More Taxes on the Wealthy

They Can Afford it, and the Country Needs It

The rich and Corporate American can well afford to pay more taxes. Congress and President Reagan enthusiastically reduced government revenue thirty years ago, but lacked the will to make corresponding cuts in spending. That is also the time our country began to run huge deficits, and started borrowing to fill the void. We have been selling our financial soul to the Orient ever since, a fact that many Americans seem to have been ignorant of until two years ago - curious.

Much of the grousing about President Obama’s plan to “tax the rich” circles around the specious theory that tax cuts for the wealthy spurs economic growth, and increases revenue (remember the “Laffer Curve“, “Supply-Side” and “trickle down“ economics?) The Republicans have been pushing the bogus argument for thirty years. It has yet to bare fruit; we aught to stop trying things that don‘t work.

Over those same thirty years the wealth of the country has become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Republicans seem to think taxes are evil and unfair, especially taxes on the rich. They conveniently disregard the fact that government, by its nature, redistributes wealth. They don’t acknowledge that the redistribution has, for the past generation, been a continual siphon from the lower to the upper classes of the economic ladder.

It is ludicrous to hear Republicans complain that Obama wants to “spread the wealth” by increasing the top tax bracket to the 2001 level of 39.6%. - a rate that is historically modest. For many years government tax policy was geared toward an equitable distribution of wealth. That started to shift in the mid-sixties, and accelerated in the early eighties. Only twice in our history has the top bracket been lower than the present era: 1.) 1913 at 7% when income tax was enacted. It jumped to 67% in 1917 and rose above 70% in succeeding years; 2.) 1925 thru 1931, when it fell to 25% . By 1928 the nation’s wealth was concentrated at the top of the economic pyramid, a recorder breaker surpassed only by the present. “The Great Depression” followed in 1929. We are now in “The Great Recession”.

The top tax bracket from 1944 through 1963, a twenty year span, was never less than 91% and had as many as 26 brackets. The economy boomed. The middle class was active and robust. Jobs were plentiful. The wealth of the country was more evenly distributed than at any time in our history. One can argue whether higher taxes make that possible. Maybe, but it certainly didn’t stymie economic growth.

The federal tax code presently has just six brackets, the top being 35%. A person making a taxable income of $250,000 will pay $67,617 (that’s maximum - lots of loop holes to whittle it down). Another way of looking at it - the person gets to keep over $182,000. Most Americans today would have difficulty comprehending an after-tax paycheck of $3,500 a week. An earner making a million a year will take home $13,000 per week; one making ten million a year gets to keep over $125,000.

Impressive! But those are paltry in comparison to the super-rich. One making a hundred million a year takes home $1,250,000 per week. A billion year earner - yes, there are such creatures - takes home $12,500,000 - like winning the lottery every week. Many pay a smaller tax rate than the rest of us. Numerous corporations pay no taxes. CEO’s and hedge funds managers pay only 15% “capital gains” tax.

One thing that’s changed over the last thirty years is the rivers of money that have flowed into the political system. This commenced in the mid-seventies when businesses began to form (The Business Roundtable, an early example) in unprecedented ways, creating and financing organizations whose aim were to influence government policy. The trend continues. Hundreds of millions fund “Think Tanks” and K Street Lobbies. Phalanxes of lawyers write “White Papers”, authoritative reports, to sway congress to “special interest” view points. Sometimes they even write the laws. For every public sector lobbyist in Washington there are hundreds speaking for Corporate America and the superrich.

Equal sums are funneled into political action committees to finance campaigns and manipulate elections. The recent Supreme Court decision “Citizens United vs The Federal Elections Commission” has freed corporations and labor unions to pump unlimited funds, anonymously, into politics. That contest will certainly go to corporate America because its adversary, labor, is a frail shadow of its former self. These moneyed activities are self-serving. They act neither for the common good nor the long-term interest of people.

The unequal distribution of wealth hasn’t come about because the rich are smarter, or better educated. They don’t work harder, or have an edge on technology. It has transpired, as it did in the “Gilded Age” of the 1870‘s, and again in the 1920’s, because money is power and organized power impacts government policy.

We Americans pride ourselves on being an egalitarian society, but a natural tension exists between democratic ideals and the moneyed aspirations of Capitalism. Wealth presently dominates the system. The middle class is in decline. Many wonder if the unequal economy is devolving toward us becoming a nation of “have-and-have-nots“. Some think we are already there. Others say that our democratic government is a parody of its former self? The article was published in the Anchorage Press

Wes on the Kenai River

Bob Evans & Wes Warner visiting, 1987

Bob Evans came home one day in 1975 to inform us that he was buying a condo in Mount Vernon Estates in mid-town, and would be moving. That was the beginning of the end of our bachelor household. Wes had met Carla Clayton a year earlier and the two would marry within a couple years. So our trio broke up and I became the sole owner of the house.

Wes, Carla, and Frances, visiting in 1994

Wes went into business with two other guys, obtained a NAPA auto parts franchise, and opened their first store on the Old Seward Highway. Over the years the business expanded to include stores in several towns around the State.

Joe & Moonshine visiting Wes in 2007

Wes and Carla had a girl, Frances, and in 1992 they moved to a log home on the Kenai River off Funny River Road near Soldotna. Wes managed the NAPA store in Soldotna for several years before retiring. They went to Mississippi each winter, but Wes never missed coming back to Funny River every summer.

Mary visiting Wes on Kenai River in 2007

We continued to get together over the years. Mary and I stopped by to visit Wes nearly every season. More than once we parked our travel trailer behind his house, over-looking the Kenai River, and spent a few leisure days fishing and visiting while sitting at the fire pit near the river’s bank.

Joe at the firepit at Wes's place, Kenai River, 2007 

On one occasion I picked him up at the airport on his spring return from Mississippi when his flight leg to Kenai had an extra long layover. He came back to Anchorage only one time that I remember. That was in 2003. He drove up intending to spend a few days looking around town to see how much it had changed. He stayed two nights - couldn’t stand the bustle of the big city any longer.

Joe, Moonshine & Wes on Wendys Way, 2003

Mary, our dog Moonshine, and I spent three or four nights with Wes in 2007. Moonshine was forever transfixed by the resident squirrel living in the tree next to the house, but the main event that visit was Mary’s decision to fish for salmon. A run of Sockeyes filled the river, and she, after twenty years of distaining the fish, had discovered “blackened salmon” and couldn’t seem to get enough of it. We went to Soldotna and got her a license, but she gave up the sport before getting a line wet. I caught the first one, clubbed it over the head to send it to fish heaven, and Mary decided, then-and-there, the sport was to violent for her. However, she had no qualms in continuing to consume the abused creatures.

Moonshine visits squirrel at Wes's, 2007

View of Kenai River from our Trailer, 2007

In 2009 we stopped by for an afternoon to introduce Wes to my nephew and grandnephew, Lee and Daulton, who were making their first visit to Alaska from the flatlands of Indiana. Mary and I were giving them a whirlwind tour in seven days, and I wanted them to meet Wes.

Joe with a Red Salmon, 2007

I went down by myself for the last visit of 2010. The summer had been miserable with constant rain - a record of more than thirty consecutive days. A break in the weather finally came in September. I had a pleasant stay with Wes and his son Pete. Pete fixed a freshly caught Silver Salmon the first night and we had steaks the next.

Wes at Funny River, 2007

I called Wes several times over that winter. We invited him and Pete for Thanksgiving, but the drive was, I think, more than he could handle. We talked to him right after New Years - invited him again.

The ladder to the fishing hole at Wes's, 2007

Pete called to report the sad news the first of April. I knew Wes had felt poorly for a couple of years. I’d ask him how he was feeling, and he’d say, “Not so good”. He didn’t sleep well, had trouble walking, couldn’t even get down the ladder to fish anymore. Several times he said something like, “I don’t know why I’m still around!”. Wes “Crossed the Bar” on March 31, 2011. He was one of the nicest guys I ever knew, and the first friend I made in Alaska. I’ll miss him.
GO TO: Wes's Memorial Day