In the last few days, I’ve come across a couple of intriguing tax proposals aimed at reducing the gap between the 1% and everyone else.
We already index taxes for inflation, so Yale economist Robert Shiller wants to know why we can’t index them for inequality as well — and tax the rich at higher rates as the nation’s income becomes more concentrated at the top.
Shiller and his colleague Leonard Burman suggest a plan that would offset the loss in tax revenue that occurs when we index for inflation by imposing higher tax rates on income falling in the top tax brackets. (Shiller, clearly an optimist, thinks this approach might even be achievable in the current political environment.)
Shiller thinks we need to see our income taxes “as a colossal insurance system, guarding against extreme income inequality.”
Good idea, but I’m not as optimistic as Shiller–I don’t think such a proposal would survive the displeasure of the guys who pay the lobbyists.
A bill I really like has somewhat better prospects, and has actually been introduced in California.
California’s pendingSenate bill 1372, introduced by state senators Mark DeSaulnier and Loni Hancock would tie state corporate income tax rates to corporate pay disparities.
Corporations in California currently face an 8.84 percent tax on their profits. The DeSaulnier-Hancock legislation would up that rate to 13 percent for companies that pay their top execs over 400 times what their typical workers are making.
The same legislation lowers the state corporate tax rate to 7 percent on companies with a CEO-worker pay divide less than 25-to-1. Under the bill, all firms with a ratio under 100-to-1 would end up with a tax cut, all above with a hike.
The Indianapolis Business Journal recently reported that the state’s gaming revenues are declining.
The money the state collects from casino taxes has dropped from a peak of nearly $876 million in 2009 to about $752 million in fiscal 2013, according to figures from the Indiana Gaming Commission. Indiana’s three casinos near Cincinnati have seen big declines since a downtown casino opened in the Ohio city last year.
In recent years, Indiana’s casino industry has pleaded with state legislators for economic protection from the increasing state competition.
Let’s recap: the Indiana legislature (like those of many other states) lacked the cojones to raise taxes. In the mid-1990s, lawmakers turned to gaming to fill the state’s coffers. Many of us pointed to the irony involved: the same moralists who had passed strict limits on private gambling (it’s sin, you know…) somehow saw nothing wrong when government was promoting that sin.
At the time, I said this was upside down: the government has no business telling people they can’t have a poker night at their club, and it likewise has absolutely no business making money off gambling venues that are effectively a tax on poor people.
The New York Times recently editorialized about a proposal for additional casinos in that state. Their reasons are equally valid here: a wealth of studies show that gambling is a regressive tax that takes its highest toll on those who can least afford it; the experience of states and municipalities that have depended on gambling have not been positive (construction jobs aren’t permanent, and–as we are now seeing in Indiana–competition from other states quickly erodes revenues).
Indiana Senate President David Long says he supports assigning the issue to a summer study committee.
I have no problem with study. But I would have a huge problem with any proposal to “bail out” Indiana’s casinos–and I think most Hoosier taxpayers would agree with me.
Yesterday’s post focusing on GLBT rights reminded me that we’re heading toward June and Gay Pride. As we prepare for the annual Pride celebrations, two things are clear: 1) GLBT Americans are winning the fight for civic equality, and 2) the nature of the remaining threat to that equality has changed.
I won’t belabor the first observation; anyone reading this blog can recite the “wins.” Same-sex marriage is recognized in more and more states, Fortune 500 companies are falling over themselves to be welcoming–to extend benefits and institute policies mandating fair treatment. Popular culture and even pro sports are accepting their no-longer-closeted celebrities.
All of these indicators point to a sea change in the attitudes of average Americans, and that change is confirmed by survey research. The days when coming out meant risking ostracism from friends and families, or difficulty getting a job, aren’t altogether over, but we’re getting close.
The threat today comes from the Neanderthals we keep electing–the theocrats who insist that America is a “Christian Nation,” who reject science, who believe women should be “subservient,” barefoot and pregnant, and that GLBT folks should be closeted (or worse).
Just a couple of examples:
A couple of days ago, the Indianapolis Starrevisited a controversy that arose a couple of years back over allegations that a Ball State University Assistant Professor was teaching creationism, aka “intelligent design.” BSU’s President, JoAnn Gora–somewhat belatedly–issued a letter confirming the institution’s commitment to science, and its recognition that intelligent design is religious dogma, not science. (To do otherwise would have massively degraded the value of a BSU degree.)
Subsequently, the Indiana legislature’s God Squad made threatening noises; the explicit message was that requiring faculty to teach real science in science classes “violated Academic Freedom” (!) and the implicit message was that it would cost the University when the time for state appropriations rolled around. Last week, the Star reported that the professor involved was promoted. Whether he is still teaching Intelligent Design is unclear.
Indiana’s legislators aren’t the only ones waging war against genuine academic freedom, diversity and modernity generally. South Carolina’s not-ready-for-this-century lawmakers voted to slash funding for two of the state’s largest public colleges in retaliation for the introduction of books with gay themes into the schools’ freshman reading programs.
In February, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted to cut $70,000 — the entire cost of the offending programs — from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate.
These two incidents—which, unfortunately, are anything but isolated—should sound alarm bells.
Red state legislatures are dominated by frightened old heterosexual white guys whose unspoken motto is “Stop changing the world, I want to get off.” The broader society is making its peace with complexity, diversity and inclusion, but these lawmakers, and the Rabid Righteous base that elects them, is waging a last-ditch effort to turn back the clock.
These guys—and they are almost always guys—are able to be elected thanks to a combination of voter apathy, vote suppression and gerrymandering. Those who go to the polls in states like Indiana and South Carolina are opting for candidates who reject science, progress and inclusion in favor of a constricted and literalist religiosity.
In 1966, Richard Hofstadter wrote Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. That anti-intellectualism–characterized by the elevation of sloganeering over analysis and “biblical truth” over complexity, evidence and education—is still with us; it characterizes the Tea Party and too much of today’s GOP.
It poses a threat not just to GLBT folks, but to all of us; it’s a formidable barrier to our ability to create a sane and tolerant society.
One of the cardinal rules of the legal profession is to zealously represent your client–to put the interests of that client first. To be an effective and ethical lawyer, you must put aside your personal prejudices and obsessions, and focus upon the job you’ve been hired to do.
Back when I was in practice, we all knew which (few) lawyers took their clients’ money and proceeded to posture to the media, or file unnecessary pleadings, or otherwise use the lawyer-client relationship for self-aggrandizement, personal gain or ideological vendettas.
Which brings me to Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller.
The Attorney General is elected to protect the legal interests of Hoosiers. Zoeller, however, has consistently used the position to advance his personal religious beliefs, intervening in national high-profile, culture war cases having the most tenuous connection (if any) to Indiana. He has been especially eager to volunteer in cases involving gay rights; he spent enormous time and energy–and taxpayer resources–opposing same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court’s Windsor case.
Last week, a federal court in Indiana required Indiana to recognize the out-of-state marriage of Amy Sandler and Niki Quasney. Niki is battling a particularly aggressive cancer, and has been told that she is terminal. The couple has two children, ages 1 and 3. Niki wants to be recognized as married in her home state while she is still alive; she wants the comfort of knowing that her family will receive the legal protections that all other married families in Indiana receive.
Zoeller immediately announced his intention to appeal. As Lambda Legal noted,
No other attorney general in the country has chosen to appeal after a court has protected the marriage of a same-sex couple on a temporary basis as a lawsuit moves forward because one of the partners is terminally ill. For example, the Ohio AG declined to appeal a court’s temporary order protecting the marriage of a man fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease as his lawsuit challenging the State’s marriage ban moved forward, even as the Ohio AG fought to uphold the ban.
When a Lambda attorney characterized the decision to appeal as “a display of cruelty,” Zoeller’s spokesperson accused the organization of an “unprofessional approach in their utterances toward opposing counsel, one not consistent with standards of civility and respect that Hoosiers and Hoosier lawyers uphold in our legal system.”
Excuse me?
Let me tell you what is “unprofessional.”
What’s “unprofessional” is using your elected position to further a theocratic agenda at the expense of voters who elected you to a secular office.
What’s “unprofessional” is volunteering your efforts–and spending our tax dollars–on cases that don’t involve Hoosiers.
What’s “unprofessional” is taking positions on behalf of all Indiana citizens with which a significant percentage of those citizens vehemently disagree.
What’s “unprofessional”–and utterly despicable–is homophobia so ingrained and obsessive that you would deny a dying woman the comfort of knowing that her children will be protected, by appealing a temporary order that applies only to her family.
And what is really “unprofessional” is having the chutzpah to complain when someone points out your own lack of humanity and respect for the limits of the position you hold.
After a public uproar, a California school board has apologized profusely for an eighth-grade assignment that asked students to “explain whether or not you believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain.” The assignment also included extensive text lifted from a Holocaust denial and conspiracy website as one of three sources students were to use in fashioning their arguments.
Really? Do they think this assignment shows a lack of sensitivity? How about a complete abdication of pedagogical responsibility, which is generally assumed to involve helping students learn the difference between historical fact and fantasies produced by fevered imaginations.
As one horrified columnist wrote
Along with entries on the history of the Holocaust from About.com and the History Channel, they offered the students supporting “material” titled “Is the Holocaust a Hoax?” that was taken from a Christian site. The document cites the execution technology “expert” Fred Leuchter, a leading denier, and presents a “theory” that Anne Frank’s diary was forged. “Israel continues to receive trillions of dollars worldwide as retribution for Holocaust gassings,” the document continues. “Our country has donated more money to Israel than to any other country in the history of the world—over $35 billion per year, everything included. If not for our extravagantly generous gifts to Israel, every family in America could afford a brand new Mercedes Benz.”
This is the sort of thing that happens in a society where there must be two sides to every issue, a society in which the media pursues “balance” at the expensive of objective, verifiable fact. Would the clueless authors of this assignment require students to consider whether the sun goes around the earth, rather than vice-versa? Or perhaps they could argue whether the colonists or the British won the Revolutionary War?
Then when they grow up, they can dismiss results of all the previous fact-finding investigations, and debate what they think really happened at Benghazi.
Listen, you twits: teaching that the holocaust actually happened is not a bow to the “sensitivities” of the families of Jews, gays, gypsies and righteous Christians who perished. Teaching about things that we know have happened is what we do in classes called history.
In the real world that diminishing numbers of us inhabit, some things are true, and some things aren’t. Education should teach students how to tell the difference.
Students need to know that facts are facts, whether some people choose to believe them or not.
