Wink’s Blog

With the upcoming Iowa Caucuses, Morning Edition is asking just-plain-folks to express their top issues. Maybe its that I don’t live along a sun belt interstate but for whatever reason they haven’t asked ME. Those they do ask are concerned about their taxes or the prospects for their auto-industry-dependent businesses. Pretty personal and individual concerns that resonate only marginally for me. This morning, though, the just-plain-folks seemed to agree that we need to break the lock that corporate interests have on our so-called democratic process; I agree.

Just in case anyone cares to ask, I’m ready with my top issues:
> The Iraq War.
> Global Climate Crisis.
> Renewable Energy.
> Food and agriculture policy, organics, sustainable food systems, GMOs.
> Universal, single-payer health care.
> The federal deficit, debt, and the financial burden we’re leaving future generations.
> Foreign policy.
> Tax inequities — the rich and corporations don’t pay their fair share.

Taxes and corporate influence are sub sets of these issues. If, for instance, I agreed with the country’s spending priorities, I’d feel better about paying taxes. But as long as we spend hundreds and hundreds of billions on Bush’s War and even more by reducing the taxes paid by the rich and corporations and subsidize oil companies to rape our pristine places and spend in support of developing a corn-based ethanol industry while failing to renew incentives for renewable energy, failing to adopt a Renewable Energy Standard, and failing to provide health care for all our citizens (and on and on), I can’t conger much support for taxes either.

Our federal spending priorities express corporate priorities. The Bush War is a boon for weapons manufacturers and dealers, Cheney’s friends in the oil patch, and other war profiteers including so-called “contractors” (who we used to disparage as “mercenaries”) — surprise: they’re one and the same: Haliburton’s KBR and the others. Ethanol is a sop to Big Ag (and by extension the ag chemical and GMO producers), and Detroit dinosaur car companies (who won’t have to do any real innovation).

My late grandmother used to say that it’s a privilege to pay taxes. Presumably she was thinking that the duty to pay taxes means that the family had income; a privilege that not everyone enjoyed during the depression. As a New Englander she also appreciated that those with the privilege of income have a duty to share, through taxes, her good fortune with those less advantaged in our society. Furthermore, she understood that a society has shared priorities and infrastructure to which it is a privilege to contribute and help bring to fruition. The knee-jerk anti tax crowd thinks of us not as a society but rather as a collection of individuals bent on each maximizing our individual self interest. I strongly believe they couldn’t be more wrong. We need to understand and pursue our common interests if we are going to successfully address the complex challenges ahead — and the sooner the better.