On the Connection Between the Income Tax and Dead Soldiers

No matter how strongly I may disagree with someone, I rarely, if ever, use the full and more colorful range of the language.  But in this case, I think it is warranted.

First, the quote (taken from a statement on the Senate floor a few days ago):

“So, yes, we're going to have to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes.  I saw a piece in the paper the other day – it was quite incredible.  Some billionaires apparently are leaving America; they're giving up their citizenship and they're going abroad.  These great lovers of America who made their money in this country, when you ask them to start paying their fair share of taxes, they're running abroad.  We have 19-year-old kids in this country who've died in Iraq and Afghanistan defending this country – they went abroad not to escape taxes; they're working-class kids who died in wars, and now some billionaires want to run abroad in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.  What patriotism!  What love of country!”  -Senator Bernie Sanders, June 27, 2012.

At first it sounds so good, so right.  The indignation, the anger – the whole speech points the finger at the big banks and big business and big money, while standing up for the little guy, the American worker.

But there was something in this part of the speech that hit me.  I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I knew there was something in it, so I decided to spend part of my morning reflecting on it – something about billionaires and taxes and working-class soldiers and Marines losing their lives overseas.  These things were being lumped together for some reason.

Well, a few minutes ago it struck me.  Your rhetoric, Senator Sanders, and the rhetoric of your colleagues, is meant to make me think ill of billionaires.  I am supposed to envy them; I am supposed to not like them.  After all, we are so different, and what can be more natural than not liking people who are different from you?  They have vast wealth – I have little to none.  They are terrible examples of patriotism – I am a good example of patriotism.  They are evil – I am good.  They don’t pay taxes on their income – but I DO!  Those bastard billionaires might shirk their patriotic duty, but not me!  Oh, boy, not ME!  I’ll pay mine!

You fucking propagandist!  You’re not talking to the billionaires in that speech – you’re talking to ME!  You’re telling ME, the American worker, that I don’t value the sacrifice of those who’ve lost their lives in war if I don’t pay my income tax.  You’re telling ME, the American worker, that I am unpatriotic if I don’t pay my income tax.  You’re telling ME, the American worker, that I don’t love my country if I don’t pay my income tax.  How fucking dare you?!  Men and women haven’t died overseas to guilt me into paying the damned income tax!!  Even stupid billionaires know that!

You know who the income tax is for, Senator?  Those billionaires we’re all supposed to hate and envy!  “Since 1980...interest payments [on the national debt] have represented the largest transfer of wealth ever, from the people who pay taxes to the people who own the debt and collect interest on it.  More accurately, the money goes from middle-income and lower-income taxpayers to upper-income investors.”  (America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?  Barlett and Steele, 1994)  We all want to stick it to the billionaires, Senator, but we unwittingly fork it over every April 15^th, don’t we?  American worker, you want to see the billionaires break a sweat?  Eliminate the income tax.  That’s YOU ("the good guy") making THEM ("the bad guys") rich.

In researching this form of taxation (because I do more with my nights than watch fucking cable TV), I have stumbled upon a history which reveals over a century of the wealthy ruling classes in England and the rest of Europe literally just making shit up.  Having discovered this mighty windfall, year after year and decade after decade found them tweaking and rewriting and amending the income tax because they could never get it quite right – it was never quite “fair,” never truly “equitable.”  Schedules and liabilities were constantly being changed and updated in an unending effort to “make it better.”  What never changed is its potential as a HUGE stream of revenue, and though always introduced and promised as a “temporary measure” (usually to pay for a recent war), it became a permanent fixture – the ruling class just couldn’t let go of that gravy train!  Oh, and throughout the history of this tax, the wealthy – the people who made it all up and put it in place – always seem to be able somehow to avoid it.  It staggers the imagination!

Let’s connect these fucking dots once and for all, America, so we can get this shit over and done with: the wealthy ruling class make the rules governing the income tax.  The wealthy ruling class exempt themselves from the income tax and always will (see: history).  The American worker is forced – by laws written by the wealthy ruling class – to pay the income tax under threat of imprisonment and/or confiscation of property.  This money goes from the American worker to the wealthy ruling class, and keeps them wealthy and ruling, and keeps the American worker in his or her place through fear and intimidation.  How many American workers are aware of a certain segment of the slave population in Maryland whose only tie to slavery was the requirement by their masters to hand over a certain portion of their income every year?  That was it!  Other than that, these slaves worked whatever jobs they could find in the community and bought their own homes, food, and clothing.  The only thing that separated them from their free black neighbors was that one requirement.  Just hand over a portion of your hard-earned income, or we’ll sell you down the fucking river.  Does that ring any goddamn bells with anyone?

The patriotic thing to do, Senator Sanders, is not to pay the income tax, but to eliminate it.  If we truly love our country – or what’s left of it – we will eliminate the income tax.  But you and your colleagues wouldn’t dare propose that, or you’d be biting the hand that feeds you.  I think it's time for the People to bite the hand that's been forcing them to feed it.  Bite it off.  A hundred years is enough.  And for God’s sake, Senator, please don’t ever again try to connect the sacrifice of our sons and daughters to a fucking revenue stream!!  There is no connection!