I’m tired of the notion that there’s no money and we have to make do with less. There is plenty of money. The rich people are gaining by the millions. It’s time to get rid of Reaganomics in Vermont. We have to tax the rich. Until we middle- and working-class Vermonters press our politicians to tax the rich, there’s no way we’re going to finance a better tomorrow. The editorial in The Valley Reporter, at least, tries to press for a single-payer health care but still misses the point. In a short email conversation with Candice White, our representative, she was suggesting we cut one day of mail delivery. This is a nonsense argument.
The absurdity of consolidation and diminution of local schools, the loss of our health center, and our pharmacy: at some point, don’t we have to question the system that demands this? Not enough money? No, it’s who can best afford the cost of equality, and that’s rich people, because they are the beneficiaries of an unequal economic and tax system. Remember, from the end of WWII through the 1960s, the top rate for income taxes was 93%. That’s during the presidencies of FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. The economy was booming. We were a country full of high expectations and achievements. We didn’t talk about how to cut: we asked how to build and get better.
This isn’t a plea to “get back” at rich people. It isn’t jealousy or punishment. Decent rich people will want to be taxed at a fair rate (Patriotic Millionaires.com). They know that they have benefitted from an unequal economic system. And it’s been shown that rich people don’t move out of state because of higher taxes. There are many ways to tax the rich. But our Legislature, at the very least, needs to start talking realistically about creating more revenue for our state, but it can’t be coming out of the pockets of the working and middle classes.
We need to return, but this time inclusive of LBGQ+, women, people of color, and our fellow immigrants, to the beginning with our aspirations, and only then figuring how we will raise the funds to accomplish our goals. We need to, once again, start with aspirations, and then move on to how we accomplish it: as opposed to figuring out how we can maintain basic services. This is not about spending other peoples’ money: it’s about sharing our wealth equitably. Margaret Thatcher was Trump before Trump was popular. It’s time to realize that wealth is created by all of us, and it belongs to all of us. It’s time to put our wealth back into a moral society. To think that we can have a person like Elon Musk and still have homeless or hungry fellow citizens and think this is a moral society is an abomination. It’s time to tax the rich.
Lehman lives in Warren.
You might also like
