The F Word: Demonizing Taxes, Heightening Inequality

by admin was published on April 18th, 2011

For the video go to 

http://grittv.org/2011/04/18/the-f-word-demonizing-taxes-heightening-inequality/

Today is Tax Day in the US, and that's almost
universally greeted with groans and complaints. That
tax word's been so effectively demonized that it may be
there's no coming back. Is it time for a new word?

Some research by Duke University's Dan Ariely suggests
it might be.

Ariely's study showed that Americans actually want a
more equitable society--in fact, they think they have
one.  When asked to identify their homeland from a list
of nations described only by their level of equality--a
majority of those polled picked Sweden, thinking it was
the US. When asked to create their ideal society,
Democrats, Republicans, men and women, the rich and the
poor all created a distribution of wealth that is much
more equal than the one we've got.

All that "social mobility, low inequality"
stuff--Americans love it. They just don't have it. In
fact, social mobility here's been shrivelling, as the
wealth gap's been opening up.

There are only a few ways to get that more equal
distribution: government investment (benefits and
services) corporate action (paying people more) or
redistribution: taking from each according to their
means, to help the whole.  We call that tax.

Yet according to Ariely, the very same people who
expressed an ardent wish for an equal society have an
highly averse reaction to the word tax.  Why, he
wondered, recently, to National Public Radio.

It's not so hard to figure out. Day in day out, when
you hear taxes mentioned, what's the context? Social
citizenship? Tools of an equal society? Or is it rather
all about how heavy the burden is, how overtaxed
Americans are. The Taxman, the IRS--the first public
workers our media teach us to hate.

There are taxes to hate--taxes that go to give a blank
check to the military, or tax credits for corporations
that export American jobs. But the truth is, taxes on
the rich have done nothing but fall since the Reagan
years. And inequality's only gotten bigger.

What's the money media's stake in all this? It's hardly
hidden. Remember that GE tax refund for $3.2 billion?
The co-owner of NBC and MSNBC isn't alone either. Time
Warner and News Corp, owners of CNN and Fox, are also
on a list of the biggest corporate tax avoiders.

Today, when you hear that news story about how tax day
is no fun, remember that you're actually paying more
than the company behind the news. And remember who it
was who taught you to hate taxes. And if you come up
with a new word, let us know?

___________________________________________

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