It's Tax Day: A Lament

It’s April 15, the deadline in the United States for the filing of individual tax returns and the annual settling of accounts between the citizenry and its government.

At heart, I am a tax protestor.  Not because I don’t want to pay nor because I quibble with the stewardship of our monies (both are true of me but not my primary motivator when it comes to federal taxes).

Rather, I am a pacifist work-in-progress (daily failing to live up to my own ideal).  Thus do I begrudge the military dollars we as a nation spend.

When the war waged against the people of Iraq was in high gear, AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) had a white paper that noted the amount of the US federal budget dedicated to military spending: 42 cents of every tax dollar.

Today I received an e-mail from Peace Action, which states in part, “As we file our taxes, fifty-seven cents of every dollar spent in the annual discretionary budget feeds the Pentagon.”

It may be a question of wording.  I certainly hope so.  I hope that the already large proportion of federal tax dollars dedicated to the military has not increased in the last ten years.

Logic would dictate that it’s far cheaper to not be engaged in war than to be.  And the US maintains that it is no longer engaged in war in Iraq and is winding down its involvement in Afghanistan.

If this is true, why would the Pentagon require yet more of the federal pie, both in raw dollars and in the percentage of the total?

Presumably, the replacement of the materials of war has been an on-going effort since 2002, so it’s not as if we must start from scratch to replace tanks and planes and bullets expended in Iraq and Afghanistan, for surely most of that work has already been done.

I suspect that what is happening is an ever-increasing remit to the military: in addition to the protection of our borders and the nefarious protection of ‘our interests’ abroad, the big money is going to things like drones, satellite surveillance, spy planes, cyber war, and whatever else anyone employed there can imagine.

Who is left to quantify the cost-benefit of the spending of these monies?

Decades ago, as he left office (shame on him for not doing something about it when he actually had the power to), then President Eisenhower warned the nation to beware of the power of the military-industrial complex.  It was an important warning and one that we as a people have continued to ignore.

It’s difficult to cut back on military bases and civilian contracts to the military sector not only because of the felt need for protection but also because the people of the nation have come to have a vested interest in their continuation by way of jobs and aid to local economies.

Prior to WWII, we were largely a nation that ramped up production of military hardware as and when needed for direct conflict rather than in anticipation thereof.  This approach helped significantly to minimize our felt need for what these industries provide.

But now, if my job is dependent upon this industry, of course I will perceive the industry as ‘essential’.  It’s almost impossible to argue against my own economic interests.  And it’s equally hard to hear any challenge on the moral front to these activities when that’s how I make my living.

Military production is a moral as well as economic compromise.  And it is costly.

And thus I am left to wonder at my more conservative Christian friends, who all too often in my view, rush to the naming of personal sin as the root cause of attacks against and the sufferings of us as a nation, but are troublingly silent in naming our collective sins, such as the sins of national hubris or pride, our collective violation of the commandments against killing another, coveting what another has, stealing (or taking by force, which is the same thing, really) from another, and failing to tell the truth, all of which we do through the offices of our military adventures around the world.

It’s tax day and I am a coward.  Thus like most of us, I will pay Caesar more than what Caesar is owed, because I am not prepared to go to prison not to.

It is tax day and my hands and my conscience too are bloody.

When Is a Dollar Not a Dollar? Taxes, Poverty, Economics & Justice

A dollar costs some more than others.  Economics isn’t all arithmetic.  Thus all dollars are not created equal.  A dollar costs me some spare change in my purse.  But a dollar costs some people a week of labor.  If you’re poor, a dollar is a bag of rice, which can feed your family for a day.  If you’re the widow Jesus watched at the temple, even less than a dollar can be all that’s left between you and starvation.

It is at best a fundamental failure to understand that all dollars are not created equal that is leading to the call by many governors to eliminate or substantially reduce income taxation in their states under the guise of economic stimulation.*  They are, perhaps, merely mirroring the national election debates, all of which, from all political spectra, emphasized the middle class.  The poor were seldom, if ever, even mentioned.  It’s past time they were.  I say ‘they’ for one simple reason: I am not poor.

Economics that is theoretical is a waste of time.  Economics that does not take realities into account is worse than a waste of time; it is an attempt to alter our understanding of reality, to distance ourselves from it, that we, the wealthier, might be insulated from the sting of the poverty of another.

Social justice that ignores economic injustice is no justice at all.

Charity is what I am free to do or not do out of the goodness of my own heart.

Justice, on the other hand, is what I owe to my fellow human beings.

It is an enormous difference.

I can congratulate myself on my charity.

But justice is like breathing; it is necessary, even essential, to my, to our, continued existence.  Who congratulates themselves for breathing?

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*What calls to eliminate state income taxes generally leave unsaid is the simultaneous implementation or increase of sales tax to make up the difference.  Sales taxes affect every consumer exactly the same.  Well, isn’t that fair?  No.  It isn’t ‘fair’ because of the fact that all dollars are not created equal.  Flat taxes that hit rich and poor alike are called ‘regressive’ for a reason.  To regress is to go backwards and in the case of flat taxes, what we do is back away from justice for the poor, those who have less than I do.  They are not a disease.  They are not a ‘problem’.  They are people.  “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread”, observed Anatole France.  The irony is as obvious as it is cruel: it is illegal for both, but it is only a necessity for one.  Another quote comes to mind: “To whom much is given, much is required.” [Luke 12.48].  Waging economic war on the poor is not merely unseemly (although it is certainly that); it is unjust.  I suspect the origins are not in some overtly evil impulse; rather, it is a case, I think, of governors and others similarly situated, simply having little, if any acquaintance, with the folks their laws impact adversely.  A friend at a cocktail party observes how hard the current taxes hit them and their friend the governor starts thinking about how to help these friends and believes, because friends don’t lie to friends, after all, the lie that helping the friend will help ‘everyone’.  While they smile and tip their glasses, there are no poor people present to protest, to point out that the change will be on their backs.  Maybe governors and presidents and the like should be required to, at the least, join the movement to live on a poverty-level income for a month.  Maybe then some eyes would be opened.

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A sampling of governors calling for elimination or substantial reduction in income taxes to be made up with simultaneous increases in sales taxes:

Governor Sam Brownback, of Kansas, per The New York Times:

. . . there is significant concern in Kansas over the cost of the tax cuts, which is expected to total nearly $850 million in the coming fiscal year. In the budget he presented last week, [Governor]  Brownback proposed to help cover the cost of those cuts by keeping in place a sales tax increase that was scheduled to expire this year and by eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. . . Critics say Mr. Brownback’s tax cut was passed on the backs of low-income Kansans. The bill included the repeal of tax credits for food, rental housing and child care that benefited low-income residents. Because of those repeals, the poorest 20 percent of Kansans will spend an additional 1.3 percent of their incomes, an average of $148 per year, on taxes, according to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The top 1 percent, meanwhile, will see the share of their income that goes toward taxes drop by 2 percent, or $21,087 per year, the report said.

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, from The Advocate:

Gov. Bobby Jindal said Thursday that he wants to eliminate the state’s personal income and corporate taxes. . . [To make up the difference] Alario, R-Westwego, said Jindal administration officials discussed a 1.6 percent increase in state sales tax during a meeting with legislative leaders this week.  

Governor Dave Heineman of Nebraska, from The Daily Nebraskan:

Gov. Dave Heineman made a bold proposal during his State of the State address Tuesday — eliminate the state income tax. . . As a means to make up for the lost revenue, Heineman’s proposal would also end $5 billion in sales tax exemptions [although food would continue to be exempt].