities that included a decent public school system meant that my possibilities as an adult were multifold. Work and perseverance were required. My father instilled the ethic of a child of Polish immigrants to America. So I could see the immediate difference between myself living in the building to my right on the sidewalk of Alameda Street and the somewhat battered older SUV that held a sleeping occupant. What I cannot know, of course, is what else life held for that man as he grew into an adult.

I do suspect though that his opportunities were limited by something or things that continue to be news stories today. The public schools of today are struggling compared to those I remember in my childhood and adolescence. Teachers are not to blame for this. Willingness to fund schools does bear blame in my opinion. When society takes the attitude that taxes are too high and unaffordable, schools will take a hard first hit. This happened in California in 1978 with Proposition 13. The consequences resonate loudly today. Taxes on your house, if you have owned it since 1978 or before, are quite low. They skyrocket when you buy that house, in effect making new owners hostage to decades of anti-tax sentiment. To me, this is robbing the future generations for the benefit of their elders. I will bet it had some role in the life of the man in the car.

Then we have the fat cats. You know, the billionaires who wind up with years in which they pay zero dollars in taxes. If you’d like to see how this works, read this article from ProPublica published on 8 June 2021. It details how billionaires skate past paying taxes year after year and how we came to this situation. The short story of how is because of a case called Eisner v. Macomber decided in 1920 by the Supreme Court that ruled that income, not wealth, was the basis for taxation. The Gilded Age of the late 19th century thus was extended for another century and beyond. The tax code became so arcane that , if you were wealthy and could afford lawyers and accountants who could find the loopholes, investing became the road to wealth. Not only that, the U.S. tax code is racially unequal. Add to this tax cuts enacted under the Bush and Trump administrations, whose benefit went to the wealthy and corporations, and you have government starved of funding for people and their needs. 

Today we read of private equity firms who encapsulate how to evade taxes and get away with it. In olden times, pirates wore eyepatches, had a wooden pegleg, and were accompanied by a foul-talking parrot on their shoulder as they preyed on people and robbed them blind. Read the NYT article above. Private equity firms, mostly white males in suits, have now subsumed the role of pirate. And they get away with it by bribing Congress (regardless of political party) with cold hard cash for reelection campaigns. More than enough to boil your blood.

Margan and I walked for about 40 minutes, getting in some exercise and intellectual discussion. We returned to our lovely apartment here at MonteCedro. We had seen and pondered over the gross inequality our nation faces, one of multiple problems worsened by the rise of Trumpism and a cult that has replaced a political party. Jared Bernstein and Ben Spielberg pointed out six years ago that inequality matters. President Biden and the Democrats in Congress need to push measures that ensure all people in the United States have the benefits of a wealthy country, not just the fat cats. That means access to voting for all citizens. That means taxation that doesn’t allow corporations and wealthy people to evade their fair share to support the society they live in. That means educational opportunities for everyone. That means reform of the criminal justice system. That means treating all people with equal respect and dignity. Obviously, there is one hell of a lot of work to be done. It will fall to our children and grandchildren to do most of it. The American experiment is over only when we fail to fight for it.